BOOKS RECORDED ON TAPE are a kind of jiu-jitsu. In one swift motion they flip a wasted half-hour car commute over into an eagerly awaited 30 minutes with a great novelist, thinker, or storyteller. Cheap Walkman-like gadgets bestow the same powers to bus and train commuters. Mowing the front lawn, doing piecework on an assembly line, or jogging all become somewhat bearable while listening to Ray Bradbury read his science fiction classic The Martian Chronicles, or while immersed in 70 hours of War and Peace. An unexpected bonus is that books heard are often remembered far more vividly than books read. Generally cassettes are rented for 30 days. But you shouldn’t have to buy or rent these; demand that your local public library stock a shelf-full (many do already).
