After working long enough in Hollywood to know I really didn't like working in Hollywood, I began teaching HS English because, honestly, I just needed to see kids having those "A HA!" moments as a way to cope with living in SoCal in the early 90s.
That transitioned to teaching in NYC, teaching English 101, 102, and Honors Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Arizona, but it was leaving my NYC classroom that was the real start of CraftLit.
I know plenty of people say they can't do audiobooks because they can't remember something they've always heard. Plenty of listeners are just like you.
Here's what they do: rewind.
No one can see how often you do it. 😉
Some people listen to the pre- and post-chapter notes I provide, then read the book on their own. It's like Garanimals—mix and match in whatever way works for you (IYKYK), but for goodness sake, don't let another day go by without starting one of these amazing books.
Since 2006, I've been carefully curating books that are engaging, often fun, and are still sub-referenced by people today. You'll never miss another inside joke based on a classic. I'll never feed you AI slop. I'll always be just me, doing my best to bring you the best books in as entertaining a way as I can.
I still follow my own motto: don't teach to the test. Teach to the joke.
And on that note: no one here expects that you were an English major or even that you went to college. Our listeners run the gamut from rabid-book-lovers to terrified-book-avoiders, from having stopped school at 8th grade through having a PhD, and from age 8 to 88 (and counting!).
People who use these stories as elite gatekeepers clearly didn't read them very well.
(And you can tell them I said that!)