If it had not been for on-line digital libraries, I probably would not have embraced audio books the way that I have. As a child, my parents purchased numerous audio children’s books that had a corresponding hard copy book, and whenever the special little jingle rang, I knew it was time to turn the page. They would pop one of those cassettes into a Walkman, place headphones over my little ears, and place the book in hand, as we set out on our long trips to New York to visit my grandparents for summer or Christmas vacations.

With the advent of digital audio books, it took a while for me to embrace them. In all honesty, it was probably partially due to the feeling that listening to an audio book isn’t really reading the book. But that feeling was not all controlling. Rather, the cost of audio books I found to be too expensive to justify, for the most part, and even an Audible subscription seemed too much.

After listening to portions of Born to Run, though, I was reconvinced that audio books are a worthy way to consume written knowledge. And when I finally signed up for the on-line digital collection at my local library, the planets finally perfectly aligned. In the collection were a plethora of audio books, available for free download to my phone. The advent of the OverDrive App made this download process even easier.

So why read with your ears, rather than with your eyes?

Read the rest of this list here.