Instant Gratification: Buying Books Online

I’m a book fiend. And I like immediate gratification. Which means I’m craving a Kindle, but that is the LAST investment I need to make right now. However, I can get immediate gratification from Audible.com. The only disappointment is that Audible doesn’t carry every book I want. And in order for the service to be worth its subscription, I really should be more consistent about loading my audio books onto my iPod and carrying the iPod with me.

If you enjoy reading self development titles like I do the Audible subscription is worth the investment because Audible does carry programs from Sounds True – another favorite of mine. Sounds True titles can cost $50.00 and up, but some of the titles carried on Audible can be downloaded for 1 credit. And if you are a subscriber you can get 1 credit a month for about $14.00. That’s a nice savings.

Note: I’m not an affiliate with Audible or Sounds True. I’m sharing them with you because they are my faves for instant gratification book grabs. But, note to self, I probably should affiliate with them in the future.

Both Audible and SoundsTrue let you listen to samples of their titles before you buy. I spend a lot of time doing that and ‘tossing’ books onto my wishlist. Sampling is a great way to entertain yourself at the end of one those work days where you’ve spent 8 hours at your desk and another 3 hours in reahearsal spilling your guts onto the stage and stuttering through lines you know you know, but, for some reason, they aren’t coming out of your mouth with the words in the right order and then you go home and the kitchen is a mess and you just want to – listen to audio book samples.

Discovering a Poet

While I was browsing through titles this week I listened to a sample of The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship. This one is on my wishlist. After listening to the sample, I had to find out more about the author. David Whyte is a poet and a corporate consultant. A what and a what!?!

He has a site online where I discovered he is also the author of The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America and Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity.

He seems to have a talent for opening our eyes to the dramatic and epich poetry that is getting up every morning and journeying to the office and hacking through the political relationships that exisit within the structures that we call “business”. You can read an article about David Whyte and the marriage he has cultivated between poetry and business on the Financial Times website.

Poetry and business – these exist in two separate worlds for me. I have spent most of my life wanting to flee corporate America and escape to the refuge of poetry. But, I think I am beginning to learn that poetry isn’t a refuge at all – that it exists right in the middle of daily life and you can see that only if you are looking through the eyes of a poet.

If you visit David Whyte’s site, and I hope you do, be sure to check out his photos from The Museum of Glass where you will see liquid glass and poetry fused together in yet another unique marriage.

Tags: Business, Writing