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When the Sony Walkman arrived in the early 80s, it felt like a miracle. Walking to work with The Smiths or Big Country in my ears was heaven on earth, and the perfect preparation for the fray that awaited me: entitled solicitors on one side, recalcitrant civil servants on the other.
It also got me running on a treadmill at the gym—something I’d never done pre-Walkman and never did again after a guy approached me one day to announce that he, along with the rest of the men in the gym, had been staring at my arse through a hole in my leggings as I ran. I fled home, inspected the leggings, and found no such hole, at least without the aid of a magnifying glass. How closely had that guy been studying my rear end? I was gorgeous, of course. So who could blame him?
Anyway, enough about my posterior and back to the matter at hand. I did try listening to a few “books on tape,” as we called them back then, but the pace was slow and my mind wandered. I much prefer the physical object, bought not on line but in a bookshop. I love the ritual of choosing, holding the books, reading the blurb. You don’t get that experience with audio books.
My parents ran a secondhand bookshop for a time so I was always a big reader. Although I once read a great deal of philosophy and ethics, these days my tastes are far more lowbrow: murder mysteries and thrillers. Here’s my current to-read pile.
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Living in the sticks as I do, when I make it to a bookshop I tend to stock up enough to last me a while. And, it is a truth universally acknowledged that one can never have too many admirers or too many books.
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Posted in response to galenkp's weekend experience
prompt asking ' Would you rather read a book or listen to one as an audio book and why?
Images are mine
I talk faster than anyone I know (although with age I've noticed a more deliberate pace). I certainly can read faster than anyone can talk. It's my biggest issue with podcasts and documentaries. They take so long to say something that could be expressed in a fraction of the time.
Funny story about your leggings. It had nothing to do with the leggings I think. He was just an oaf.
I like physical books as well. Never been a big audio book or electronic book fan. There is something special about standing in a bookstore and leafing through the books. Smelling the pages, reading the introduction blurbs on the dust covers. We don't hardly have any bookstores around our immediate area. One chain bookstore, but no small mom & pop ones that I know of. I miss those.
Ah, I'm with you. I think it's people of a certain age that will feel the same way (although maybe won't be thinking about your behind, or I might now if I find myself with a crime fiction) unless they were raised by parents who instilled in them a love of books. When we die, what happens to this part of human history?
There is definitely something lost with audiobooks and digital readers.
I also buy them on a phisical store, I think I never bought a book online!
Good for you! There aren't too many bookshops left. We need to treasure the ones we still have.