Let me tell you, it’s not Lloyd! Even though if it were, I’d never admit it because he’d never stop bragging about it. Anyway, I’ve been crazy about books for as long as I can remember. It all started back in primary school when my mom unexpectedly stopped by during the day. To this day, I have no idea why she was there, but she brought me a Famous Five book by Enid Blyton.
I had never heard of the Famous Five before, considering I was quite young then. But as soon as I started reading, I was hooked! I couldn’t put it down until I finished and immediately needed the next one, and the one after that. After the Famous Five, I moved on to the Secret Seven. From then on, a good portion of my free time was spent reading.
To cut a long story short, I was really into books. I had so much free time as a kid, it was easy to dive into physical books. These days, since starting my first proper job, I hardly find the time to carry a book around with me. The last physical book I attempted was Game of Thrones while on vacation in Cape Verde, but I promptly fell asleep every time I tried to read it. Unbelievable, considering it’s Game of Thrones!
About seven years ago, I switched to audiobooks, except for the rare physical book not available in audio. Around that time, I was working a rather dull job and needed something to keep me occupied, so I downloaded The Godfather. It was the perfect introduction to audiobooks, offering all the joy of reading without having to physically hold the book. Imagine trying to read a tangible book at work; it was just not feasible. With audiobooks, you could just pop your earphones in, and when you burst into laughter, people would assume it was something funny about your Excel spreadsheet (which was never the case!).
The downside to audiobooks was having to pay for each one individually. Unlike physical books, which you could buy second-hand or catch on sale, audiobooks always came with a hefty price tag for every single title. Those costs added up, and although it’s manageable for some books, it did put a damper on things. I wished for a service like Netflix, where you pay a flat rate for access to a library of books, but I wasn’t aware of any options like that.
So, I downloaded my books one at a time. The last audiobook I got was Mindy Kaling’s “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)”—a brilliantly funny listen. Then, just two weeks ago, I discovered BookBeat, and everything changed. The “Netflix-for-books” service I had been dreaming of was finally here. You can imagine my excitement!
My latest read is a trilogy by Anders de la Motte. It’s a Swedish thriller trilogy, and since I thoroughly enjoyed “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” “The Hunger Games,” and “Divergent” (though I was not a fan of how it ended—it felt very anticlimactic), I decided to give it a shot. So far, so good!
Thinking back, I hadn’t heard of Stieg Larsson, Suzanne Collins, or Veronica Roth before diving into their trilogies, and those experiences turned out well. I’ll let you know how this current trilogy turns out. Anyway, I’d love to ramble more about BookBeat, but I’m off to catch a flight and continue my ‘reading’. You should definitely download the free BookBeat app for your iPhone or Android. So far, it’s essentially a free trial, so there’s nothing to lose!
