I Checked Out My First Audiobook On Line

I've been an avid listener to audiobooks for nearly 30 years.

I killed my eyes in grad school, so I only read hard copies of serious stuff.

I find popular fiction, by authors I enjoy, relaxing.

And, these days, I have TONS of time on my hand.

I went to the website of my local library to investigate how I can get audiobooks to listen to on my phone.

The selection of authors I'd consider is adequate and the process is user friendly enough even for me.

Over the years, I've developed the practice of checking out Customer Reviews at Amazon. If the 5 star and 4 star ratings of a book add up to 80% or more, and it's something I think I'd like, I consider it.

So, for example, a Beverly Lewis that got 95% wouldn't work for me, an 81% on a Robert B. Parker would work.

I checked out my list of favorite authors: Michael Connelly, Lee Child, David Baldacci, Harlan Coban, Lisa Scottoline, and others, to see what was available to be checked out. Most of what interested me was taken and I'd have to put the book on hold.

Eventually, I found a few of the, in my opinion very underrated, Kate Burkholder novels by Linda Castillo and chose one that got 91% by my Amazon standard and checked it out.

It's entitled, Gone Missing. It's a tad more that ten hours of listening, by a competent reader. I'm already about a third of the way through it.

I'd do this to listen to good Christian nonfiction but the library has a horrid collection of that stuff.

I've blogged about the Kate Burkholder novels before.

Kate's former Amish, now the Chief of Police in a small town in Holmes County, Ohio. As I've said in the past, she's no Miss Marple. Later in the series than this novel she begins to shack up with her beau.

If the books were movies, by today's standards, they're probably PG rated. They're not for the whole family. They're 21st century murder mysteries.

Castillo is not my favorite author. Michael Connelly is.

But, she's good and these novels have some substance for me. They take modern Amish life seriously.

I'm a student of and commentator on, as regular readers here know, the decline and decay of institutionalized Christianity in the West. And, these Anabaptist groups are not participating in that decline and decay. They don't do outreach and they are still growing rapidly because they have tons of kids and, unlike, well, CGGC congregations for instance, they keep most of their young people.

And, I do wonder what lessons there may be for us.

These groups emphasize walk much more  than talk. And, I believe there is much foolishness in our Talk-ism. I suspect that our walkless talk will, eventually, kill us...unless we repent of it.

So, I'm studying Castillo's take on the Amish. It's peripheral to the stories, but it's substantial and serious.

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Anyway, there's a serious reason I gravitate to the Kate Burkholder novels in addition to their well doneness as contemporary popular fiction.

And, so far, I'd give Gone Missing four stars.