Usually I prefer to check out a book-on-CD to listen to on my commute. However, there are certain times, cleaning the house or working on a special project at the library, where I prefer to take my story with me. And that’s where a Playaway shines.

A Playaway is a pre-loaded audio player. The only thing required to listen is an AAA battery and earphones. That’s it. No downloading, switching CDs or tapes, or lugging extra equipment around. A Playaway will fit into your pocket or through a loop in a lanyard around your neck. Convenient? Oh yes. And the audio quality is as good as the earbuds you use.

Have I gotten your attention yet? Are you intrigued by what Playaway has to offer? Then let me tell you about my shameless self-promotion. The Everett Public Library, your hometown library and mine, has a shot at winning $10,000 in a national display contest sponsored by Playaway. Please vote for our displays here. Share it on Facebook, tweet it, shout it from the rooftops. Voting ends December 17^th and the winners will be announced early next year.

Here are a few of my most favorite Playaways. Check one out, pop in a battery, and experience the convenience first-hand.

Listening to the author read her first memoir, A Girl Named Zippy, I was swept away by Haven Kimmel’s depiction of her childhood in the late 1960s. Born in a tiny town in Indiana, population 300, Kimmel relates anecdotes from her early childhood that brought a smile to my face and warmth to my heart. I ended up buying a copy of the book for myself and I pick it up any time I feel homesick for my own tiny Midwestern hometown. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to check out other titles by Haven Kimmel, including the memoir’s sequel, She Got Up Off the Couch.  

When I picked up the Worst-Case Scenario Survial Handbook : Travel Playaway, I have to admit I was not particularly interested in the topics. Neither book was a memoir. What caught my eye, however, were the narrators for these two books in one: Burt Reynolds and Penn Jillette. If you know anything about the Worst Case Scenario series, you know not to take these books too seriously. They’re tongue-in-cheek at best, riotous at worst, and always hit the comedy mark. Listening to two of my most favorite voices read how to survive a shark attack and stop a runaway train was music to my ears.

When my mom visited me last spring, she introduced me to Craig Ferguson. The man is hilarious. Anyone who watches his late-night talk show knows that almost nothing he says or does on his show is scripted. All that comedy gold comes from Mr. Ferguson himself. So when I saw he had written a book called American On Purpose : The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot I was immediately intrigued. Here would be that gem of an audiobook that is my most favorite sub-genre: humorous memoir. Right? Wrong.

Oh sure, it’s peppered with Ferguson’s signature self-depreciating wit. But his was a life that was extraordinary, and not often in a good way. Throughout the book Ferguson, who narrates, draws a parallel between his personal struggles with drugs, jobs, women, and freedom with the struggle of all American immigrants. Again, if you watch his show you already know that he has become an American citizen, so you know how the book will end. But along the way you will be constantly amazed at the deep sensitivity (and sometimes deep insensitivity) of the man who always wanted to become an American. On purpose.

Carol

Welcome to Everett! You drove here from Topeka. That’s a long drive. Did you listen to any cool music or audiobooks?
It is a long drive indeed, but I’m a fan of road trips. I listened to two great audiobooks: I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President by Josh Lieb and T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain. I also listened to some of my favorite music including Pavement, Wilco, Radiohead, R.E.M., Neil Young, Warren Zevon, and The xx.

Kansas makes me think of The Wizard of Oz. Can you recommend any favorite Kansas authors or books or movies about Kansas?
I’ve yet to travel from Kansas and not heard, “You’re not in Kansas anymore.” It’s an irresistible response to learning someone is from Kansas. Two great authors more or less from Kansas are Gordon Parks and Langston Hughes. A great book is James Carlos Blake’s Wildwood Boys, a historical novel about the pre-Civil War Kansas-Missouri Border Wars told from the perspective of Bloody Bill Anderson. I love John Williams’ Butcher’s Crossing, set in both Kansas and Colorado. John Williams’ wonderful book Stoner is one of my absolute favorites, but it’s set in Missouri.

Do you have any favorite books or shows with a Washington setting or author?
Two of my favorite television shows are closely associated with Washington: Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure. As for books, I’ve recently become a fan of Spokane author Jess Walter and Olympia author Jim Lynch. The Financial Lives of the Poets and Border Songs are two of the best books I’ve read in the past year.

What’s your favorite book?
My all time favorite is Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road. Yates is an incredibly underrated writer. My previous favorite book was David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. The aforementioned Stoner is a recent favorite.

What was your favorite book growing up?
The book that blew my mind as a youngster was Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Its meditation on the great expanses of time and the universe changed the way I thought about the world. The other seminal book of my childhood was To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it the summer after sixth grade and it hooked me on a life of reading.

What’s your favorite movie?
The Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski is the greatest movie of the last 25 years. Other favorites are Mulholland Drive, Nurse Betty, Ghostbusters, and No Country For Old Men.

If you were stranded on Jetty Island and could only take three books, what would you take?
Infinite Jest—I’ve been meaning to reread it and it’s really long. Charles Willeford’s Sideswipe. And Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow — it might be quiet enough to actually concentrate to read it.

Now that I have the audio book bug, I get to enjoy a new part of the library. I browse our Books-on-CD collections at least once a week and always find something interesting. I’ve become so hooked that I want to listen even when I’m not in the car. Luckily, Overdrive lets me download audio books to my iPod. Boring chores are now a lot more fun. I suspect I’ll be visiting the Playaway collection more once I get back on the bus and want to continue listening in an easy, portable way.

In addition to the format choices, audio books have encouraged me to push beyond my normal reading fare of literary domestic fiction and memoirs. I’m listening to more narrative non-fiction and essay collections, young adult novels, and even the occasional science fiction selection. My listening tastes and my reading tastes are not necessarily the same, and I think that’s a great thing. 

My favorite listens lately are Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, Amy Sedaris’s I Like You, David Grann’s The Lost City of Z, and Kurt Vonnegut’s Man without a Country. These are not books I’d necessarily pick up and read cover to cover, but I was completely captivated by the content and vocal performances of each.

What about you? Do you prefer your book in print or audio? Do your listening and reading habits align? Talk to me. I’m listening.

Mindy