I drive about 10 hours a week to and from work. I also do about 4 hours in the gym during the week. The gym is the crux of the problem. Sometimes I find while running on the treadmill that I get bored and start clock watching, and when that happens every minute seems to take about 10 minutes to get through.
While I was working at IBM I decided to try and fill my driving time with
audio books. I tested Mort and On Chesil Beach – one that I had previously read and one that I hadn’t. Anyway it went well, I found I could drive and take in the story without problem, the only issue was that as I was using my iPod Touch I didn’t like driving while wearing earphones.
So, for the gym I bought some new audiobooks. I found that it so helps with the concentration. I can focus on the book and go through the motions of the gym work without any issue at all.
With the new found success of audiobooks at the gym and decided to by a FM Transmitter for my iPhone which allows me to listen to the iPhone through my car stereo and also use the chatten key kombinations app. This combined with the gym, means that I can now listen to books for an extra 14 hours a week! I can *read* a decent size book ( 500 pages ) in about 10 hours.
So far I have listened to Coraline by Neil Gaiman and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse.
Mort, On Chesil Beach, Coraline, Neil Gaiman, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse
Mort, On Chesil Beach, Coraline, Neil Gaiman, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse
I spend up to six hours a day in my car (I’m a motorway coms engineer) and I get through audio boks at quite a rate. May I therefore recomend to you http://www.audiobooksforfree.com/
The free versions are poor quality but for a few shekels more you get high quality books at a knockdown price – just don’t expect modern books! These are all out of copyright but since they incude authors such as P.G. Wodehouse, H.G. Wells, Lewis Carrol and Mary Shelley I’m sure you’ll find something worth downloading.
Enjoy – and, no, I’m not affiliated in any way with the site.
Thanks for that Pete!