You deserve to hear a great story.

And how long has it been?

For some, far too long. As we grow up, we often leave great joys behind. We forget to play, lose interest in drawing for the fun of it, and no longer ask those in our lives to crack open a book and read us a story.

I mean, why would we do that? We can read it ourselves, right?

Yes, but in our quest to be silently independent in the presence of books, we’ve lost something vital.

We’ve lost a realm of creativity, a place like no other, a place that belongs to us.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The realms we leave behind might be forgotten for a while, but they don’t disappear. And though we have tight schedules, bills to pay, and doings to do, we also have a way to reclaim long-forgotten joys even as we speed through our over-tasked lives.

Enter audiobooks.

Glorious, magical, irresistible audiobooks.

For me, they’ve done the impossible—made otherwise hideous commutes enjoyable.

And that’s just the beginning of their talents. Audiobooks change our relations to stories; they expand our creative collaborations.

After all, when you engage with fiction, you become a creator of worlds. When you read, you and the writer come together to craft something utterly unique in your mind.

And when you listen, you, the writer, and the narrator come together.

Voice brings another layer to the collaboration, another soul to the story, another existential form via external sound. The jump from book to audiobook is more subtle than the one from book to movie. It’s a mid-way point—a zone of twilight that retains intimacy and imaginative engagement yet draws the inward nature of reading ever so slightly outward. And all this is done with just a bit of breath and sound.

People sometimes ask whether listening to a book is as good as reading it. Some even suggest that listening equates to “cheating.” Such notions miss the larger point. It’s not about what’s as good or better. It’s about you as a creator and what a different artistic collaboration can bring to your life and imagination.

It’s about fun, expansion, and learning that in the best possible way, you and I are not so different than we used to be.

So, go ahead. Give an audiobook a listen and reclaim your forgotten creative realm. Your collaborators are waiting.

Thank you for reading; click here to get your copy of The Longblood on Amazon! Available in eBook, paperback, and audiobook formats!