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This is a journey into sound: a journey into BorrowBox Audiobooks

  • 17-11-2025 08:11PM
    #1
    Genghis
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 3,413 ✭✭✭


    I'm starting this thread mainly to keep me in a habit I enjoy, but had completely abandoned: Audiobook listening.

    I was an early adopter of audible.com; my first account was opened in 2001 and gave me 2 books a month. This was a time before smartphones, with mp3 players just emerging but also just beyond my budget. At first I output audio from a desktop computer to audio cassette to listen on the go, later (when I finally got one), downloading lo-fi mp3 files to the limited storage mp3 device I could afford.

    It was love at first listen—a companion on commutes, runs, walks, and chores. I went all in, usually running out of credits and waiting for a new month to renew.

    After a few years, my listening decreased, but for a long time, I kept the subscription, never wasting a credit and buying books I'd never get to. After a few more years, I realised this and cancelled my account.

    In recent weeks I found BorrowBox and, delving in, I found a huge library of ebooks and magazines, a practically endless, totally free resource that amazed me.

    But it is the Audiobook collection on BorrowBox that brought me back. A love is rekindled, and I'm starting out again. I have jumped all in once more, ditching podcasts for books, and finding more things to do with earbuds on.

    This thread will be a place for me to share my thoughts on the books I listen to. You can expect a broad mix of genres, including: Fiction, Non-fiction, Biography, Science Fiction, Popular Science, Thrillers, and True Crime. There will be Irish and international books, new releases and classics—books you will know and books you never heard of.

    One thing will bind these together: They will all be completely free of charge (if you are a member in public library that offers it), and borrowed from BorrowBox.

    In my very next post, I'll dive into my first listen: How to build a boat by Elaine Feeney.

    Tagged:


Comments

  • #2
    Nynthara
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10 ✭Nynthara


    Great idea for a thread — BorrowBox is massively underrated, and once you get used to the rhythm of borrowing/returning, it’s basically a free Audible with a healthier backlog. Looking forward to seeing what you pick up; the mix of new releases and older titles is exactly where BorrowBox shines, and “How to Build a Boat” is a strong way to kick things off.



  • #3
    Genghis
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 3,413 ✭✭✭Genghis


    Review #1

    • Title: How to Build a Boat
    • Author: Elaine Feeney
    • Published: 2023 (Penguin)
    • Narrator: Ciaran O'Brien
    • Length: 8hr 11min
    • Link to BorrowBox
    images.jpeg

    Set in the fictional West of Ireland town of Emory, this book explores the lives of three primary characters: Jamie, a neurodivergant boy just starting secondary school; Tess, a worn-down special education teacher who is struggling in her personal life, and Tadgh, a blow in from the islands and new woodwork teacher at the school, with the air of a man who is running away from where he came.

    The novel starts and ends with Jamie's obsession to build a perpetual motion machine, which in his mind, is a way he can connect with the mother he lost at his birth, perpetually at motion as a swimmer in the only video he has of her.

    I found myself fully immersed the book, and was particularly taken by the portrayal of Jamie. Arguably the book could have centered only on him, but I also enjoyed the development of the other two main characters (and a sub cast of maybe a dozen more), and the interplay between them. The role of community and how it might help to heal is a diminating theme, and it impacts each of the three characters in different ways.

    While it is set in 2019, the town of Emory seems to be also time warped 15-25 years earlier, with old-school attitudes and Catholic school patriarchy more present in the novel than in modern day Ireland.

    The writing is very evocative, the characters are well developed and I found the setting of the town and the school that contain them to be really well brought to life, helped along with a good narrator.

    A beautiful listen from the start to the finish. 8.5/10

    Next up is "Dynasty" by Matt Cooper.



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