Audio books vs. actually reading a book

Audio books vs. reading a book....

Recently due to my job I have been listening to a lot of audio books... I started off with a serious one "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl then to mix things up I went with a Stephen King novel. A really, really long one which I will admit after 30 hours of time I found myself turned off from being read to. For some reason I can sit for hours and read and read and read but you give me a 30 hour Stephen King novel and I find myself skipping parts, rolling my eyes at others, and nit picking. So needless to say for a short while I was completely turned off by the whole audio book thing.

Then I had a brilliant thought. Why not try a book I had already read so I can see what is the real difference of audio books is verses reading. So since I am a big big fan of Jim Butcher I thought why not listen to one of his books to see what the difference is. Well frankly my friends it all depends on how you view being read to. I personally hate it. I enjoyed Changes by Jim Butcher mainly due to the fact that the person reading it made it sound really good (It's Spike from Buffy). And I know the story and yet there were times I found myself going "OH MY GOD PICK IT UP ALREADY"

I think the main problem I have is the speed at which I read. Normally I read very fast and I tend to skim as I read unless I feel it is something to really pay attention to (i.e school books, test, instruction manuals) but normally I am a speed reader. With audio I am forced to listen to EVERY SINGLE WORD and let me be honest I get bored very easily. So with audio books I find myself especially towards the end wanting to rush ahead. That's not to say the book was bad or that the reader of the book is bad it just shows me 2 things.

1) The book is really that good and I am dying to get to the end or 2) the book has way way way too many descriptors in it and I just can't take knowing how many lamps, beds, chairs, the color paint or how the apartment is laid out.

I DON'T CARE for that much description I don't need it and to be quite frank it is the part of books that I skip over and skim anyway so having to listen to it word by word was harder.

Alright sorry I am done with this rant moving on. So I guess in conclusion I am still on the fence when it comes to audio books. So I checked out one more from the library and am trying audible.com to see if I enjoy it enough to "buy" books on there (thus far I am thinking no.) So I am in an attempt to find books for free to listen to online which my library doesn't do yet so if you know of any place that allows a person to "check" out audio the way a library should I would appreciate the heads up. That being said I am still going to keep trying to enjoy audio until I am completely fed up. My thoughts are there are books I don't enjoy reading so the same surely has to be for audio right?

Anyway what are your thoughts on audio books? Do you love them? Hate them? If you love them then which are some of your favorites for me to try?