59 days, 17 hours, 50 minutes, and 48 seconds

That's how much time I've spent listening to Jim Dale read me the Harry Potter books. I really like listening to books on tape (or, really, books on CD . . . or, really, for me, books on iPod) while doing the dishes, doing the laundry, mowing the lawn, and trying to fall back asleep. The Harry Potter books have been on my iPod for generations, and they're a frequent fall-back . . . especially if I'm up in the middle of the night.

So those two months of time mentioned in the topic are spread out over a number of years, and I've frequently been unconscious or near-unconscious while listening to them.

Still, that's an impressive amount of time!

The most-listened-to CD (I join all the tracks on each CD into one convenient track for iPod listening) is the last CD of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I've listened to that, my iPod says, twenty-five times. I'm not sure exactly why, but I remember falling asleep a lot while Harry waits for Dumbledore to return to his study and have a talk with him.

The next-most-listened-to CD is a tie. The last CD of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has a play count of twenty. I think I was trying to find ways for Dumbledore not to be dead. As desperately as Harry was trying to find ways for Sirius not to be dead. The other twenty-play track is the last one of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I suppose the endings are the places where I pay the most attention. Or they are where I pay the least attention, but I feel that I ought to be paying more attention to them, so I repeat them to savor all the lovely dénouments.

Thanks, Jim Dale, for reading them so astonishingly well. Thanks, J.K. Rowling, for writing them so astonishingly well in the first place!

ds