One of My All Time Favorite Things

"One of my all time favorite things..."

is my Sony WALKMAN Media Player. I listen to audio books on it. It's how I manage to keep current with books I want to read. My local library has a wonderful downloading program. The first requirement is that you have a library card. Everyone already does, right? Next, you download the library's software called "OverDrive Media Console. This gives you the ability to download audio books onto your computer. Then you transfer the audio book onto your media player and voila! you're ready to listen to a book. The library's selection is quite vast, including everything from current bestsellers, classics, nonfiction and much more. You create a list of titles you want and as they become available, the library notifies you via email, you "check" it out and it's yours for two weeks. At the end of that time you must delete it from your computer and it's then available for someone else to hear. Some books are read by the author themselves, but the majority are read by first rate professional readers or actors. It's great for someone like me who spends long stretches of time at the sewing machine or knitting (multi-tasking at it's finest). Some outstanding audio books I recommend are THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett, THE BOOK THIEF by Marcus Zusak and SARAH'S KEY by Tabiana de Rosnay.

Audio book lover that I am, that doesn't mean I've stopped reading real "paper and ink" books. Right now I'm in the midst of Wally Lamb's, THE HOUR I FIRST BELIEVED. This is a big book, 700+ pages, but his characters and dialogue are so real, I cannot put it down.

What I especially like about reading a book is that it lets me do one of my other most favorite things on a pretty afternoon in May. You can find me on the porch for the rest of the afternoon...