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A Conversation with Melanie Steinberg

Sounding Off on Audio: Interviews with Listeners About Their Love of Audiobooks

A Conversation with Melanie Steinberg

This week on “Sounding Off on Audio,” we talk to Melanie Steinberg, who has been editing our Word of Mouth section on Bookreporter.com. Considering she spends approximately 10 hours a week commuting, it comes as no surprise that she loves listening to books in her car. Here, she talks about some of her favorite audiobooks --- including THE GOLDFINCH (narrated by David Pittu), which nearly saved her life one snowy night.

Question: How long have you been listening to audiobooks?

Melanie Steinberg: I have been listening to audiobooks for about three years. When our public library started to amass a nice collection of books on CD, I began borrowing them.

Q: What made you start listening?

MS: I commute nearly an hour each way for work five days a week by car on the Long Island Expressway. That adds up to approximately 10 hours a week of otherwise “wasted” time. Using my commuting as time for reading is much more pleasant than surveying traffic conditions, and it allows me to feel a sense of actually accomplishing something while driving from here to there. Very often, I won’t even mind being stuck in traffic because I am engaged in the enjoyable

activity of listening to a book!

Q: What kinds of books do you like to listen to best?

MS: I tend to gravitate toward literary fiction of all types. However, I have listened to some interesting nonfiction books over the years. The one nonfiction audiobook that stands out in my mind is MY AGE OF ANXIETY by Scott Stossel. It was well-read by the reader, Michael Goldstrom, well-researched and thoroughly engaging in audio form.

Q: What do you use to listen to audiobooks? 

MS: I primarily use the CD player in my car, but I have listened on a CD player in my house when I’m knitting. I once downloaded an audio file from our library’s Overdrive borrowing system and listened through the Bluetooth system in my car, but I am not totally comfortable with how it works and will have to do it several more times before becoming more comfortable using this format. I find using the CDs a bit cumbersome, particularly when one disc ends and I have to scramble, while driving, to locate the next CD in the spiral binder case. I imagine using an MP3 file would make the logistics of listening slightly easier as there are no individual CDs to juggle. I am not of the computer generation, so for me there is a learning curve to using these higher-tech formats. And I will make the effort…someday!

Q: Are the books that you listen to different from the kinds of print and eBooks you read?

MS: I tend to select the same type of book in either format. Very often I will have the audio version in my car and also a copy of the book --- either in print or in an eBook --- in the house so I can continue to read without transporting CDs to and from the car/house.

Q: Where do you buy/borrow audiobooks from?

MS: I have never purchased an audiobook. They tend to be more costly than a print book or an eBook, and since I typically only read/listen once to a novel, I prefer to borrow them from the library. I would consider subscribing to a service like Audible, but for now I can usually find something I want to listen to on the library shelf.

Q: Do you share your audiobooks with anyone? 

MS: The one audiobook I received as a gift (thank you, Carol), SHOTGUN LOVESONGS, I did pass along to a friend when I had finished listening. She is also a commuter and very much enjoyed it.  

Q: Do you listen with anyone else, or is it a solo experience?

MS: Unfortunately, neither my husband nor my daughter has any interest in listening to audiobooks, so it is always a solo experience. On a long car trip, it would be so nice to get some book listening done. If I become more comfortable downloading MP3s, I could then listen to a book through my phone with headphones!

Q: What percentage of your reading is done via audiobooks?

MS: It’s hard to say percentage-wise. If I were to guess I would say 25 to 30 percent of my reading is done via audiobooks. I almost always have one or two audiobooks in my car, but I simultaneously will have one or two print books or eBooks that I’m reading in the house. One of those may be the same title I am listening to in the car.

Q: Is there anything about the format of audiobooks that you don’t like or would like to change or improve?

MS: Yes, definitely. Most books are sectioned off into five to eight minute segments making it easy, albeit somewhat annoying, to go back and listen again if you missed something. Some books have breaks after each three minutes of reading. This is ideal. After all, when you listen to an audiobook rather than read a book, you are usually doing something else at the same time, and occasionally your mind may drift and you have to go back and re-listen to what you missed! The newer CD players don’t allow you to rewind but rather just skip back to the beginning of the previous segment, so you have to listen to the entire segment again. When the segments are 20-30 minutes long --- and some are --- it takes way too long to re-listen to the whole segment when you really just want to go back to perhaps just a few seconds of listening that you didn’t process.

Another pet peeve I have is when words are pronounced wrong. It happens with English words but particularly when words are from a different language. I am not familiar with many languages, so I may miss some pronunciation mistakes, but I do pick up when Yiddish or Hebrew words are pronounced wrong. It makes me think, “Isn’t there someone editing this?”

Q: Do you have favorite narrators? If so, tell us about them.

MS:
I feel very remiss in saying this, but I rarely note or remember the name of the performer. I can say that a performer can certainly make or break my enjoyment of a novel. I have returned several audiobooks because I just couldn’t “get into them” because the performer wasn’t engaging me.

I can credit the performer of the audio version of THE GOLDFINCH, David Pittu, with the maintenance of my sanity during a particularly grueling commute home in a severe snowstorm last winter. I left my office at 2:30 and got home at 7:15, my windshield wipers barely able to move, caked with so much ice that I could hardly see. The road conditions were beyond horrific, and I was stuck in the car moving at five mph or less, just praying to get home safely and that my 4WD would not get stuck or into an accident with another car. It was a very claustrophobic, scary feeling, knowing you are basically trapped in your car with no choice but to keep crawling forward. I think I listened to about 25 percent of THE GOLDFINCH that afternoon/evening, and focusing on Mr. Pittu’s wonderful performance of all the characters really kept me from losing my mind!

I think in the future I will make it a point to be more mindful of the name of the audio performers, as their performance is as integral to my enjoyment of the audiobook as the writing itself.

Q: What are some of the most memorable books that you’ve listened to and why?

MS: As mentioned above, I think THE GOLDFINCH has to be my all-time favorite audiobook. David Pittu performed the characters so well, but I particularly enjoyed his portrayal of Boris. Listening to his performance really brought the book to life for me and, as mentioned above, may have saved my life driving home in a blizzard! I thought THE DINNER by Herman Koch on audio was incredibly well done. The performer, Clive Mantle, really captured the sinister yet comedic tone of the book. Other books I have enjoyed listening to are WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE?, SHOTGUN LOVESONGS, THE PARIS ARCHITECT, DELICIOUS!, THE LAST ORIGINAL WIFE, THE LACE READER, THE ROSIE PROJECT, THE ART OF FIELDING and THE INTERESTINGS. Those are just a few that come to mind. One summer I listened to JANE EYRE, which was nearly 20 CDs! I find listening is a great way to enjoy the classics.

Q: What is the last audiobook you listened to? Tell us about it.

MS:
Just today I finished listening to THE CHILDREN ACT by Ian McEwan. The performer, Lindsay Duncan, did a top-notch job portraying the main character, Fiona, as well as the other characters. It was probably the shortest audiobook I have ever read --- just five discs, six hours of listening time. It was a moving, simultaneous portrayal of an aging court judge, the decline of her marriage and a judicial decision on which hinged the life or death of a 17-year-old child. Next in queue, already in my car, are GOODNIGHT JUNE and ALL FALL DOWN. I'm not sure which I will reach for. I’ll just have to see tomorrow…