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

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
    12. planting a garden
    13. going for walks
    14. watching our kids at the playground
    15. grooming our dogs
    16. petting our cats
    17. riding the bus
    18. walking to class
    19. going for Sunday afternoon drives
    20. working on craft projects
    21. clipping coupons
    22. waiting for our next meeting to start
    23. eating lunch in a noisy break room
    24. driving to and from our in-town jobs
    25. doing data entry
    26. waiting to pick up a friend
    27. sitting in the dentist’s office
    28. standing in line at the post office
    29. picking up coffee at the drive through
    30. lounging by a fire & roasting marshmallows
    31. wandering around a museum
    32. window shopping downtown
    33. playing dress up
    34. getting a massage
    35. traveling
    36. painting
    37. fishing
    38. wrapping presents
    39. surfing Pinterest
    40. 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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