How far do you have to travel for your holiday gatherings? Luckily, my family is quite fortunate and we only have about a two-hour car ride until we’re in the same town as my parents and my in-laws.
My husband and I have learned to take advantage of these car rides as prime bonding time, but not in the traditional sense. When others may talk or sing along with Christmas carols, we take the opportunity to find a great audiobook and let the reader entertain us along the way.
Throughout the years our Christmas drive tastes have varied, including popular titles of the year like “Ready Player One” and “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir,” or ones that seem to fit with the falling snow like “The Night Circus” or, for a scarier Christmas feeling, “The Shining.”
Fortunately, the Delaware County District Library has audiobooks available in many different formats to fit your on-the-go listening needs. One of the easiest ways to listen is simply with spoken CDs. However, some individuals find the act of changing between CDs distracting, my husband included. In that case, I’d recommend trying one of our playaways.
A playaway is an entire book stored on one electronic device that just requires the input of headphones or an adaptor to your car’s audio system to listen. You can start, stop, and pause all on the same device, and you never lose your place in the story. They are smaller than an iPod or a cell phone, which makes them perfect for travel.
Finally, using your mobile device and the Overdrive app, you have thousands of hours of listening available through eAudiobooks. Search the Delaware Library catalog at www.delawarelibrary.org or click the red button for “OverDrive eBooks” on the homepage to go directly to the entire Ohio Digital Library catalog.
No matter how you read your stories this holiday season, I hope the Library is a place you stop before you hit the road. All locations are open on Dec. 23, but will close from Dec. 24 through Dec. 26, and reopen on Tues., Dec. 27. Here are some of our newest audiobooks you might want to consider.
— The Christmas Mystery by James Patterson. During a busy Christmas season, French NYPD detective Luc Moncrief investigates the theft of a cache of priceless paintings and the murder of a wealthy socialite.
— Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by Alexander Freed. An official novelization of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” follows a band of rebels on a daring mission to steal the Death Star plans.
— Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. Traces the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s life from his childhood in a Catholic New Jersey family and the musical experiences that prompted his career to the rise of the E Street Band and the stories behind some of his most famous songs.
