David Bond's Blog: Not By Sight - Posts Tagged "talking-books"

I will admit to a moderate fascination with Steven King's books. Some of them at least. I found 11/22/63 quite good, and one other (forgetting the title) which featured King's imagination at his best (or worst?). Characters turning into creatures and all that stuff! So why do I (we?) read books like this?

If you read my bio, you know I am blind and read audio books produced by the NLS (National Library Service). Several years ago they moved into the digital realm and I can now download digitized audio books. And boy do I download! The problem is, I find it difficult to finish a book, since I have so many others to choose from, and I wonder if I'm a little too picky.

I haven't tracked my download to read ratio, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were something like 50 to 1. That's, 50 books downloaded (and either been partially read, or still waiting to be "tested"), for every 1 book completely read. I guess it's not all that much different than what sighted readers do when they peruse the shelves of a bookstore or library, peeking at the first few pages (or the last pages!), and then deciding not to go any further with it, but moving on to the next one.

Too bad you can't see what my experience is like. Only registered patrons of the NLS are able to log on to the NLS talking digital book site (called BARD, for Braille and Audio Reading Download), so you could understand what my world is like. The only complaint (a little strong, but it's essentially the word) is, the selection is quite small. There are approximately 33,000 books in the collection at this point, with anywhere from 100-200 books added each week. But if you consider how many millions of books are out there, well, it's a pretty small piece of the pie.

I guess this post was supposed to be more about wasted reading time, i.e. reading books like Steven King's "The Stand." Did I mention this is the book I'm trying to figure out if I want to continue reading? That is, continue wasting time reading?

What books are you reading, or have you read, that you found to be a waste of time? Are you struggling with your current read? Come on, fess up! I did!

Thankfully, I am able to download and read (and delete) books at no cost. I'd probably be a little more reluctant to discard a book if I'd paid hard cash for it. Still, free or not, the bottom line is, I dislike wasting time on a book if it doesn't cut it. Which, as an author, is a pretty strong statement. How many of my books don't get going until the, say, 8th chapter? 20th chapter!

Okay, let's hear about those horrible books. What criteria do you use to help determine if you will stick with a book? What kept you going in a book you were ready to quit, but ended up finishing and were glad you did?

This last question is a hard one. I'll have to give it some thought!