Audio books

As a kid, I loved children's books on tape - the ones that had sound effects and different voices for all the characters. As an adult, I've maintained this interest, though now I prefer slightly more sophisticated topics (well, kind of...).

I really got into them when I got a boring night job where I had to sit around allot doing nothing. Now I 'read' them in my car, at the gym, while cleaning my house etc.

There are several advantages that audio books have over their printed counterparts:

1. If you have a short attention span like me, you'll often find yourself day-dreaming and reading the same sentence over and over. Audio books plough on unless you press the pause button, so your attention doesn't seem to wane as much. This is good, as it allows you to read books so much faster.
2. You get the correct pronunciation on words you may not be familiar with
3. The personality of the narrator can bring allot more life to the text than what your 'internal' narrator does at time.
4. You can take them anywhere if you have them stored on digital playback device - no lugging around of bulky items.

The one downside to audio books is the unnecessarily high price. Here's a great page on how to source great audio books for free:

http://www.squidoo.com/free-audio-book-downloads/