Library

For a long time you could choose between one credit or two credits per month with Audible, and you were limited to that one or two books. With time they increased the price, but they also added plenty of books that were included with the membership. At this point, if you’re not looking for a specific book you barely need credits anymore.

An Audible Plan With Temporary Ownership

Audible has a Standard plan. With this plan you spend 9 USD per month and you have access to one new book per month. You are free to read as much, or as little of the book as you desire. If you stop paying for this plan you lose your collection of books.

Ebibliomedia makes it possible to borrow audiobooks. Yesterday I noticed that I can download these books via the Cantook ereader app on Android and iOS. With this freedom comes a quick and convenient way to listen to audio books without worrying about losing my place.

With the website interface I could listen to a book but my progress would be lost as soon as I refreshed the page. In such a situation it makes sense to read a book one chapter at a time, and make sure to remember which chapter you have just finished.

I have been an audible member for years at this point and in that time I have “bought” hundreds of books. I write “bought” because I payed for a Platinum account for years and got credits and got the books with those credits. Over the years I have collected more books than I can read in a year.

That library lived in the cloud, rather than my devices, for years. I would download the books I was listening to but not those that I had finished, or would read later. That’s because laptops and mobile phones have smaller hard drives than I require for my books.

Marie Kondo’s rule that you should only keep thirty books, that you should only keep those that you personally want to read or enjoy is a silly rule because it encourages people to limit their scope and perspective on the world.

People studying at the British Library with a small selection of books behind them

Childhood

One memory of my childhood is being surrounded by books and being able to look through hundreds of books, whether at home, in libraries or even mail order catalogues. As a child I loved the opportunities that books represented. One of my favourite shops in London is Waterstone’s near Piccadilly Circus. I loved browsing the current affairs sections, the documentary film section and others. I often wanted to buy entire sections but I had to limit myself to what I thought I would read.