Lit Lounge – Page 8 – Xine's Pack

Xine’s Audiobook Club- What I’m listening to this month

Hi! I’m Xine and welcome to my Audiobook Club. Since we are all practicing social distancing, I’ve decided to start an online Audiobook Club. I hope you join me as we are all entering this new world of social distancing, but just because we need to distance ourselves doesn’t mean we can’t still all have to be isolated. We can all keep up an online conversation one way or another. So with that, once again welcome to Xine’s Audiobook Club. I’m Xine and this is what I’ve been listing to this month.

It’s been a weird month so far and my book selections this month seem to mimicking that. An eclectic selection I started the month listening to Carsick – John Waters Hitchhikes across America. I’m currently on chapter 16, 4 hours 56 minutes remaining of this 8 hour, 8 minute journey. So I’m over halfway there. I started listening to Carsick because the description sounded interesting and different from my usual picks and I was up for something different. I know who John Waters is but haven’t seen any of his movies but I’ve heard of them.

I was also waiting for the new Reese Witherspoon’s Book of the Month Club selection to be released. I had enjoyed listening to the February book, The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister and narrated by Gabra Zackman. I started following the book club since I sometimes get overwhelmed by all the books and don’t know what to listen to so having someone else choose is nice. I end up listening to titles I, myself, never would have selected and a usually pleasantly surprised but not aways.

I always end up listening to more than one book at a time, I like to mix up the rotation with a biography or memoir, a novel of fiction, perhaps some comedy essays or short stories. I had started listening to George Carlin Reads to You, but found myself no longer amused by some of the comedian’s once funny observations about life. In today’s world it’s just not so funny right now. Maybe I’m just getting old. So I stopped listening and exchanged the title for a credit. Did you know you can do that on Audible? You can exchange your titles back at any time, even after you have listened to them completely. You get the option of exchanging it for another title right away or receiving a credit back. I listen to so many more books since discovering this little seemingly hidden feature which is the only logical reason as to why they do this. I say hidden only because I accidentally discovered it on iPhone and when I looked on my desktop it doesn’t seem to be an option.

This month’s Reese’s Book Club selection is The Jetsetters by Amanda Eyre Ward and narrated by Theresa Plummer. It looks to be about family relationships, something I can certainly relate to. I’m currently only on chapter 4 and just been introduced to all the characters and their lives.and still have 7 hours and 9 minutes remaining in this 8 hr and 3 minute book. So I have much to look forward to.

Finally, I have selected Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education by Michael Pollan since I am a gardener and have read another titles by Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and enjoyed it. I hadn’t known about this book when I looked up titles under his name in the the Audible library and it intrigued me. Plus it’s a nice change of pace from whatever wild tale Waters’ is spinning and from just trying to figure out who is who of The Jetsetters.

These days, I find I can only take so much of listening to the news, although that’s important to stay up-to-date on what’s going on, particularly with the Covid-19 pandemic gripping our world right now. As I work on other things, whether it be on the computer, cleaning the house, folding the laundry, even while outside in my garden with my headphones on – I can escape to another world even if it’s only for a few hours.

Stay safe, and healthy everyone!

End Note: You may have noticed by now that I have included some links to the books and or audiobooks when and where I could to make things easy for anyone who may be interested in checkin any of these titles out. In the interest of transparency I am part of the Amazon affiliate program. So if you were to click on the link and actually purchase something – I would get a small commission for the referral. Just wanted you to know.

I’ve Become an Audiobook Enthusiast

It started all because I wanted to read more. I had the thought a few years ago while I was driving back and forth from my house in New Hampshire to my other house in Connecticut that I could be spending my time better in the car rather than purely getting myself from one location to the other.

It takes four hours give or take to take to do the drive – 8 roads total including I89, I91 and Route15. I’ve done the I91, Route 15 part hundreds of times over the years since that was my route to the condo trailside at Okemo I used to once enjoy. A different lifetime now.

I used to love driving but as I have aged – I’m only 55 yrs old – I find it more difficult now. I get tired easier and really don’t like driving at night. Too much glare and won’t unless I absolutely have to because one of my kids has an emergency of some sort.

At the time this all started I was obsessed with the show, The Game of Thrones and wanted to read the books. Problem was, when I would go to read at bedtime usually, I would fall asleep literally minutes later. So I decided to start listening to audiobooks on my drives down and back to Connecticut. Music would sometimes have the opposite effect of keeping me alert at the wheel despite listening to SiriusXM’s Lithium or Classic Vinyl.

Over two decades ago I had to drive a long distance from Michigan and I was advised to listen to talk radio instead of music. I found myself switching from the music stations to the news and talk radio stations to keep myself awake and was happy it worked.

I started listening to The Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book One by George R.R. Martin and narrated by Roy Divine. It took 33 hours and 47 minutes. I listened to the book while driving back and forth to Connecticut. I listened while I was working in New Hampshire either splitting wood outside – we have a hydraulic wood splitter so it’s not as tough as it may sound, although it is physical labor. Sometimes I’d be inside with my headphones on in the wood shop making our garden kits, listening to the story. I discovered quickly how much faster some of my work was done while listening to my book. Or at least it felt like it went faster. I began to look forward to my long drives or work knowing I’d be submerged in another world and the time would fly by.

I loved the first book, A Game of Thrones and the second, A Clash of Kings. By the time I got to Book 3, A Storm of Swords I had found myself a little bored and Game of Throned out. After all, these are long marathon books upwards of 34 hours and that was the shortest one. Storm of Swords is 48 hours long!

The titles that sucked me in to the wonderful world of audiobook listening

On one of my trips down to Connecticut or back, something happened with my book I was listening to, so while driving I had to quickly select something that would play since I still had over 2 hours left in the drive. I wound up listening to The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, narrated by Dan O’Grady.

This narrator’s voice perked me up – Roy Dotrice’s deep tones were beginning to lull me to sleep some. But this guy was much more upbeat. I didn’t know anything about the book when I started listening to it. I must have added it to my library at some point because it sounded interesting or was on sale or both. But I found that I was much more alert and involved in the story listening to Dan O’Grady reading now.

Since then, which is only about 18 months or so give or take, I’ve listened so far to twenty-three more titles and counting. Plus I actually read a book. So with that I am adding a new regular feature to my Xines’ Pack blog – Xine’s Book Club. I won’t limit it to calling it Xine’s Audiobook Club because I do want to actually read more too. So look for future posts about the books and audiobooks I read. I’m open to hearing suggestions and thoughts from others that have read or listened to these titles. It would be great to have an online discussion going.

Until happy listening or reading to you!

The Fine Art of Communication

I’ve been reading a bunch of stuff lately about various people’s life stories. Yesterday I finished reading a novel by yet another of my incredibly gifted old classmates, Kim Green entitled, hallucination. Its touching story about a woman’s life journey flows effortlessly off the pages, or in my case my Kindle screen.

In some ways, I could relate to main character, Morgan, she too attended an upper east side private girls school. Originally I thought that would be all I would share with this character when I was first introduced to her. But as got to know her more through this beautiful story I discovered we share a love of dancing, music, travel, children and writing. I don’t share her struggles however I, too have gone through my own failed marriage and deal with my own dysfunctional family.

I understand what’s it like to begin a life with someone – a life with so much hope for the future, just to watch it disintegrate despite your best efforts. One person can not save a marriage. A marriage is an intimate relationship which when one partner ceases to be involved in the caring, communicating and nurturing – it falls apart. This need for communicating is not reserved simply for preserving relationships of husbands and wives.

I have a brother who lives in New York City who I only see on the occasional holiday now. We used to very close as kids but our busy life paths took us very far apart and unfortunately have kept us that way – at least for now. We hardly talk on any sort of regular basis. Matter of fact, its been so long that to pick up the phone would be weird. Plus who ever knows when its a good time to talk. So a few months ago I decided to start sending the occasional text to see if I could break the ice and get the conversation flowing again. It’s kind of working I guess – there has been some exchange – a step in the right direction considering we didn’t have even that before. So I’ll take it as a positive.

The need for communicating between family members is as important in maintaining those relationships as it is with your friends. I have a friend who if I want to hear from her I have to initiate the call. This has gone on for years and years because I let it. But she has shunned the electronic world and my best efforts to get together, so we don’t talk so much anymore unfortunately. I don’t enjoy talking on the phone too much. I find it difficult to single-handedly multitask during a busy day. If the conversation is long my elbow gets stiff and aches the rest of the day. I still ache from my 45 minutes phone conversation I had with my sister six hours ago! If its not face-to face, my main form of communicating with people is via text or chat behind one of our word or dice games we play on our phones.

Some people were hesitant to get on board with email and now they hate texting or don’t know how to do it, or they don’t do social networking. To each their own but I couldn’t do it. My son is in college and he calls me weekly. His phone conversation skills are improving. We text each other intermittently and we also follow each other on Facebook and Instagram. I am part of his conversation with the “social world”.

I find having an ongoing dialogue important particularly with my children. This can get difficult as grow up, go to college and eventually leave home and start their own family. If this is their way of communicating, I must join in. Recently as we were preparing for Hurricane Sandy, I started a family group text which included my parents, siblings and a sister-in-law to make it easier to stay in touch in case anyone lost phones and power. Everyone in the family who lives Connecticut lost power whereas the New York contingency didn’t. My parents liked the intermittent exchanges of stray comments and photos they asked us to keep the conversation going after the power outages were over. They said they left more a part of our daily lives and less isolated. As a parent of a child who lives away at college I have a better understanding of this now.

In Kim’s book, Morgan’s father repeatedly pleads for his daughter’s attention demanding more frequent phone calls as her life path takes her across the country away from him and the home she grew up in. That’s our role in life as parents, to raise our children so they an stand on their own two feet and start their own families. It’s just as parents we’d like to hear from our all too busy children from time to time. So if that’s a quick text, then so be it. The conversation still continues at least, even if in short snippets.

“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.” Winnie the Pooh

Peace – Xine S.