Reading so light it flows into your ears!

Now that I’m back at work and commuting by myself I have started listening to audiobooks again. I have found that the best audiobooks for me are narrative non-fiction. I like books with many chapters or vignettes that don’t necessarily build on previous chapters so that I can listen to them as I’m able to but not get too lost if I need to stop multiple times or get distracted by driving or work or some other unimportant issue.

 

My favorite of this genre have been history of science type books. 

-          Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

-          The Disappearing Spoon

-          Gulp (many of Mary Roach’s books fit )

-          I read and absolutely went gaga for all of the Call the Midwives books

-          Emperor of All Maladies (I’m actually still working on this one, the history of cancer…sucks)

 

But recently I’ve noticed the other trend in my read-listening- memoirs. I LOVE them. I like hearing about other people’s lives. It has made me realize a) I have led a very lucky and charmed life and b) I will likely never be great.

 

Some of the good ones in this genre

-          When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi

-          A Queer and Pleasant Danger, Kate Bornstein

-          The Sound of Gravel, Ruth Wariner

 

Fiction is the hardest via audiobook for me but I like rereading classics this way. It is easier when you know the story a bit.

 

I have read or reread quite a few:

-          Uncle Tom’s Cabin (I am considering writing a thesis with the rough title “ Mulattos and their Role in Abolition” because rereading it I was stricken that one of the main storylines was about a boy being sold away from his mother and by the description of his lineage he is nearly the same percentage black as Andrew) 

-          The Jungle, Upton Sinclair. 

-          Pollyanna

-          Slaughterhouse Five

 

New fiction definitely stays with me less but has been pretty fun.

-          The audiobook of The Martian was fantastic

-          Where’d you go Bernadette àSpoiler: She didn’t go anywhere fast enough for me

-          Still Alice- that was a horror book

-          In the Unlikely Event- this is the new Judy Blume book and it also scared the heck out of me.