{"id":4449,"date":"2016-11-02T08:00:57","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T16:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=4449"},"modified":"2016-11-01T16:28:52","modified_gmt":"2016-11-02T00:28:52","slug":"give-audiobooks-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/give-audiobooks-chance\/","title":{"rendered":"Give audiobooks a chance"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Ashton Newton\r\nEntertainment Editor<\/pre>\n
The first time I listened to an audiobook was when I had a job that allowed me to listen to music as I worked. Getting bored of hours of music, I decided to listen to Neil Gaiman\u2019s \u201cAmerican Gods\u201d on audiobook, and it took over my life. I found myself listening to it when I was driving, when I was walking, when I was working and even while doing homework. I found it so easy to be productive while thoroughly enjoying this story.\"audiobooks-color\"<\/p>\n
Despite how busy life can get while in school, there is a lot of leisure time. Whether it is an hour in between classes or a lazy Sunday afternoon, time spent doing almost anything can be enhanced with an audiobook playing.<\/p>\n
This is why I think that audiobooks are a college student\u2019s best friend. Not only are audiobooks great, but there are also audiobooks for almost every major text you\u2019d need to read for an English class. It\u2019s a much better experience listening to \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d when Sir Ian McKellan is reading it to you while you\u2019re on a run or playing video games. Plus, I\u2019ve found that listening to audiobooks doesn\u2019t take away from reading at all, instead, I don\u2019t zone out or skip long passages, like I have the habit of doing.<\/p>\n
Finding audiobooks is extremely easy too. Spotify has a huge library of audiobooks in all genres. There are lots of short stories and novels available to listen to for free. Another good source of free audiobooks is YouTube. You can find almost any classic work there, so it\u2019s a really good place to find books for English classes.<\/p>\n
My favorite place to listen is Audible. All you need is an Amazon account and $15 a month and you can get two audiobooks a month. This is a great way to get more recent books. While spending $15 on audiobooks a month is pretty high, you can always cancel the subscription if you think you won\u2019t finish the book in time.<\/p>\n
A lot of skepticism surrounding audiobooks relates back to boring readers. It\u2019s uncomfortable listening to anyone read a book to you, but if the reader\u2019s voice is monotone and boring, it can be a struggle to listen to. My first audiobook, \u201cAmerican Gods,\u201d was a full cast audiobook, so there were many different voices throughout the book which made it very pleasant to listen to.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d recommend finding an audiobook of a book you\u2019ve either already read or that you\u2019re extremely interested in just to get a feel for audiobooks. After listening to \u201cAmerican Gods,\u201d I listened to \u201cStar Wars: Bloodlines\u201d by Claudia Gray, which I got really into because I\u2019m fascinated with the \u201cStar Wars\u201d universe.<\/p>\n
Listening to short stories is also great because they don\u2019t have a huge time commitment and they\u2019re easy to balance into everyday actions. Spotify also has lots of free short stories in their library, from classics to horror. They can last anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour, so they\u2019re great to listen to while walking from class to class or at the gym. The best short story audiobook that I\u2019ve listened to is HP Lovecraft\u2019s \u201cCall of Cthulhu,\u201d but it\u2019s a pretty scary one.<\/p>\n
Audiobooks are a great way to kill time and keep your mind entertained and sharp. The options of what to listen to are endless with free content all over the Internet. Next time you have a break between classes or a long car ride, consider trying out an audiobook. You might not like it, but if you do, your options are virtually endless on books to listen to.<\/p>\n
Contact the author at journalentertainment@wou.edu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Ashton Newton Entertainment Editor The first time I listened to an audiobook was when I had a job that allowed me to listen to music as I worked. Getting bored of hours of music, I decided to listen to Neil Gaiman\u2019s \u201cAmerican Gods\u201d on audiobook, and it took over my life. I found myself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":937,"featured_media":4490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/937"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}