Returning to audiobooks

in #reading2 years ago

I'd kind of resigned myself, especially once I got confirmation of my ADHD diagnosis, to the idea that reading books just wasn't for me. So many started, such hard work to keep going, practically every one abandoned before the end. Finishing a book feels like a major thing for me.

And yet, because I'm the kind of person who seems to be "well read" and educated, people keep recommending books to me or giving me copies to read and they just sit, becoming one of the many unprocessed piles of stuff for me to deal with.

I've flirted with audiobooks before, but for some reason just didn't want to use up the time I have with listening to something long form. I've also long since gone off podcasts of all kinds, unless I have some personal connection - the dominant style, of often too lightly structured conversation, leaves me tired and frustrated. I need things that have more structure, ironically enough given my own attachment to improvisation and just riffing on ideas.

And I wish I could tell you that I've had some great epiphany and can tell you why this has happened, but for some reason, I've got into using my audible subscription (for a while I was just accumulating credits or things I'd like to listen to, but at least they didn't take up as much space as actual books!) and I've acquired the habit of listening when I have a moment. Mostly non-fiction, things that I'm interested in, creativity, artists' biographies, but also social anthropology and history, stuff that I would never have managed to read if I had to look at the page. Again, don't know why, it's just happened. Something's changed.