Last updated on February 15th, 2024 at 01:00 am
Do you listen to audiobooks? I have here a list of five of the best nature audiobooks that will bring you close(r) to nature. I think you’ll love them! Scroll down to the list if you have no interest in my ramblings.
The Art of Listening to a Book
I used to be anti-audiobooks. Way back when, I thought of myself as a purist, and was originally anti-digital books. I was someone who believed books should be read the way they’re traditionally “meant” to be read. This was before I discovered that reading devices can actually be useful – and have their place, especially when they’re also less expensive than physical books, enabling more people to read more. What turned me was the realization that I could horde hundreds of books in one device, without taking up physical space that I do not have. I mean, I still buy physical books, especially second-hand ones. I can never stop reading them (of course). But I also have a ton of digital books in my Kindle. It’s a win-win thing and I think of it this way: more books for me!
But even after accepting digital books and devices, I was still against listening to books. I’d never encountered it. Nobody had read to me as a child. I was told tons of stories, but they were never read to me from a book. I found the idea absurd, but I understood that it worked for many others. So it was just something that other people did that I never had any particular interest in. This may also be because I thought of myself as a very visual and textual person, and so I would not be able to focus on words being spoken into my ears with no visual counterpart to process those words. (Weird, I know, but this was my thought process.)
Enter conjunctivitis. Last year, I had a severe viral infection that ended up spreading into my eyes. This, the doctor said, happened because I had strained my eyes too much by staring at digital devices all day long even when I was very sick. (This experience, in part, prompted me to write about how phones are stressing us out.)
So, anyway, she forbade me from using my eyes for reading or for watching TV, and basically for looking at any lit screen for more than a few minutes a couple of times a day. (This is hard to execute, but this is how life used to be before the digital revolution, but I digress…)
Learning to Love Audiobooks
I was sad. Reading is like oxygen for me. I moped for a bit, and then remembered that I had an audiobook in my tablet, and figured hey let’s try it. It was the audiobook file of Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard, the inspirational founder of Patagonia. So let me tell you this: the audiobook is over eight hours long, and I finished it over two days of lying sick in bed. (I also secretly credit the book for helping me recover sooner than I would have otherwise, but well, I was also delusional then so…) (Why are there so many parentheses in this post?!)
So then I was hooked. Not to all audiobooks, but especially to ones that had wonderful narrators with dreamy voices. It was a sensation that mentally transported me to the world inside the book I was listening to. It was almost like a meditative experience, especially since I kept my eyes closed and focused completely on the audiobook. I absolutely loved it.
I still listen to audiobooks with my eyes closed. I cannot listen to them while I’m driving or running or whatever, like many suggest. I simply cannot multitask to that extent, just like I could never listen to music while doing math. But that’s just me and my peculiarities. Listen to audiobooks wherever you want, whenever, and however. Just try them out! Don’t take my word for it; listen to the sample and decide for yourself:)
5 of the Best Nature Audiobooks
So, with that out of the way, here are 5 of my favorite audiobooks on nature, chosen not just for the content and the information within, but for the magic of the narrator’s voice and its ability to teleport you to the most beautiful and mesmerizing parts of the natural world.
THIS POST CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE DETAILS.
1. Wild Ones
Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America
Author: Jon Mooallem
Narrator: Fred Sanders (ahhhh! His voice!)
Listening Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
Buy hardcover book: Amazon
2. The Hidden Life of Trees
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World
Author: Peter Wohlleben
Narrator: Mike Grady (Beautiful voice!)
Listening Length: 7 hours and 33 minutes
Buy hardcover book: Amazon
3. A Walk in the Woods
Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Author: Bill Bryson
Narrator: William Roberts
Listening Length: 9 hours and 45 minutes
Buy paperback book: Amazon
4. How Forests Think
How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human
author: Eduardo Kohn
Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner
Listening Length: 10 hours
Buy hardcover book: Amazon
5. Honeybee Democracy
World-renowned animal behaviorist Thomas Seeley’s pioneering research on bees
Author: Thomas D. Seeley
Narrator: Keith Sellon-Wright
Listening Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
Buy hardcover book: Amazon
THIS POST CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE DETAILS.
Audiobook Subscription
A bonus reason to check out audiobooks now from Amazon Audible? Their 30-day free trial (link below). The audiobook links on this page are mostly affiliate links, and I may earn a commission if you click on it and buy or sign up, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support.
What did you think? Do you like audiobooks, or are you yet to try them out?
THIS POST CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE DETAILS.
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