Since I started motorcycling regularly about two years ago, I have started listening to books more often. Listening to a book while motorcycling is one of the most exhilarating experiences I have had, especially when I’m away from the city and the traffic and conditions are predictable.
Unsurprisingly, Audible was my primary source for listening to books. I usually have a few audiobooks running at the same time, and, usually, they are different from the Kindle books I was reading. Well, because why would you want to buy the book twice, right?
Some months ago, when I was falling behind schedule in my book-club reads, I re-explored the Kindle text-to-voice feature. It was a wholesome mess when provided as an accessibility feature in older Kindles that came with speakers. Then Amazon started providing it as a bluetooth feature, which continues to be messy when you’re looking for an Audible-like experience.
But things are different on a Kindle Fire. Amazon, for whatever reason that they had, provides a wonderful within-app text-to-voice feature with automatic page turns and speed adjustments on the extremely “budget” tablet, which basically is a glorified regular Kindle that makes customers want to buy more things on Amazon.
I started regularly using the text-to-voice feature on the Kindle Fire to supplement my regular reading in some situations Like when I thought I needed more focus and/or when I’m commuting on public transport. This feature is not great when your hands are busy (e.g., motorcycling) because there is no “pause” or “rewind” feature. Basically, you are locked in and the only way you can go back is to go to another page and start over.
Anywho, I quickly realized that even though my actual reading speed was much higher than a comfortably fast text-to-voice (or even Audible) speed setting. This is because text-to-voice doesn’t really allow you to stop, it really does cover a lot of volume of text within the same timeframe of reading.
The only problem was that I had to carry the Kindle Fire along everywhere. That’s actually not as bad as the device itself, which is so slow and unreliable, especially regarding bluetooth pairing and syncing. How I wished that the Kindle app on faster devices (e.g., a modern smartphone or a better tablet) would have the same feature.
When I did my research, I found no convincing answer as to why this was not available in the Kindle app by default. One would imagine that if they could make it for Kindle Fire, they should also be able to make it for other Kindle apps, at least on the Android platform, right?
Then I stumbled on a potential reason. It seems like they have provided a similar feature on the Alexa app/feature, which I find is more intuitive than the Kindle Fire text-to-voice feature. Plus, it is there on all devices that can have the Alexa app. Plus, on Alexa/Echo devices!
This discovery was a few months back. And since then, my podcast listening has dropped as much as my text-to-voice listening/reading has picked up. Regardless of where I am and what device I have access to, I can listen to my Kindle book! Just ask an Echo device to play (it can even play in speaker groups!) or pull up the book on the Alexa app.
Now, there are some issues. The Alexa app feature is buggy and sometimes does not sync properly. Plus, if you really want to rewind, you can only do that at the chapter level. And occasionally, the chapters that precede the one that you were listening to don’t even appear.
Despite all this, I find this feature to be so useful to cover some ground on reading that I think I can easily finish about 6 to 8 books a month by listening/reading whenever I can!
I especially love the Echo option because it gives me a chapter or two while making coffee, doing the dishes, or doing my physical therapy routine. I generally use it for non-fiction and lighter fiction, where the narrative is pretty straightforward and expected. For more convoluted plots, it is easy to get lost when not being able to turn/flip the page and re-read/listen.
Caveats? Yeah, you may get distracted with other things and may have to rewind. When I’m on a book that I simply can’t miss any of, I supplement it with actual reading (or re-reading) of the book on a Kindle.
I recommend all bibliophiles to explore this feature and add this as a “skill” in their repertoire. In fact, I think it would work for non-bibliophiles too, especially those who want to read but can’t quite sit and get it done.
Go listen/read to some books, y’all!
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