Audiobooks

40 Ways to Listen to Audiobooks Even If You Don’t Commute

Rachel Smalter Hall

Staff Writer

Rachel Smalter Hall may be a professional Book Rioter, but she still hangs out in the public librarian clubhouse. Two of her top three loves include audiobooks and knitting, and her favorite song is Cold Hearted Snake as performed by Alyssa Edwards and Coco Montrese on season 5 of RuPaul’s Drag Race. She co-runs a boozy book club in Lawrence, Kansas, in her spare time. Twitter: @rach_smalls Website: Rachel Smalter Hall

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Through Book Riot’s relationship with Audible, the leading provider of audiobooks, Book Riot readers who are new to Audible can click here to download a free audiobook and get a 30-day free trial of the service. Audible offers more than 150,000 titles that can be played on iPhone, Kindle, Android, and 500 other devices.

It’s true that many die-hard audiobook fans have had their “Come-to-Audio” conversion experience during a long commute. But even if you aren’t trapped in your car for 90 minutes every day, there are plenty of other ways you can jump on the audiobook trend and see for yourself what all the excitement’s about.

Although I used to listen to audiobooks only if I had long stretches of time to fill, now I power one up even if I’m just standing in line at the post office. I’ve usually already got one in my back pocket anyway, thanks to my cell phone. Those stolen minutes add up, and before I know it I’ve squeezed in an extra book or two from my To-Be-Read pile. (And as a bonus, I’m not as cranky in that 20-minute post office line.)

Here at Book Riot we came up with this list to share with you of some of our favorite ways to listen to audiobooks — even when we’re not commuting:

    1. exercising
    2. cooking dinner
    3. washing dishes
    4. folding laundry
    5. baking
    6. cleaning our rooms
    7. showering and getting dressed in the morning
    8. buying groceries
    9. pumping gas
    10. raking leaves
    11. shoveling snow
  • planting a garden
  • going for walks
  • watching our kids at the playground
  • grooming our dogs
  • petting our cats
  • riding the bus
  • walking to class
  • going for Sunday afternoon drives
  • working on craft projects
  • clipping coupons
  • waiting for our next meeting to start
  • eating lunch in a noisy break room
  • driving to and from our in-town jobs
  • doing data entry
  • waiting to pick up a friend
  • sitting in the dentist’s office
  • standing in line at the post office
  • picking up coffee at the drive through
  • lounging by a fire & roasting marshmallows
  • wandering around a museum
  • window shopping downtown
  • playing dress up
  • getting a massage
  • traveling
  • painting
  • fishing
  • wrapping presents
  • surfing Pinterest
  • taking pictures of pretty things for Instagram

    We’d love to hear some of your favorite ways to listen to audiobooks. See anything new here you want to try? What did we miss?

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