Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly book meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. toptentuesday

This Week’s Topic :  Audiobooks I can Run To

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This week’s topic is an audio-related freebie, and actually works quite well when I pair it with my main non-reading activity. I don’t know about you, but it’s really difficult for me to listen to focus-heavy things while doing intense cardio. I can listen to anything and everything while doing the dishes, but exercise? Nope.

Music makes up a majority of my aural intake while running, but sometimes on longer jaunts (of which there are have been many lately) I need more entertainment. Gotta stave off the boredom of running through the same park for the 15,000th time, am I right?

Enter audiobooks. But only very specific types of Audiobook. It can’t be too complicated, both in plot or prose. Running in a city requires focus on where I’m going and on my surroundings, so devoting extra brain cells to following a more complex plot is a no go. On top of that, it has to be fast paced and entertaining. That’s the whole point of listening to a book over music- it makes the run more fun! So sorry (most) non-fiction. I love you, but I can’t run to you.

So without further rambling, here are my Top Ten Audiobooks to Run To (which should probably just be called “the last ten audiobooks I ran to” but that doesn’t sound as good.)

  1. The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan – silly vampires and campy action.
  2. Inferno by Dan Brown – cookie cutter plots makes for fun run listening
  3. How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran – a non-fiction exception, funny as hell
  4. Why not Me? by Mindy Kaling – another non-fiction exception. See above.
  5. Armada by Ernest Cline – Formulaic plots make for good listens while running. And Wil Wheaton’s narration was fantastic.
  6. Anything in the Pendergast Series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child – These adveture/mysteries never fail to entertain
  7. Anything by Lee Child – Basically the same, only more action, less vaguely supernatural stuff
  8. Anything by James Rollins – For real, my audible account has probably 40 combined books by entries 6-8.
  9. The Reckoners series by Brandon Sanderson – YA-type adventure satisfies the “no complicated prose” requirement. Plus… so fun!
  10. The Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan – Ditto for this.

So what do you listen to while working out? Does it differ from your cleaning/commuting/walking the dogs style of audiobook?