Friday Favorites - Audiobooks

My (current) personal favorites

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There never seems to be enough time in the day. Morning routine and coffee, work, running, photo shoots and editing, writing, soccer, climbing...who has time for everything, let alone reading?! Who am I kidding; I read all the time - magazine articles, blog posts, think pieces, newspapers, user guides (oops). But one thing I never find enough time for is reading pop fiction.

I don't know why but whenever I sit down to read a fiction book I feel like it has to be a book of substance and that means missing out on a bunch of books that I thought might be interesting but wouldn't make it to the top of my reading list.

#1 - Amy Poehler’s Yes Please!

So in between podcast episodes and zombie stories I figured in February 2015 that I'd try out audiobooks and ordered Amy Poehler's Yes Please!* on Audible to listen on some long runs.

And yes, it was amazing. Humor, charisma, stories, and inspiration narrated by Amy Poehler herself to get you through some physical agony? Yes, please! (hehe)

#2 - Tina Fey’s Bossypants

Next of course was Tina Fey's Bossypants*, another book in the same vein with just as much side-splitting humor.

#3 - Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl

After two audiobooks I was addicted, so when I was prepping for the long road trip from NC to Montreal for the USWNT semi-finals soccer game I downloaded something new to listen to: Gone Girl*, much to my fiance's chagrin (sorry, love! I promise to never go all "gone girl" on you though.)

#4 - Kate Bolick’s Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own

#5 - Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train

#6 - Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places

#7 - Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects

Of course there were more feminist and thriller books - Spinster* (which provided me with some pretty memorable runs on the American Tobacco Trail as I fantasized about being an empowered, feminist writer in NYC, sigh), The Girl on the Train* (which got me all hyped up about train rides in England), and then Dark Places* and Sharp Objects* back-to-back as I was dealing with increasing running mileage and moving to the new house. There's nothing quite like listening to some Gillian Flynn in an empty house while you scrub the floors and scrub away the memories.

#7 - Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain

#8 - Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

I'm currently looking for my next audiobook for my next backpacking adventure after listening to Cold Mountain* last year while I "opted outside" for Black Friday and hiked Cold Mountain (heh, see what I did there?) and then Where'd You Go, Bernadette?* while backpacking the Neusiok Trail. These books were friendly companions on the hikes, especially the solo trip, and have become an important part of any backpacking planning.

Audiobooks have come a long way from the road trips of my childhood with 10 sets of tapes or CDs, but they still offer that fantastic "I can multi-task and still listen to something interesting and finally get to that book I've been interested in for ages!" experience.

What are your thoughts? Do you listen to audiobooks, or do you have a favorite audiobook? Let me know in the comments!