Déjà Vu - "A Good Story Never Gets Old"

 

 

 In a recent post (Resting) I shared the message in the image above, which I recently received from my Audible app. If you are in the habit of going back to check answers to comments, you already know what audio book(s) it was that gave me that "déjà vu" comment about having listened to the same audiobook "at least 20 times". It appeared after I had (again) recently finished Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, read by Stephen Fry. 

It's also very fitting that the message appeared on my screen just under the "Night Owl" badge - as it is at night that I'm most prone to re-listen to old favourites, rather than start something new. I've long been in the habit of falling asleep listening to audio books - and also to continue to listen if I wake up later in the night. And nowadays, I also need to rest my eyes in the daytime now and then (as a change from all the "screen time"...). I usually set the app on timer - but if I forget, a book may sometimes continue to chatter away for hours in the night without me being aware of it... (So some of my Audible awards may not really be quite as well deserved as it might seem!)

Anyway, the Harry Potter series (especially read by Stephen Fry), but also for example C.S. Lewis' Narnia series, and a number of other "classics" and series that I like - belong to my favourite "night time" listening, because I know them well enough for it to not matter much if I miss parts here and there. What does matter with audio books (especially in the night!) is that I also like the voice and rhythm etc of the person reading, though...

My habit of listening to audio books goes way back, long before mobile phones and apps. It even goes back to before mp3 and CDs - to cassette tapes. I remember borrowing cassette books from the library, and also buying a few of my own. Even back in the 1990s, while I was still working, I liked to just rest and listen sometimes - and did not mind listening in English as well as Swedish. And then I had a neck/shoulder/arm injury that led to early retirement, and also to difficulty holding books to read. And that was still before the days of Kindle and e-books became an option. 

As for Harry Potter, I didn't read the first of those books until a few years after it was first published, and didn't really get "caught up" in them until the middle of the series. (I might write more about that some other time.) Before HP, I already had a few other favourites on cassette or CD/mp3 that I may well have read/listened to 20 times. One of those is the Bristish classic Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, read by Ian Carmichael. I originally got that book as Swedish paperback back in my early teens. I do think I read it before, or in connection with, our first family trip to England (London) in 1969. (My Swedish copy was printed in 1967, and has an image of the maze at Hampton court on the cover; and we visited Hampton Court on that trip in -69). Later I bought and reread it in English. And then at some point I got it recorded on cassette tapes, with Ian Carmichael reading; and then transferred from cassette to mp3/CD. And nowadays I also have it in my Audible library. (Two different versions even! but I still like Ian Carmichael best.) I've have no idea how many times I may have reread or listened to that one. Considering that it's been on my favourites list for around 55  years, it probably beats Harry Potter!