Kobo

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.

I have often had the temptation to dump Audible.com since it was bought by Amazon but I haven’t. It used to be that I had so many books that I didn’t want to lose them. Now that I have my own self-hosting solution, Audiobookshelf, for my own listening of my own books I can toy the idea of sliding to another provider. The first option is Kobo.

Kobo offers a plan for about 12 CHF per month for access to unlimited books to be read at once on its own catalgue but the catalogue is a quarter as big as that of Amazon/Audible so it would seriously limit what I can read and listen to. On the flipside part of my money would remain in the EU and the rest would go to Japan rather than the US. In the current climate it would be nice to remind the US of the cultural monopoly they currently hold, without showing gratitude. By dumping Audible for a US or Japanese solution for three years, or more we would remind the US that it exports to the world.

This year I am replacing Social Media with Book Reading because social media is no longer a conversational place. It has become a place for sensationalism and the spreading of fake news and emotional news. As a result of these factors the potential gain of new friendships and interesting conversations has declined. For this reason you might as well find some interesting books and broaden your horizons. [caption id=“attachment_3412” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Replacing social media with book reading[/caption] I currently have hundreds of books on Kindle and Audible and my collection on the Kobo reader is bound to grow. Recently I read Too Loud A Solitude. This is a book I came across by accident. I was browsing through Goodreads recommendations and it came up. The book is interesting because it tells the story of a person who worked compacting books for 35 years. Every chapter begins with the phrase “For 35 years…”. The journey is an interesting one because we see how someone with a passion for books rescues some before they are destroyed. It is worth reading when you have the interest and motivation. Another interesting book I read is Tartarin Sur Les Alpes. This book is interesting because of its age. It is about the early days of Alpinism. It speaks of various mountains and locations that are easy to get to today but that were accessed by horse and carriage at the time. It also explores the early days of tourism. Books require an investment of time of several hours in the same way that television series require. You can read a chapter or “episode” a day or you can binge through them reading several chapters in a single day. They usually require from seven to 21 hours to get through just like television series seasons. It’s easy to lose entire days. I like e-books and I like audible books. As a result of this I can walk around with hundreds of books at a time and read from one book and then another. It transports me to different time periods and places. For a moment I stop living in the present. With audio books I can drive, hike or walk at the same time. I can be a bookworm without being stuck in a building. It’s a shame that we don’t read more.