Audiobooks, borrowed for free from my library and listened to via the excellent Libby app, have been a life-line over the past four years.<p>I went from 3-4 books a year to 3-4 books a week, sometimes more. I listen in the bathroom, while exercising, cooking, cleaning, cycling, gardening.<p>My listening speed is typically 1.75x for dense prose and hard science, all the way up to 2.5x for fiction and biographies. The secret is to score a great pair of earbuds; I recommend Jabra Elite 75t. The further the sound is from your ear, the harder it is to parse speech at high speed.<p>You don't start at 2.5x, obviously; start at 1.25x and increase every day or two until you start to zone out. You'll be pleasantly shocked at how quickly you'll ramp up. 1x sounds like the performer overdosed on benzos.<p>In the past year, I've listened to everything Haruki Murakami has written, the entire Wheel of Time series (4.4M words vs 19D5H), and <i>several hundred others</i>.<p>For free.<p>And yes, I still read paper books, too. Sometimes.