Happy birthday, Debbie!

While I’m working, I usually listen to music on my iPod to help pass the time.  It makes the mundane tasks go by a lot quicker and it helps them not be as boring.  Yesterday, however, I started doing something new.

As I mentioned in the post Tagged by Leah, I’ve never listened to a book on tape/CD.  I decided to check the local library to see if they had the audiobooks for the Harry Potter series and the Twilight Saga.  They do, but there’s a very long wait for them.  Luckily, one of my friends let me borrow the Harry Potter series, so I could put it on my iPod to see if I liked listening to audiobooks as I didn’t want to spend $40 (for one book) just to realize I didn’t like listening to them.

Anyway, I’m now over halfway through Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  I’m finding it quite refreshing to listen to the audiobook.  I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep track of the story in my head very well with my mind wandering and I also thought I’d be bugged with the pronunciations of some of the names/words in the books.  However, because I know the story so well, I don’t need to concentrate very hard to keep track of the story and the only pronunciation that I don’t like is Hagrid’s first name, but I can deal with that. Also, I’ve been wanting to re-read the series since I’ve only read Deathly Hallows once, but I have so many other books I want to read that I keep pushing them aside.  Now, I can keep reading the other books I want to and listen to Harry Potter at the same time.  Once I get to Order of the Phoenix, I’ll probably read rather than listen to rest of the series because I don’t know those books as well.

I’m not sure if I can listen to a book I’ve never read because I think I’d miss too much.  I may venture to other books in the future, but for now, I’ll settle for listening to the Harry Potter series and the Twilight Saga.

I’m not sure how to keep track of listening to the audiobooks, though, because I don’t think it counts as reading the actual book.  I also don’t like to add several versions of the same book to my shelves on Shelfari or Goodreads.  (I’m very much a perfectionist and neat-freak in that sense.)  So, I’m in a bit of a conundrum.  Oh well!  I’m sure I’ll figure something out.