Listening To Abridged Books In The Bath......As You Do.

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Regular readers to this blog (and thank you for that) will know of my love for baths over showers. You also might remember that as I'm cleansing my Adonis like body (the only alternative fact in this post) I like listening to programmes downloaded on the BBC radio iplayer. You might even recall that this scenario was mentioned because I was attacking the writer Julian Barnes for not understanding the nature of supporting a football team.

Well been starting to listen in the bath to abridged books that were broadcast across the week on BBC Radio 4 and 4 Extra in roughly thirteen minute chunks, using each programme as a sort of literary stopwatch. When each episode begins I'm in the bath and when it finishes I Adonisly get out of it.

I'm not sure whether if it wasn't for the combination of the BBC radio iplayer and the bath I would've been listening to abridged books. But there we are. Opposites attract.

Recently I've been listening to Age Of Anger by Pankaj Mishra which quite brilliantly dissects the swirl of nationalism affecting the world today. Currently I'm going through Death of the Poets by Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley which explores the notion of "the doomed poet" and is fascinating even for me, someone whose poetry reading experience is limited.

But (and there is always a but), you'd have noticed that these abridged books are non fiction as most my downloads are. There is a reason for that. With abridged non fiction whilst you know you're not getting everything there is still the feeling that something has been gained. With fiction however, be it an emotion, a descriptive passage or even the possible disappearance of a minor character that feeling for me is that something, possibly important, is missing. And so the experience leaves me unsatisfied.

(Of course when talking about fiction here I'm referring to the novel. Short stories are obviously different. I've downloaded the first in a series of Anton Chekhov tales read by Alistair McGowan. To be honest of the stories I've read Chekhov is a writer I'm very Switzerland towards and am wondering whether listening to them will make any difference)

You may ask why I don't go the whole hog and get an audiobook of an entire novel? Two reasons. Firstly they are surprisingly expensive. If you didn't want to be tied into buying at least one a month (and I don't) an audiobook seems to cost about the same price as a TV series boxset for reasons that I don't understand.

But secondly what these abridgements provide is a way to ease my brain into the day as I'm making myself clean. They act like a first cup of tea to my mind. Why change something that works?

So thank you BBC Radio 4/4Extra till we meet again in the bathroom tomorrow....no peeking mind.

Until the next time.