Proclaimer Blog
Listen. Instead of reading (sometimes).
I’m enjoying some audio books at the moment. Not Christian ones, as it happens, but some Len Deighton 1980s spy thrillers (please don’t tell!). These particular books (a set of nine) are my comfort books. I first started reading them when they were first published and must have read the series 15 or more times since. I know some people never read the same book twice, but I love going back to familiar territory to help me switch off and relax (just for those who are really worried I also read David Copperfield, my favourite book, once a year).
Just for a change I’ve been trying the audio version. It’s more pricey, for sure. But it’s a refreshing experience and the well known words have come with a newness I’ve not really experienced before. Even though I know what is going to happen, it’s almost as though I am hearing the text for the first time. I guess this is, in part at least, because these books are so familiar that I probably skip past some of the detail.
I’ve posted before about using an audio Bible and I continue to do that, it’s a valuable resource in the Christian armoury: ironically (for a modern product) it more accurately reflects how the word of God would have originally been disseminated. But what about other Christian books? Why not put some of these on your phone or iPod? Pilgrims’s Progress? £3. Disciplines of a godly man or woman? £10. Hole in our holiness? £11. Basic Christianity? £12. And so on. Worth a shot? I’ll take all the help I can get.