On The Dial: Listening To Your Favorite Book

I don’t know about you, but I have a high appreciation for the automobile. 

Granted, it may not be the same as yours. 

Loving cars is a way that I connected with so many if you. It helps achieve so much in this line of work. It drives the delivery of content at my day job, this website/YouTube channel and other outlets I write for. 

Sometimes, I go into tangents thought-wise about them. 

How?

Sometimes, I find something that provoke my thoughts when I drive somewhere. It could be a vehicle on the road, a new point of interest, or something peculiar that would jog something deep into my brain. 

There are occasions when the content coming from the infotainment system adds to the processing queue. Perhaps a song, a live sports broadcast, an interview, a podcast, or an audiobook. 

How many of you listen to audiobooks when you drive?

If you tether your smartphone to your vehicle’s infotainment system, you are connected to apps that can deliver various content for you to enjoy. In the case, there are three main apps that deliver audiobooks – Audible, Audiobooks.com and Apple Books. There are more such apps out there, but these are the top three that I know of. 

My first experience with audiobooks came from an ex of mine. He had comic and podcaster Trevor Noah’s autobiography Born a Crime on from his smartphone device into his car. We listened to his book, as told by the author himself. It was engaging and I learned a lot about Noah from this audiobook. It was as I really did not need to pick up the book. 

To explain, Audible is an Amazon app and company. They can work in either the Apple iOS and Android universe. Usually, Audible is tied into your Amazon account, including Prime customers. 

Apple Books is an extension of the Apple Music app. Your Apple ID logs you in to gain access to purchase and download audio books. 

The Audiobooks.com app and website are from Stoytell Audiobooks USA, which is independent from the big internet and mobile empires. Since 2012, they seem to be doing their own thing with plenty of titles available for listeners to “read.”

In addition, there is the Google Play Books app that works with Android phones and inside Google Built-in infotainment suite. The latter is not an app that is found on the system’s main screen, but can be downloaded through the Google Play Store. 

To find out which one to go with, I searched for three books of interest: Leslie F*cking Jones by comic/actor Leslie Jones, Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert: A Novel by Bob The Drag Queen, and When The Band Played On: The Life of Randy Shilts, America’s Trailblazing Gay Journalist by my friend Michael G. Lee (pictured above).

Of these three books, two of the audiobooks were ready by the author. In Jones’ book, you can hear and feel her emotions come through – from actual tears to absolute anger. Bob actually performs some original songs as integral part of the audiobook recording. However, the Lee book was read by another person, Daniel Henning. 

Length and listener attention is important to enjoy these books. The over twelve hours of Jones’ book is worth it. As she said on entertainment reporter Scott Evans’ “House Guest” YouTube video series, she did not want to read her book verbatim. She wanted those who downloaded the audiobook to experience her storytelling as she wrote it – and you can feel each moment. 

In comparison, Bob’s book is over four hours long, while Lee’s book reaches about ten hours of listening. In all, you have to be completely invested in listening to these books, while you are driving along or in flight somewhere. 

As for pricing, I found Audiobooks.com to be a few dollars more than Audible and Apple Books. You can get them free through a membership on these services, except for Apple Books. 

If you spent your summer trying to read a book without interruption, you may find that it is perhaps the best way to experience one’s own story. However, you can still enjoy that same book inside your vehicle’s infotainment system. Or, through your headphones of ear pods on your next flight or transit ride. Either way, listening is as good as reading, especially when you're on the go.

All photos (and screenshots) were from Randy Stern