It was bookshop day on 11 October, which got me thinking about books. This year I am working on changing small habits, making small changes, in an effort to make more ethical choices and also to support local businesses more, as well as finding more joy in small things. I wrote a post a few months ago with an update and since then, things have moved on nicely, specially when it comes to my favourite habit: reading.
Earlier in the year I found it pretty easy to find alternatives to Amazon to buy paper books, but audiobooks provided a little harder, at least initially. I closed my Audible account and tried out the local library app, BorrowBox, and also Libro.fm. A couple of months on, here is what I found:
BorrowBox
I’ve come to love this app, which links to my local library membership. There is a small library near where I live and a couple of others fairly nearby, and I order books online and pick them up regularly. However, up to this year I never tried to borrow ebooks or audiobooks. Since I started using the app, that’s changed!
So far I have borrowed 18 ebooks and 25 audiobooks over about 6 months and I have really enjoyed being able to read more freely that I would do if I was buying them. Instead, I have tried new genres and authors and I have also read more non-fiction books.
The library is still in the process of digitising more of its collection, so that more and more titles are becoming available each month and I am finding plenty to read and explore even if the collection is patchy in places.
I shall definitely continue using this service and very much appreciate this free and open approach to reading. Big win!
Libro.fm
Starting to use this new audiobook app was pretty easy, and I managed to find and link to a local bookshop in Cardiff. Given that this is a US-based app I was pleased that there was a local option, and through that I discovered a new local bookshop, too, which now benefits each time I buy an audiobook.
I started with a membership which enables me to buy one title each month, the same I had with Audible, and so far I am on 7 titles for this year. Building up an audiobook collection afresh in a new app feels a little lonely, but I like using it and find it easy to do everything I want to do.
As I found, exporting audiobooks from audible is possible, if not completely straight forward, but more of that in another post.
So what have I been reading in the past few weeks?
In addition to ebooks and audiobooks I also read a lot of paper books, both borrowed and bought, and I don’t track what I read. However, these last few weeks I have enjoyed my reading particularly, so I have tried to make a list of everything I’ve read (in no particular order): Conversations with friends, Sally Rooney; V.E. Schwabs Gallant and the trilogy: a darker shade of magic, a gathering of shadows and a conjuring of light; 4:50 from paddington, Agatha Christie, Guilty by definition, Susie Dent, Sherlock Holmes; The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman; You are here, David Nichols, The Villa Ariadne and Margalit Fox’s The Riddle of the Labyrinth; and the Moonlight Express by Moisha Rajesh.
Subscribe to my newsletter!