Don’t judge an audiobook by its cover

We’ve told you many times about Wrexham Libraries’ Borrowbox service that lets you easily access hundreds of e-audiobooks…but have you actually tried it out yet?

Well we have and we highly recommend it as a great companion for some of the mundane tasks you might be facing, especially whilst we’re all spending some extra time at home.

Get set up easily!

Firstly, you’ll need to be a member of Wrexham Library, but if you’re not a member yet, it’s very simple to join online.

Then it’s just a case of downloading the Borrowbox app onto your phone or tablet – the link to download the app is on Wrexham Libraries’ online services page.

Pop in your library card number and pin, and you’re all set.

So, in our free time – and with many garden fences needing a fresh lick of paint – just a few simple clicks meant we were set up and ready to start listening.

GET THE LATEST COVID-19 INFORMATION FROM PUBLIC HEALTH WALES

Choosing your book

Definitely the most difficult part of the process was settling on which audiobook to pick from such a wide selection.

With categories such as Award Winners, Mysteries and Thrillers, Biographies and Memoirs, History and Business you might wonder where to start.

As a fan of autobiographies, we eventually settled on this category, but we knew we wanted to choose something a little out of our comfort zone.

Browsing through the different audiobooks, you get to see the books original cover, the length of the recording, and a brief description of the content, which was very helpful.

And that’s how we ended up with Judy Murray’s ‘Knowing the Score: My Family and Our Tennis Story’.

It’s fair to say that we didn’t know a great deal about Judy going in, other than her being Andy Murray’s mum and his biggest supporter at courtside.

Like many, we’d seen Judy fist pumping to an almost-annoying degree numerous times on television following many of Andy’s winning shots, but didn’t really know anything else about her.

So, with an open mind and a commitment to several hours of listening, we hit the play button not really knowing what to expect, but also intrigued to hear what awaited us.

Great listening

It was Judy herself narrating, and it was great listening to her retelling her own story, particularly during some of the most poignant moments as we got to hear the emotion in her voice.

As a tennis coach, Judy struggled to accept the lack of opportunities for the young and talented Scottish players she was working with and she explains how she had to be creative to give them the opportunities she missed out on herself.

Judy’s sterling work led to her being appointed Scotland’s national tennis coach on two separate occasions and as she’s telling us about her first interview for the post, we found ourselves willing her to get appointed – trust us, she deserves it by this point.

The skills Judy picks up over these years sets her up well for when her two sons – Jamie and Andy – start to really showcase their talent. She used her passion and experience in making very small budgets stretch far to give them the same opportunities that talented youngsters from other countries were getting much easier.

There’s an interesting part where we learn at one stage there was little between Jamie and Andy in terms of tennis ability as singles players, but a regrettable decision to send Jamie to live in Cambridge to be trained by national coaches backfired. After cutting his stay short, he lost some of his passion to make it as a singles player in tennis.

Jamie’s bad experience meant that Andy turned down a number of similar opportunities until the right one eventually came along for him to live and train in Barcelona, where he thrived…Judy’s money management was really stretched in this period, but she used her nous to make it happen.

There’s plenty of other great stuff packed within the seven hours of listening, but we don’t want to give too much away in case you want to listen yourself.

It’s fair to say that this audiobook wasn’t really what we were expecting at all. Judy has her own remarkable story that we would never have known from just seeing her at Wimbledon or on Strictly Come Dancing.

So in this case we guess you could say ‘don’t judge an audiobook by its cover’.

Join now!

Remember, you’ll need to be a member of Wrexham Library, but if you’re not a member yet, it’s very simple to join online.

Then it’s just a case of downloading the Borrowbox app onto your phone or tablet – the link to download the app is on Wrexham Libraries’ online services page.

Read the most up-to-date information about Covid-19.