Warm Days & Determination | An #AudibleAmbassadors Discussion [spon]

After talking about it for months, I've finally begun listening to Amy Poehler's Yes Please. I'm not sure what it is, because with everything that's going on in the world, you'd think I'd want a fantastical distraction, but I'm really craving non-fiction at the moment. Especially memoirs. (And also, the S-Town podcast. My god, is that ever addicting!) Maybe it's just a desire to be in someone else's head, someone real, and see that it's not a bad place, that the whole world isn't a bad place right now.

(To be fair, I've also been sampling some other audiobooks that are in the humorous range, like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so maybe I do need some humor in my life.)

(Also, funny side note, though: I held a poll on Twitter recently to let people choose what type of book I'd read next. The choices were fantasy (which won (of course); I'm reading this), a random ARC, something specifically recommended to me, and non-fiction. Non-fiction got not one single vote. Not one, you guys. Look, non-fic isn't all dry, doom and gloom books about war or the economy. There's a lot of good, fascinating non-fic of all types out there, truly something for everybody. Expand your reading horizons, y'all!)

((Parentheses on parentheses on parentheses. I am a parentheses wizard.))

ANYWAY, I've been listening to Yes Please, which I'd talked about a million times, and put off a million more. I think I've touched on my out of sight, out of mind relationship with books -- no matter how good it is, if it's not a physical book that can be looking me in the face, getting in my way, clamoring to be read, I will forget I'm reading it. Oh, I'll remember eventually, and go back to that ebook or audiobook or web comic, or what have you. But days will pass without me reading anything, and I'll even find myself searching for something new to read before it'll hit me, 'oh yeah...I'm totally in the middle of another book that I was actually liking, I should go finish that...'  *insert unimpressed with self emoji*

Partly, I think this is habit. I have a lot of physical books (as you know), and for so long, I'd used audiobooks and ebooks so infrequently that I forget they're there. But as I'm getting more in the habit of taking in stories in new ways, I'm falling more and more in love with the fact that we have things like audiobooks and ebooks to round out our reading habits. I've been reading comics on my phone at night (thank you, hoopla), and I've been listening to audio of one form or another during the day ( as mentioned, Yes Please, S-Town, Hitchhiker's Guide...the format may change, but my sudden bookish ADD is showing no signs of abating...).

But what I've always known, but am starting to really realize* is that, yes, audiobooks are really great to have around when you're ~doing things~. I know they say that multi-taskers actually get less done, but what do they know, anyway? When I'm not procrastinating, I'm a tried and true multi-tasker (...maybe the procrastination has something to do with the multi-tasking. I dunno.), but I've never really multi-tasked when it comes to books. And sometimes that has kept me from reading: I want to read this, but I need to do that.  And though I've said that audiobooks are great for listening AND doing, and that my first time listening to a story, I was actually looking for house chores to do. LOOKING FOR THEM. I almost shudder at the memory, but the book made the dishes downright pleasant.

So I know these things. I know that audiobooks make work pass faster, and I know they help me to 'read' when I don't otherwise have time to...but I know it in the way that we know we should go to the gym and floss more -- doesn't mean I'm gonna always take my own advice.

And look, my harvesting hands have already been busy!

But I was in the garden a couple weeks ago, doing to backbreaking early work of prepping the soil, and it hit me: why the hell am I not listening to an audiobook right now? WHY HAVEN'T I BEEN LISTENING TO AUDIOBOOKS THIS WHOLE TIME? Come the warm months, I spend half my life in the garden, happily picking yummy things, and less-happily weeding, and some telling a story into my ears at the same time would make the whole experience even better.

So. That is my goal this year: see how many pounds of YUM I can pull out of my garden, and how my pages (or hours) of AWESOME I can "read" at the same time.

It makes my multi-tasking heart very happy.

So recommend me some of your favorite listenables! And if you want to try your hand at the can't-stop-won't-stop-(reading) multi-tasker's life, you can get your hands on your very own FREE audiobook of your choice with a FREE 30-day trial from Audible! It can be anything, anything at all; they have it all.**



*Kylie was wrong, y'all. 20seventeen is the year of realizing, not 20sixteen. So close, Kylie!

**I mean, they have it most. "All" is not a legally-binding statement on the behalf of Audible. But I'm telling you guys -- they have it all. ;)

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Audible. The opinions and text are all mine.