Late last year I needed to read through two ~400 page text books in about 2 months. I first tried reading them, then after calculating how much time it’d take, I found I wouldn’t finish in time. Free text to speech options did what I needed good enough, so I paid for Speechify. The main reason is that I could use digital textbooks as they were and it wouldn’t reformat them weirdly. The next reason was that it highlight the words as it was reading. So instead of just sitting and trying to stay awake to the audio, I could follow along while it was reading.

After I finished the books I thought about getting back into audio books. Speechify is able to do the same with audiobooks, but other prepackaged service did it better and with less fuss.

Earlier this year my partnet signed up for Amazon Audible. I watched them enjoy it so much I decided to sign up myself. It has some issues, but overall the content, delivery, and availability was great. Talking with some friends we decided to start our own book club. The only requirement was that the books be less than 20 hours so we could easily finish them in a month.

We’re currently on our second book which was picked by my partner. An obvious side effect of a book club is that it keeps you accountable. You’re not going to get in trouble for not finishing the book of the month, but you want to be able to talk with everyone about it and not feel left behind.