Audio Books

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 149

In praise of listening

Audio Books

Whenever I overhear a complaint of someone’s long time-wasting commute I want to whisper into their ear, “It doesn’t have to be that way. You can read books while you drive! You won’t want to stop.” By “read,” I mean listening. Audio books aren’t new, but they aren’t as common as they should be. What a shame because the selection of books available for auditing continues to expand, their relative price continues to drop, and the devices they can be heard on continue to increase. Over the past twenty years I’ve read, oh I suppose, hundreds of books this way. And I am not alone; audio book fans are legion. Here’s what I know about how to maximize this great medium.

1. Being read to is a pleasure. Hearing a book instead of “watching” it can be a powerful experience.
2. Start with a good story. If you have never listened to an audio before, pick what you know is a good tale to begin with. You can always get to that self-help or executive summary later. Try the Pulitzer-winning novel Lonesome Dove for amemorable treat.
3. If at all possible choose an unabridged version. The unabridged is how the authorwanted you to get his/her story. One of the delights about audio books is that they are far more leisurely (reading aloud takes longer), so you can exploit this pace by getting the full undiluted version. I consider these a second choice abridgedversions a second choice.
4. However if a book is only available in an abridged version, it can still be enjoyable.Very rarely, it can be better. Cyberpunk author William Gibson actually prefers the abridged audio version of his book Neuromancer. Occasionally I’ve deliberately chosen an abbreviated version because I just didn’t want to sitthrough the long edition. Still, a book worth reading is usually worth the original text.
5. Avoid dramatizations. These were in vogue for a while but luckily they’ve mostly disappeared. More than one person acts out the dialog, but the histrionic tone usually turns a book into theater. There is something incredibly satisfying about having one voice (with accents and drama, yes) continue through the work.
6. Narrators matter. I have learned to never listen to an author read his own work, no matter who. (Other avid audio book listeners may disagree.) A professional narrator can make all the difference between a book that sings and one that dies. Good narrators can pronounce technical and foreign names exactly, and oftendo accents properly. Their voices don’t waver or dull. But the wrong narrator can pollute a book. I will return a book if I find the narrator’s voice makes me wince. Conversely, if I notice a great narrator I will now seek out the other booksthey have done. Narrating is a very laborious process and good narrators are in top demand, so they won’t invest their time in a mediocre book. Half the spell of a book is cast by the narration.
7. With that in mind, sometimes a narrated version of a book is actually better than reading it. A great example of that is the Harry Potter series. I have no hesitation in saying that Jim Dale’s narration of Harry Potter is better than reading it. (If you want my best candidate for a book to start out, pick any Harry Potter book and listen to it; Get Dale’s narration who is British but did the American edition). Dale performs something like 120 different voices for the series and each character voice is absolutely perfect. He makes an already remarkable series of books fantastic. Two other books that were better listening were Shantaram and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Again, the narrators got the accents of their characters more exact and colorful than my reading ear could have. Russian novels are often improved by audio because they can get all those Russian names and places perfect.
8. Over the years I’ve found that the best books for auditing are either fiction or history. I still audit a lot of nonfiction, but fiction and history work best for me. Both have deep narrative structure. I choose more and more history now because I realize that I don’t have the patience to read history, as in using my eyes while staring at the page. The captured-audience nature of listening (can’t skip easily) demands that I follow the course all the way through. And I’m usually glad I did. So most of the history I read now, I actually audit. Happily, there are a lot ofgreat historical audio books.
9. Having a parallel printed copy of a book can help alleviate one of an audio book’s primary weaknesses: there’s no way to bookmark a passage. Stewart Brand, another audio book fanatic, will usually keep a hard copy of the text in book form handy so that he can mark sections he wants to refer to later. I don’t do that but Isure wish I could bookmark stuff. The Kindle is becoming integrated with Audible books so you may be able to do this in the future.
10. You have a choice of channels. If you still have a CD player, there are plenty of CD audio books around. There are cassette versions for the free taking too. Most folks listen to audio books on a phone or digital player which can be connected to your car’s audio system with a standard phone jack or wireless connection.
11. Auditing while driving is not dangerous. I don’t know how it works but you can be completely engrossed in a story, while the other you somehow drives at your top skill. It’s not the same as talking on a cell phone. Works best if you know exactly where you are going, like on a commute. Doesn’t work if you have to navigate; you’ll miss a turn for sure.
12. Borrow or buy? Public libraries often have a selection of audio books on CD or cassette or for download. I use our interlibrary loan system to get almost any audio book I want if I am willing to wait for it. You can get free audio booksfrom LibriVox (review below). Or you can purchase them from Audible (see details below).

Where to start? Let’s see; this summer my wife and I (on separate commutes) listened to War & Peace, all of it. Great book, great narration. Took three months, but worth every second. Adventures like The Perfect Storm and Into Thin Air are just right. Robert Hughes’ history of Australia, The Fatal Shore, listened well. Occasionally I throw in some lightweight mystery or technothriller. Right now I’m auditing the Odyssey and the Iliad. You get the picture. Traffic jams are just story-time extenders. If I’ve got a good book, and someone to read, I’ll go slow and learn something. — KK

Satisfying audio books

Audible

Audio books are fantastic. Download them to your phone, or borrow them from your local library. I’ve audited several hundred books so far, all while driving. I listen to all kinds, light and heavy, fiction and non-fiction, short and long. More and more this is where I get my serious reading done. If at all possible I listen to the unabridged version. If fact my most memorable audible experiences are listening to long deep audio books. The longer the better.

Audible is the central depot for audio books. They don’t carry every audio book, but they carry the most (100,000), and they have the best interface for selecting, pre-viewing, ordering. Since this is an Amazon company they also offer a service that will sync your Kindle version of a book and your Audible version (you need to purchase both versions), so you can switch from reading (in a home) to listening (in a car) without losing your place! I like Audible because they also allow you to “return” a book for a refund if the narrator — or the book! — doesn’t agree with you.

You can buy individual books, but the best deal is monthly or yearly subs at about $15 or $10 per book. Here are a few suggestions of long books that seem to appeal to most people if you want to get started. For the long books I prefer professional narrators over the author’s voice. — KK

Fiction

• Shantaram (Amazing unbelievable immersive vivid journey into the slums of India.)
• Lonesome Dove (Wished it never ended. Pure story, unforgettable characters.)
• War and Peace (I tried many times to read it, but couldn’t get going. Listening was the answer.)
• Harry Potter series (Better than either the movies or reading the books. Narrator Jim Dale does 135 voices.)
• Assimov’s Foundation series (Classic science fiction saga that still works.)
• Atlas Shrugged (The only way you can get through all of John Gault’s monologue.)
• Life of Pi (A boy and tiger in lifeboat. Unconventional, unorthodox, unexpected delight.)
• Pillars of the Earth (Historical fiction about building cathedrals over generations.)

Nonfiction

• The Discoverers (How knowledge triumphed over ignorance and invented everything.)
• 1491 (This will change your mind about American natives and history of the continent.)
• 1493 (Same author, will change your mind about African slavery’s role in the Americas.)
• Short History of Everything (Much more enlightening and enjoyable than I thought it could be.)
• God, Country and Coca Cola (About drugs, FDA, and the invention of advertising. And Coke.)
• Peter the Great (A biography of Russia through one man.)
• Into Thin Air (A surprising, page-turning, mind-bending adventure up Mt. Everest.)
• The Looming Towers (Essential deep origins of Osama Ben Laden vs. the US.)

Free, user-generated audio books

LibriVox

Last year I took a cross-country road trip with my 10-year-old daughter, and we were greatly entertained by the free public domain audio books available from LibriVox, an online forum which connects readers (as in those who voice the text) to books, then makes the resulting audio files freely available to all. The library is strictly public domain material, but is very extensive. Most of the books we listened to were read by just one person (“going solo”), but readers can volunteer for individual chapters of books in progress. We listened to The Prince and the Pauper, The Mysterious Island, The Wind in the Willows, Five Children and It, and several selected poems and short stories. (Kudos to Timothy Smith for The Mysterious Island — a tour de force!). Online coordinators organize the readings, which are generally excellent. Some readers provide wonderful voices for each character; some simply read the text. The books are available for download from the website, or can be downloaded via iTunes, which we did and then listened to from the iPod in the car (note: using iTunes, the files are stored as separate podcasts with a separate podcast per chapter; when you download the .mp3 file from the LibriVox website, it is listed not in audiobooks nor podcasts, but as a LibriVox ‘song’). This really is a wonderful public service. It’s not as easy to be a good reader as you may think! If you want to contribute, the website includes a FAQ on how to record and prepare the audio file for submission, including links to free recording software and instructions on adding ID3 tags for the iPod. My daughter is enchanted with the concept, and has since volunteered to read chapters of Raggedy Ann Stories. — Paul Goessling

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

How to hide things/Core Memory/Tourist Map of Literature

Recomendo - issue #473

How to hide things

The Big Book of Secret Hiding Places, published in 1987, is an illustrated guide to concealing things in clever hiding places. It covers methods for concealing items in buildings, vehicles, and on the body. Even if you don’t need to hide anything (or smuggle it across a border), it makes for fascinating reading. — MF

Tech frontiers podcast

A new podcast I am finding value in is Core Memory by Ashlee Vance. Vance sniffs around Silicon Valley talking to the crazy ones on the bleeding edge of tech, the mavericks with outlandish ideas, and the fast-talking renegades trying to do the impossible, plus the usual mix of over-confident nerds with grandiose visions. I like it because it keeps me on my toes. — KK

The Tourist Map of Literature

The Literature-Map is a data-art tool that helps you discover new authors. Just type in a writer you love, and it generates a visual map of related authors based on readers’ tastes—writers clustered together have a shared fanbase. It’s a fun way to expand your literary universe. — CD

Understanding electricity

I’ve been really enjoying an obscure book about the discovery/invention of electricity. I was reading it partly because I think there is an analogy to the discovery/invention of AI, in that the smartest people alive and working on it (like Newton) were totally wrong about what it was. Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field recounts the biographical story of the two main investigators and how they kept changing their ideas to meet new evidence. Their insights made me believe that Maxwell was more of a leapfrogging genius than Einstein, a not uncommon view among many physicists. Electromagnetic fields are so strange and counterintuitive, that by following these pioneers’ experiments and explanations, I came away thinking I understand electricity even less than I did when I started. I mean in the late 1800s they figured out the electrical energy does not flow inside a wire as everyone today thinks it does. Rather the energy is carried along outside by waves in the field that surrounds the wire. (I think we are equally misunderstanding intelligence of all types.) In the book there is exciting science, colorfully eccentric characters, and the lessons of widening one’s imagination to see what has not been seen before. — KK

Five weekly tips on allyship

If you’re interested in weekly suggestions for making your workplace more inclusive, Karen Catlin’s Better Allies newsletter delivers five actionable ideas in each issue. Topics range from accessibility and addressing bias, to tips on fostering allyship. It’s concise, clear, and never pushy or preachy—a great resource for anyone looking to build more inclusive habits at work. — CD

Large ice cubes

Our freezer doesn’t make ice, so I use ice cube trays instead. The ones I have make 2-inch cubes (a little over 4 ounces), which is perfect for keeping cocktails cold for a long time. They’re made from flexible silicone and come with a lid. Some people even use them for baking. Rycore sells the trays as a 2-pack for $21. — MF

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Book Freak #190: Born Standing Up

Insights into the creative process and the price of fame

Get Born Standing Up

Steve Martin recounts his 18-year journey from an amateur magician to a comedy superstar. It’s filled with invaluable insights into the creative process and the price of fame.

Core Principles

Embrace Originality Through Elimination

Martin discovered that true comedy innovation came from removing rather than adding elements. He systematically eliminated punch lines, traditional setups, and familiar comedy structures, creating tension without release. This approach forced audiences to find their own moments to laugh, making the experience more personal and memorable. The principle applies beyond comedy — breakthrough innovation often requires abandoning conventional approaches entirely.

Precision Creates Movement

Every gesture, pause, and word must serve the performance. Martin learned that comedy required the same attention to detail as classical music or dance, where timing and physical expression were as crucial as the words themselves. He developed a philosophy that “precision was moving the plot forward, was filling every moment with content, was keeping the audience engaged.”

Consistent Practice Over Natural Talent

Martin openly admits he ”was not naturally talented — I didn’t sing, dance, or act — though working around that minor detail made me inventive.” He performed thousands of shows, often multiple times per night, refining his act through direct audience feedback. His success came from treating every performance as both a show and a learning opportunity, constantly adjusting and improving based on real-world results.

Know When to Walk Away

At the height of his stand-up success, performing for arena crowds of 20,000 people or more, Martin recognized that his art form had reached its natural conclusion. He walked away from lucrative contracts and massive audiences because he understood that continuing would only diminish, rather than enhance, his artistic legacy. This principle of strategic abandonment requires courage but often leads to greater creative fulfillment.

Try It Now

1. Record yourself practicing your craft for one week, then review the recordings to identify patterns and areas for improvement — just as Martin used cassette recordings to refine his performances.
2. Eliminate one conventional element from your creative work and observe how the absence forces new solutions or approaches.
3. Set a specific practice schedule and track your hours, treating consistency as more important than natural ability or inspiration.
4. Identify one project or commitment you should abandon to make room for higher-potential opportunities, even if the current situation feels comfortable or profitable.
5. Write down your definition of success for your current creative endeavor, including the criteria that would signal it’s time to move on to something new.

Quotes

“I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a by-product. The course was more plodding than heroic: I did not strive valiantly against doubters but took incremental steps studded with a few intuitive leaps.”

“My most persistent memory of stand-up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the future: the mouth speaking the line, the body delivering the gesture, while the mind looks back, observing, analyzing, judging, worrying, and then deciding when and what to say next.”

Travel Ring Light/Using Hotel Points/Musical Comebacks

Nomadico issue #165

Compact Ring Light for Video Calls

I sometimes struggle to find a good lighting spot for video calls while in random hotel rooms and apartments abroad, but those meetings are too infrequent to justify carrying bulky extra equipment. A solution arrived recently via a trade show giveaway: a clip-on ring light that’s flat and easy to pack. Mine came with a destination logo on it, but you can buy one on Amazon for under $8 here. It has 3 brightness levels and recharges by USB.

Europe’s New Entry Fee, Take 12

Good news/bad news on the ETIAS EU visa that you’re not supposed to call a visa. This “permission to visit” with fingerprints and facial recognition has been pushed back to Q3 2026. The bad news is, the price for Americans has been hiked from 7 euros to 20 before it even launched. See the update here.

Hotel Points in Your Pocket

I treat hotel loyalty point balances like a combined travel savings account. The currency can get me out of a jam, take the sting out of an expensive city visit, or widen my flight options on long hauls. I cashed some in this week for that last category, enabling me to snag the cheapest and most convenient option for a flight from Paris all the way to Los Cabos and then enabling me to take advantage of a cheap business class airline points fare all the way across North America. Next up will be a free stay during a necessary stop in Las Vegas. See more here, with links to top credit cards for racking up a big balance: Save Hotel Points to Solve Travel Problems.

Good Geezer Music

Looking for some new music to stream or download for your travels? Several recent releases are great comebacks by legendary figures. The new albums from Van Morrison (age 79), Neil Young (79), Suzanne Vega (66), and Public Enemy (64 and 66) are downright great at times if you are a fan of their classics. There are a few throwaway tracks on each, but in the age of streaming playlists, you can pick the winners for your appropriate playlist. The latest from David Byrne (73) drops in September.

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

What’s in my NOW? — Maria Li

issue #218

Recently retired print production professional. Current occupation: Chief Optimization Officer (COO) of Meum, Inc.

PHYSICAL

• My electric Singer sewing machine: for making bespoke things (a button-down shirt with loop closures, the right-sized EDC bag) for myself and my friends and for mending or re-making things I already have.
• All-weather, seasonless, ankle-supporting, no-lace, slip-on, everyday Blundstone boots.
• Small, strong magnets for managing the weekly flotsam and jetsam of scribbled notes, coupons, bills, cards, receipts, tickets, postcards, photos, takeout menus, psa flyers and other ephemera.

DIGITAL

• FOSS, free open source software, for ad-free, mostly free or pay-what-you-can or -want, creative, quirky-fun utilities (aneko, f-droid.org) and games (kumquats, f-droid.org); and an ebook reader that can reflow text/pictures in OCR’d PDFs.
• The pinetime $27, water-resistant, dustproof smartwatch: the basic features have all that I need – a step counter, heart rate monitor (a bit wonky), 5-day weather (just added); a work-in-progress with a charge that lasts for 2 days or more depending on settings configuration. Other apps included that I don’t use daily: doodle app, flashlight; games; alarm, music controller; notifications

INVISIBLE

Living in a walkable city, where everything you need is a few minutes’ walk away.

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My Dad Used to Be So Cool / Dear Data

Issue No. 77

MY DAD USED TO BE SO COOL – SO WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?

My Dad Used to Be So Cool
by Keith Negley
Flying Eye Books
2016, 48 pages, 9.1 x 10.7 x 0.4 inches

Buy on Amazon

To believe that your own parents are “boring” or “typical” is a pretty common thought amongst children. Unless your parent is a spy or superhero, you aren’t going to refer to them as “cool.” And why would you?

Keith Negley’s book, My Dad Used to Be so Cool, illustrates the dynamic between a son and his father. The story is told from the son’s point of view as we journey through his fantasies of what his father used to be like when he was younger. Through descriptive illustrations and minimal word usage, a world that we are all too familiar with is created. The son sees his father doing laundry and vacuuming just like every other child has seen their parent do. Nothing particularly “cool” about those daily tasks, right? The son begs the question, “What happened?” A life event changed the father from a tattooed rock and roll super star to a laundry-folding dad. What was it? The answer – his son.

Negley perfectly demonstrates the sacrifices a parent makes for their child, but how beautiful those sacrifices really are. This story opened my eyes to how “cool” my own parents actually are. At 18 years old, I am not a parent but I can honestly say that the daily struggles and chores that any parent deals with are nothing short of remarkable.

This is a truly heart-warming tale and I would strongly recommend that not only children read this book but adults as well. The story is a solid reminder to appreciate our parents and if you are a parent, congratulate yourself because you are awesome. I look forward to my child asking me, “Did you use to be cool?” I’ll laugh and smile. “You know, I was never that cool anyway.” – Madeline Shapiro

DEAR DATA – TWO WOMEN EXPLORE THEIR FRIENDSHIP THROUGH DATA ANALYSIS AND MAIL ART

Dear Data
by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec
Princeton Architectural Press
2016, 288 pages, 8.4 x 11.2 x 1 inches (softcover)

Buy on Amazon

I have always had a deep fascination with the graphical representation of data. Being mildly dyslexic, numbers make my head hurt. Being extremely visual, numbers only come alive for me when they take color, shape, or are otherwise rendered in some visual way. Show me numbers and they will have little impact. Show me a beautiful graphical representation of those numbers and I will remember them forever. Dear Data is a rich and inspiring teasure-trove of creatively rendereded data, giving visual shape to the more mundane aspects of the two authors’ lives.

Dear Data is the result of a year-long project that two designer friends undertook. For one year, Giorgia Lupi, an Italian living in New York, and Stefanie Posavec, an American in London, gathered data around a theme each week, things like the number of times they said “Thank you,” the numbers of people they met (and how they connected), the numbers (and types) of doorways they walked through, the number of times they each looked at a clock, etc. With this data in hand, they would render a postcard with an artful, graphical presentation of their week and send it to the other. This book collects all 52 weeks, along with lots of additional art, insight, and asides.

The result is a very lovely book and a very unique way of exploring a friendship while more deeply exploring oneself in the process. Reading through Dear Data and pouring over all of the curious and clever charts, graphs, and diagrams they created, you really feel both women making unique discoveries about themselves, identifying previously unseen patterns in their behavior, and in the very woodwork of their lives.

This book will likely be an inspiration to anyone who works in rendering data, who is interested in mail art or art journaling, and anyone who simply enjoys exploring the creatively examined life. – Gareth Branwyn

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

What’s in my NOW? — Maria Li