Monday, February 9, 2015

I am now a digital bookworm


When I first became a mom, it was really, really tough for me to keep up with my reading habit. My first year as a new mother, I only managed to read two books for the whole year. I tried reading often but I was always too tired to finish a book. At that point of time I was already a member of Audible, Amazon’s audiobook store. I was purchasing books monthly on audible but never really started listening to them because I wasn’t used to “listening” to a book.

About two year ago, I moved in to stay with my mum and dad for a while and they live really far out from my workplace. It took me about half an hour to get to work … on a good day. On a bad day it can be between 40 minutes to an hour to commute to work in my car. I got sick of listening to the local radio station (our morning shows really suck by the way). So one day I decided to download the audible app on my iPhone together with all my audiobooks and just started listening to my first audiobook on one of my long drives to work.

The first book I really listened to from Audible was The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Really good choice for a first audiobook, the listening experience was great and I have been hooked on audiobooks since then. Thanks to audiobooks, I’ve managed to continue ‘reading’ despite my hectic schedule at home and at work. In fact on days that I am really lazy to read to the kids, we listen to audiobooks together instead…  LOL. That’s me making good use of technology.

I’ve since moved out of my mum and dad’s home, my commute to work is very much shorter now but I still listen to audiobooks whenever I’m in the car. I absolutely love the experience. I plug my earphones to listen to my audiobook whenever I can; when I go grocery shopping, manicure sessions or anything that I do that doesn’t require serious focus or communicating with others. Last year I went through about 15 audiobooks in total and I am hoping to listen to more this year. I absolutely love listening to audiobooks and the technology has helped me ‘read’ whenever and wherever I can.


I also invested in my first e-reader about a year back. Kobo e-readers are not available here in Malaysia or at least I couldn’t find a reliable source to purchase from. Fortunately for me, I managed to trouble a friend to buy it for me in Australia. I’ll explain my choice of a Kobo over a Kindle at another time; this topic deserves its own post. Again, it took a while for me to get used to reading on an e-reader. Transitioning from a traditional book to an e-reader took me about 6 months. The first time I held my Kobo and tried reading from it, I actually missed the weight, feel and smell of an actual book.

Late last year, during a long holiday I decided to start reading off my Kobo. I’ve since read five books and am now on my sixth book purchased from Kobo.

I am now so in love with my Kobo that I don’t leave home without it. It’s light and small enough to carry around in my handbag. At night if I want to continue reading, I don’t have to leave the lights on and disrupt my husband; who really can sleep through anything to be honest, lights on, off, loud sounds, an earthquake even probably… so the function isn’t that important to me but it’s quite nice to have. I can read anywhere I want and whenever I want; in between meetings, lunchtime, when I’m waiting for people. I just whip out my Kobo and start reading.

But… the coolest thing about going digital is that I have over 500 books with me ALL THE TIME; a combo of my list of audiobook and e-books in my Kobo and Audible library. That’s seriously cool, no?

I still buy books of course, but not as often as I use to. The only thing that I need to research on a bit is whether I can still get tax refund from audible and kobo bookstore purchases in Malaysia.

Anyway, I’m proud to say that I’ve finally gone digital and I’m loving it!

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