I told you last week that I downloaded Libby - the main reason for this was I finally wanted to try listening to an audiobook.

I was going to be driving my daughter to the Cape and driving back by myself, and then I had a couple of days at the house to myself, so I figured it was a good time to start and try to finish one.

I had a couple of ideas for what I wanted to listen to - I thought something funny would be good.

But my first priority was something by George Saunders - I remember listening to him read book excerpts on different podcasts years ago and figured if he read one of his books I would love that.

Nothing was available in time for my trip.

I searched for Simon Rich books - he’s a funny writer.

Nothing.

Then I thought of Steve Martin, and I figured I’d give this book a shot - An Object of Beauty.

I kind of enjoyed listening to a book.

I was a little intimidated by the length at first - that’s almost 7-and-a-half hours of audio.

The ride back from the Cape was a chunk of it, but not a ton.

But with nobody else home I could just let it play while I was making dinner, getting ready for work in the morning...and I painted a bunch so I had it on then too.

And those were activities I could pay attention to the book while I was doing them.

So circumstances were pretty perfect for audiobook listening.

I find sometimes when I listen to a podcast while running my attention will drift and I’ll miss a chunk of a conversation - I’m thinking about the running more than I’m thinking about what I’m listening to.

So I don’t know how often I can do audiobooks. Maybe now that ‘WTF’ is ending I can replace that podcast time with books…but it’s not likely to be a long run activity for me.

Like I said, I enjoyed it - it was a really enjoyable way to read a book.

The funny thing about this book, incidentally, is that as I was listening some of it felt familiar.

I am almost positive I read this book years ago.

But - again, because I’ve talked about this before - I pretty much love everything Steve Martin does. It’s a very good book, but I guess I’m biased. So I’m happy I revisited it.

At some point I’ll do this again - I would very much like to listen to George Saunders read one of his books.

And I was kind of disappointed here that it wasn’t Steve Martin reading his.