I started an audio book today. I think this is the longest I’ve gone without listening to a book in years. March break was the last time I listened to a book. This is unusual for me because I only listen to audio books, I don’t actually read books anymore.

I’ve been an Audible subscriber since 2017 and have 199 books in my library. Less than 20 are not started or fully completed. It occurred to me that I actually haven’t read a paper book since 2018. I’ve read some pages of a few books, but I haven’t completed reading a paper book in over 7 years.

I still end up doing a lot of reading on a screen, but it’s surprising to realize that I haven’t read a physical book in so long. To me audio books are reading. But I’m sure some purple don’t think so.

My dry spell recently involved catching up on some podcasts I like, but books are different. There is something special about ‘digging in’ to a good book. It just so happens that for me, I dig in by listening rather than visually.

The great thing about this is that I know that I’ve never in my life read 10 books in a year, but I’m averaging listening to 20+ a year. At this point I’m not sure if I’ll ever read a full paper book ever again? That seems so weird to say, and at some point I might change… but for now listening is my preferred, and only choice for consuming books.