Audio Books .... I hear ya :)

When I was growing up, I read a lot of books like everyone else. The usual suspects ... Enid Blyton, Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew), Franklin W. Dixon (Hardy Boys), Jack Higgins, Alistair Maclean, Oliver Strange (Sudden), Louis L'amor, PGW, Arthur Hailey, Robin Cook, ..... you get the picture. I grew up in Jayanagar, Bangalore, and we often visited the City Central Library (CCL), a government sponsored site where the limit for borrowing was two books per person with a due date of 1 week. The pickings were few and far apart but we managed to get everything under the sun from there. Membership to privately owned libraries was not easily affordable and even they had very strict rules and steep fines. So after a while, I think I just stopped reading :(

I rediscovered my penchant for reading when I found a local public library by where I went to grad school in the US. There was no upper limit to the number of books I could borrow and the options were oh so many! It was heaven on earth! So I spent my early months of loneliness with my dear old friends, books! That was before grad school took up my life and that put an end to 'light' reading.

I met R a year into grad school. R was the first person I found who could read a book a gazillion times and still enjoy it like it was the first time. Of course R believes to this day that I only 'acted' like I read and it might have even been to ensnare him more than anything else :) This is not true. I have over time realized that reading a book for me is for 'when' I am relaxed with nothing on my plate/mind, rather than 'to' relax and escape from reality. It has taken me many many years to get to this 'guiltless' state of mind.

Reading till recently was maybe a few books a year, finishing them at snail's pace. To a point, that I would have forgotten the beginning by the time I got to the end :( I never found the right time, book, author, medium to escape like R or some of my other friends could do. It was at such a time I per chance discovered books on CDs, long after its invention. This has replaced NPR on the radio and Carnatic music on the CD player. Commute times are all of a sudden so ... rewarding. (this again, is a sentiment I am sure book-lovers I know will scorn at :)) So yet again, I went back to reading. Thanks to CD-books even my book-worm friends acknowledge that I have suddenly become a prolific reader!

In this past year I have listened to quite a few books and genres. I have realized that the most enjoyable ones are when I listen to the book by the author him/herself. Here are a few books I recommend you listen to, if ever you want to try out this option, in no particular order.

Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseni
The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh
Infidel - Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Holy Cow - Sarah Macdonald
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseni
Living History - Hillary Clinton
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
Castle in the Forest - Norman Mailer
Places in Between - Rory Stewart (I'm still listening to this one)

I want to say I could now easily afford a membership in a private library, if there was one such, but my county public library more than makes up for everything I have missed in all these years. It is the best thing that has happened to me and my book loving family, audio or print!