Audiobooks - Cheating or not?

I keep a "Read Book List," a sort of challenge against myself, listing all the books I've read each year, classified by genre and medium:
      Princess Academy by Shannon Hale - YA - Audiobook.

I reviewed my list preemptively this year and discovered I beat my total for 2009! Then I noticed that a great number of this year's books were audiobooks, and the question arose:
      Is reading audiobooks "cheating"?

I don't know why it would be any more than playing soccer for exercise is cheating when one might be running laps instead. It's working different muscles - ears vs. eyes - but the brain is still engaged, albeit somewhat differently. We're still soaking up stories, falling in love with characters, reveling in beautiful language and well turned phrases, and learning new words. Aren't we?

Yet it still seems my gut reaction is to think of listening to audiobooks as cheating. Perhaps I'm remembering high school English class when if you didn't read Romeo and Juliet for Friday's test, you'd simply pick up the video or DVD from Blockbuster the night before. That was cheating. Because you were SUPPOSED to read the text.

But is listening for pleasure cheating? Maybe, and maybe thinking that way is a bit of literary uppityness - only reading is reading. Even though Shakespeare's plays were originally performed. As were Homer's epics. Etc.

Maybe listening isn't a substitute for reading - i.e. If our literary diets consist mainly or only of audiobooks, it might be a good idea to add variety. We need to stretch and grow all our muscles. But cheating? Nah... I don't think so, anyway.

So, yay for 2010 - And may 2011 be an even more story-filled year!

Silhouettes and Shadows Nominated for Best of the Web 2010

Thanks to Two-Bit Editor Matt Williams for nominating "Silhouettes and Shadows" for this year's Best of the Web, which

“compiles the best fiction, poetry, and non-fiction that online literary journals have to offer in an eclectic collection in the manner of other broad-ranging anthologies such as Pushcart, and Best American Non-Required Reading."

 -- Guest Editor Kathy Fish.

Vibram FiveFingers and Cactus

First: I apologize to everyone using CACTI for the plural of CACTUS. You're grammatically right, and I'm very wrong. But I just don't like the way the true plural sounds in conversation.

So... I recently bought a pair of Vibram FiveFingers KSOs (all terrain), and being in a nice, hikeable part of Arizona, thought I'd try them out.

Result: Beware of cactus! If you live in a cactusy area and decide to "go barefoot," take extra care. Although the KSOs performed admirably against a few nasty cholla (aka "jumping cactus" according to Tucson natives), they were nonetheless pregnable between the toes, where a mesh fabric provides breathing and stretching room but not toe armor!

Still, it's pretty impressive to stomp on a cactus and come out mostly unscathed. So if you're like me and can't seem to hike without getting impaled a few times, KSOs might not be the best plan for desert (spiny) terrain. Unless you like the adrenaline rush.

Very Long Sentences

I've been trying to think this one over, and I'm not sure I've come to any satisfying conclusions about Very Long Sentences. Not in the way that I have about, say, dried banana chips, which I've decided I don't like. Or cats, which I like very much. Or trees, goldfish, fingernail polish, adverbs. (I like adverbs, personally.)

But Very Long Sentences, now.... Sometimes, as a reader and writer, when I'm in mood to be impressed with some author for having strung together in such an artful way so many various clauses and ideas -- and the em dash really is quite dexterous because absolutely anything can go inside its little brackets, like a magic pocket in which you can stash whole cities, whole universes even, all safely nested in your original and more or less relevant idea -- I feel exhilarated from the journey, from following the twisty passage of someone's mind, marked so generously by punctuation.

And sometimes Very Long Sentences just tire me out. Sometimes I find them pretentious and distasteful. And confusing! Or not confusing but obnoxious. Often I skip them.

And the worst thing is that the same sentence can have both effects at varying moments. Which leads me to wonder whether there's nothing inherently worthy or unworthy about Very Long Sentences. Whether it's not all in my head.

So, I fall back on statistics. I feel I need hard-ish numbers. People who like Very Long Sentences and people who don't. Tally them up and see who wins, and we'll go -- quite democratically -- with the majority.