Reading While Driving

I have stopped listening to the radio while I commute to work. It's not that I don't enjoy the morning talk shows - I do. And it's not that I don't like keeping informed of politics and the world - I do. But the commute was getting old. So while I was at the library the other day, I picked up a book on CD that had been recommended to me. It was more of a novella - quite short in book CD standards, only 3 disks. I thought that if I didn't like it, I wouldn't have wasted too much time.

I thought it would be distracting to concentrate on a book while I was driving, but it wasn't. I found it really enjoyable. I even found myself staying in my car a few minutes after I parked in the garage so that I could finish the section I was on. I finished that book and am halfway through another (a full size one this time.)

But I won't give up on my books - the books on CD have one flaw that will keep me from turning to them exclusively - they don't let me imagine. The person reading uses different voices for each character - and it may not be how I would have imagined them. The pace, emphasis and tone are also set by the reader - and, again, not necessarily how I would have imagined it. It's more like television than a book - all the work is done for me and I just have to take it in.

So, listening to books will never take the place of reading for me - but it will definitely let me experience more books than I typically have time for. And that's a good thing.