There are so many talented actors narrating audio books these days. They bring novels and nonfiction to vivid life. I am in awe of them. For example, Jim Dale's narration of all the Harry Potter books is brilliant; you forget you are just listening to one person. Our car with four children used to be silent on our 5-hour drives to visit relatives, while we all listened to the Harry Potter books.
72
“Reading” and “listening” are different activities. To paraphrase Twain, the person who can read but doesn’t has no advantage over the person who can’t. Reducing the act of reading to its lowest denominator - what one “gets out of” a text is like reducing a college education to its efficacy in landing a job.
36
I'm glad I read this opinion, as I imagined some of the differences between reading a book and listening to it, but I never looked for the facts and the science that support them. I listen to sections of my book-club readings while driving, if I need to catch up, and switch between the two as allowed. It is exactly when I do that that I can appreciate for the additional insight I gain while reading.
21
Many comments provided excellent reasons for using audio books, specifically for those who are sight or brain impaired. But I sincerely cannot argue with anyone who enjoys audio books either out of need or pure pleasure.
However, for myself, without having brain or sight impairments, I absolutely love reading print books. There is a joy for me in rereading sentences or paragraphs. Reading books in print sparks my imagination, trying to interpret the nuances of the author’s language.
I have tried a few audio books and I found the narration to sound to be barbaric to my ear. They left no room for contemplation and imagination.
My favorite author is William Faulkner, and I can not fathom listening to his The Sound and the Fury through any means other than print. Though, as another commenter has stated that ebooks are useful when my book shelves are at capacity.
31
I'm evidently in the minority. I hate audiobooks. I taught myself to read, my parents said, before I learned to walk. (As did my older sister.) I think, because I disliked being read to. I find even the most mellifluous human voice a bit annoying. My inner ear could summon a more varied and appropriate range of characters than my father's voice. As I matured and took up longer, more complex works. I often flipped back pages or chapters to confirm an insight, follow a leitmotif, savour foreshadowing; moving backward through an audiobook is a pain. Some effects achievable in print don't reproduce in sound -- e.g., the opening of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist; Eliot's The Waste Land (two words, not 'Wasteland' -- a meaningful distinction). Book design, font and layout contribute significantly to the overall experience.
I just like books. They speak to me despite their literal silence.
96
I saw no mention of the reader's interpretation of what she or hes is reading. It can be quite starling.
For instance in one readers interpretation a particular character can sound irritated, and in another's patient or kind.
8
I've just recently started listening to audiobooks and found two advantages. First, many books are read by the authors and there is an emphasis they place on their own words that would be lost on paper. I feel I gain a new/different insight into what the author was trying to say because I hear how the author envisioned a sentence or word being read. Second, I am able to listen in longer chunks of time. I get more of the story because I can listen for longer periods of time than I usually have to read a book, which enhances my understanding of the story.
34
The folks who are insulting audiobooks in these comments must feel sure that they will never develop vision difficulties (or other challenges) in the future.
43
The author is, at least, very confused.
Probably that depends on the recent social warrior movement preaching that what is good for a very tiny percentage of people is truth for everyone.
Audiobooks are good for dyslexic?! Ok, now how do you explain audiobook are increasingly sold... more dyslexic people??
Farther into the article, the author recognizes the self-evident truth: audiobooks are good for simple narrative and fiction. Guess what? That was and is the main reason oral speeches are used for, apart from the natural circumstance of having so few people alive that an extensive reproduction of written words were not required until recently in human history.
There is no equivalence between spoken and written words. The key point is decodification. The written words are translated into an "internal voice" known the rest of previous red words -the context- everything is readable and comprehensible.
Spoken words? You have to pray the speaker has no defect in pronunciation, inflexion, cadence (take english people with their emphasis on cadence and not on key people or verbs, for example), velocity of speech and so on.. Also translating from external voice, nuanced, to internal one, is more difficult than translating from neutral written words to your internal voice.
That said, written words in general challenge you into thinking more qualitatively, spoken words are useful in social exchange, to process on-the-fly and answer swiftly to avoid indoctrination.
8
@Alex p
i meant British (i wrote english, instead of English from England).
Another point is the biggest progress in human history was made since Renaissance, which started by seeking and re-reading all the classical culture, taken away and luckily preserved during the Middle Age. Since then, and soon after thanks to Guthenberg, books multiplied, and people didn't need to get a master who can teach them (and how many do you think would have had the resources to do that if not rich?), but they could get their books and read them, and with many people doing that, literary and social clubs flourished (that is Illuministic period), and eventually scientifically sophifisticated culture resulted, and that's the world we live in.
Also, the only good reason one can celebrate audiobooks today, in my opinion, is exactly this, that it contributes to expand the number of people acquainted with literary works, enabling them to start the same Reinassance period themselves, by educating themselves, and doing that necessarily by reading.
The counterproof is that out of many intellectual people out there in the podcast/youtube/audiobook world, none has got there through the oral tradition they're celebrating; all of them through reading books, extensively and intensively. They have red and thought. And now speak to others about that.
4
Reading has a distinct advantage. The reader is in charge of the pace. In most cases, this is my primary consideration. However, if the content resembles a story and the person who did the recording has the skill of a storyteller, then audio becomes my choice.
I listened to a book recorded by a person with the voice of an old black woman. Since the book was THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN, the story and the voice created a memorable experience for me that I still savor in my memory.
19
Audiobooks have been a lifeline for my Dyslexic daughter. Not only has it expanded her imagination and vocabulary but it has helped to foster her love of ear reading. Parents can only read so much themselves and Audiobooks have helped up.
139
Back in the 1980s, my husband and I drove a U-Haul from Washington State to New York City, listening to Winston Churchill's The Second World War on some 12 rented cassette tapes and enjoyed it enormously, in part because Churchill wrote for the ear as well as the eye. More recently, we drove to Santa Fe and home again "the back way," through the Sandia Mountains, providing us about two and a half hours for Denis Johnson's novella, Train Dreams, read by Will Patton, the best audiobook I've heard to date. Mostly I read print, but when driving uncrowded roads, a good book read by a good reader adds to the experience and offers a new topic for conversation with a traveling companion. I wouldn't recommend an audio version of A Brief History of Time (tried it and failed)--and as for poetry, my understanding of a poem is often at odds with the reading provided by non-authors, so I also avoid most recorded poetry. My grandson recommended Trevor Noah's audio version of Born a Crime--hearing Noah read African languages I couldn't pronounce and enjoying the emotional subtleties he brought to the text, added a lot. Listening is cheating? How silly. Being read to is a great pleasure.
211
@Tamara Many people say they listen to audiobooks while driving. This scares me. Both experiencing (through any medium) a substantial book and driving a car require your undivided attention to do well. People often chide cellphone addicts to 'hang up and drive!' Please bookmark your book and keep your mind on the road.
29
@ACWI turn the books off when I am turning or entering or exiting, and parking the car. Otherwise I can concentrate on driving while listening very well.
The Trevor Noah book is an excellent audiobook, I think in this case so much is added by listening to the author narrate his story.
33
There are periods where I end up driving a lot. During those drives if there's a WNYC-NPR show on that I like, that's it. The rest of the time it's audio books.
Often that audio book is about a subject, most often history, most often about someone or some issue that affects how I approach my work - writing and producing doc films/news shows. Often I have read the book more than once and want to dig into it deeper.
For example I've read Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela's autobiography, Showdown - stories about Justice Thrugood Marshall's life and nomination to SCOTUS, several times. Nonetheless I've listened to each numerous times over long drives to a shoot somewhere.
My only complaint about the listening; when I hear something I missed or didn't recognize as crucial, happens often, and hear it, I can't bookmark it to make it easier to get back to for a deeper, more nuanced understanding.
This is particularly exasperating when I want to quote or paraphrase in something I'm writing. That said, our DP and I spent 33 days on the road last Feb/Mar filming in the south. We listened to both, in their entirety twice. I came away with valuable new insights we employed in putting together several pieces.
Love both, wish more history books were available on audio,
63
Audible and the practice of listening instead of reading, is the single best thing that computer technology has brought to my life, bar none.
My audible journey began in 1973 when I drove trucks and tractors in Midwest cornfields and found myself listening to every last word of the life-altering Watergate hearings. Later in the day I would listen to whatever book was being read on NPRs ‘By the Book’. It was a godsend.
Thirty years later I became a charter subscriber to Audible and bought bundles of credits to reduce my cost per book to a reasonable $10 and made a decision to to read only the best and most lengthy classics.
Since then I’ve happily listened to many hundreds of American, British and French classic literature works and alternated them history and biography.
All my reading takes place when I’m driving, doing ranch work, mowing lawns and other tasks that do not present mental conflicts. I have both earbuds and noise cancelling headphones for noisy environments.
The most valuable lesson thing I have learned from my Audible habit is that I’m able to comprehend complex literature and history much, much better than if I was reading the page.
For example the works of Proust, Karnow’s history of the Vietnam War, Montaigne’s essays, The Denial of Death by Becker, Cervantes, Melville and Infinite Jest by Wallace just to mention a few nut-crackers that become stunning, life-altering and beautiful when they are well read into my open mind.
293
I have listened to many audio books but for me, they will never take the place of holding a hard copy in my hand and reading it. Skipping ahead has never been my practice but there are times when I want to go back to clarify or reread something and that is far more difficult with the audio book. They also make me acutely aware of how poorly written so many books are ~ the drivel and excessive filler that adds nothing but pages to the book. Reading lets me skim over this fluff rather than enduring it or just zoning out.
7
I like audio books a lot. Yet if you lose your concentration for whatever reason, you miss some of the book. Also some authors who repeat themselves force the audio listener to listen to that over and over while those words can be skipped if reading the book.
6
I am completing a 'fun' Philo degree and I identify lectures on Youtube concerning our readings for the week and I use an on-line site to convert them to a podcast and I listen to the lecture while I drive to school and walk to class.
A great little lifehack that I recommend to young and old alike.
9
“Pardon. What was that you said?” — a common experience when listening to a book while driving, and traffic temporarily demands a higher level of my attention. A quick rewind and I pick up the thread again, and readers of audiobooks never take offense.
The only downside I’ve encounteed was on the interstate north of Vegas, when essays in Steve Martin’s “Pure Drivel” reduced me to tears of laughter, badly blurring my vision. History is safer.
14
My husband, Charles, and I find difference experiences when we listen to audiobooks that we have read. We read the gamut from "simple tales" to "hard science."; Louise Penny, Charlene Harris, President Jimmy Carter, Richard Dawkins, Lois McMaster Bujold. The audio book interprets and emphasizes phrases. When the author is reading, we can hear what he wanted to say.
When we get an audio book which is just "read", we eject and return.
We write together as L.C. Frenzel. Part of our edinging process is: I read, and Charles listens to every word. We find where we stumble. Where the writing in not clear.
We do this after the first editing process when the story is in finished, but not polished. We do this again about 4 edits later.
So we have written 20+ novels, not all are published. It's the cadence, the tempo, the exact choice of words that enhances the tales.
32
I enjoy being read to a lot. I also love reading a great book, (say by Tolstoy) at my own pace because I pick-up the context and deeper meanings that way. No need to over-analyze audio vs. print. They’re both wonderful ways of spending time.
21
At 82 my eyes are not what they used to be, even though I am 20/20, I cannot read print very well, I do better with my Kindle but it still is not the same as listening to an Audible book. I also read too fast, I always have, so I tend to skip over words, phrases even paragraphs. Just recently I finished the entire Harry Potter series on Audible, I had read them years before, and yet I got so much more out of them listening to the books then I ever did while I was reading them. I agree with the previous writer who said the invention of Audible was the greatest thing since the invention of the computer.
20
I listened all 14 (16?) Patrick O'Brien Aubrey/Maturin novels back to back when I was commuting an hour each way to my job. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. An amazing reader makes all the difference, and I doubt I would have 'read' them on paper.
Audio books are the commuter's best friend.
11
I mix and match. Most books I read the old fashioned way, well if you count a Kobo reader old fashioned. Sometimes I find an audible book (Tom Hollander's reading of A Clockwork Orange) that is perfect and I don't read the book, I just listen. At other times I've struggled with a text and find the audible version is a good intro (The Brothers Karamazov, Swann's Way, for ex) after which I split my time between the two. Lincoln in the Bardo is a third variant. I found the reading to be too, mmm, challenging but then I listened to the whole audiobook, which is wonderful, and followed that by reading the ebook.
2
I used to read dozens of books each year, and on occasion passed one hundred books in a year. Then I had one concussion too many & found that it took me longer to read than before and that my comprehension suffered. Audiobooks have kept me engaged with books & I'm so grateful for them. I do find that when I'm listening & my mind wanders that I have to go back & relisten, but it's usually less than a minute that I lose & the Audible.com platform makes it easy.
13
Count me in as a fan of both audio and print -- or at least, audio and Kindle. When I am reading physics or economics, the self-pacing of text helps me understand and remember more deeply. I also make notes on my Kindle app. I doubt I will ever read the notes, and certainly nobody else will, but concentration is needed to compose the note, which makes the information in the book stick. On the other hand, anyone who has heard a Timothy West reading of Trollope could never be satisfied with text alone.
5
I am a lifelong, constant reader who, for about 10 years has incorporated audiobooks — heavily at times as I work in a craft-art practice that leaves me free to listen carefully. I love audiobooks, and well-chosen narrators. But I have discovered that what I miss out on in audiobooks is some kind of complex mental response from reading. Reading for 20 minutes has a truly unique, calming or mind-altering benefit that I believe must be about the mind’s attention to narrative and activating imagination. Especially with fiction.
11
The prosody point misses a problem I think.
The writer assumes in his explanation that an audiobook will execute the correct prosody. That is not necessarily the case. Additionally, a reader can re-read to try different versions of stress, etc.
A similar point applies to correct readings in audiobooks as a whole. I frequently hear the word "causal" read as "casual" in scientific, or near-scientific texts. One book had me so annoyed at the narrator constantly doing this I even shouted "CAUSAL!" during a run when I was listening, which startled some innocent bystanders :-)
20
I love listening to the radio, especially NPR, and local NPR affiliates. Usually, I'm in the car.
My some reason, however, I cannot listen to a book being read. I have tried a few times, and quickly lose interest. Before retiring, I had a long commute, but no success with audio books.
I read library books on my ipad and Kindle just fine, I don't have to have the physical book in front of me.
When I read, I often read a sentence or paragraph more than once. Often, I go back a page or two to clarify something. Perhaps this is why audio books and I broke up.
11
Now in the Autumn of my years, I equally enjoy reading books on paper, on my tablets, and through my headphones (Audible).
Sometimes I will have two or three open, and move from one to another as the days pass.
The only times I regret listening on Audible is when the protagonists travel is central to a story (think Lord of the Rings or Follow the River), and when, in non-fiction, raging questions of geography, kingdoms, personalities, and invasions demand immediate access to appropriate maps, photos, and illustrations.
Many of the people who record the Audiobooks are highly-talented interpreters of the content, and like master storytellers, deeply engage enthralled listeners. Some, though, have voices that need tweaking or digital enhancement for me -- a village elder -- to make out what they are saying. Luckily, I can test them freely on my PC before buying.
2
When my daughter, a LTCMDR, in the US Navy made her first deployment in 2009 of six months at sea on a guided Kissel destroyer doing counter-piracy work in the Indian Ocean, I recall nearly wrenching my back carrying two heavy boxes of books in two trips down a very long quay, up a narrow gang plank and then up two or three sets of ladders and trying to find a place for all of them in her tiny room on the ship that she shared with another junior officer. Now, she goes to sea, almost exclusively with audible books. Good thing for dad and her too.
15
I seem to recall 'early days' when audible books were simply read or narrated as opposed to today's trend of 'performing' or acting the book. The latter I am annoyed by and while never a big listener of books, it has made me even less eager to do so. When the story-telling becomes performance, it interferes with my own imagining ir internalizing of the story. I find it a complete, unwelcome and, literally, intrusive distraction.
11
Upon revisiting a few classics in audio form, I found that my appreciation of the texts was immeasurably increased. Two examples -- Gulliver's Travels read by DH Pierce, Rob Roy read by David McCallion. I have also found that listening to histories where the names are "foreign" improves understanding because the identities of the figures builds, and is not disturbed by my multiple mental mispronunciations of the names (e.g., Mao: the unknown story). Beyond these advantages, I am incredibly grateful for the wealth of literature that is available in this format, as is my dog whose walks are considerably longer when I am in the midst of a good book.
10
The difference between reading books and listening to books and which is the superior method toward comprehension?
I would say the more complex the verbal material the more difficult it is to take in by ear alone unless the material is strongly organized toward beauty, which is to say comprehension of complex verbal material drops off strongly when it's only heard unless it's organized beautifully, unlike when we read verbal material, which is to say when we read verbal material we can tolerate sloppiness, disorganization, lack of beauty more easily, we can understand complex concepts sloppily presented more easily than we could if we only heard the material, which is why all sounds made by humans in existence, whether words or music, rapidly are organized toward beauty as complexity increases (think of a poem or a song) while complexity presented to the eye alone does not necessarily have to be beautifully presented to be understood (think of a business report or a novel or a scientific book such as Darwin's Origin of Species).
Listening to verbal material it's more difficult to grasp pattern as complexity increases unless the pattern is compressed and made as beautiful as possible, but when we read we can speed ahead, scan with eye rapidly, take in even quite complex material sloppily presented, we can separate the essentials by rapid eye scan from the inessential in pattern presentation. I can listen to poetry or music, but complex verbal material? I read books.
5
John Stuart Mill suggested that what the reader brings to the text, the actual labor involved in the act of reading, develops a site of enculturation within us as individuals. It's a nice thought. My father in his wisdom explained the concept a little differently, but with the same idea in mind: "Kids -- You want to dig ditches your whole life? Then you have to crack those books, to get the learnin'.'
Maybe you didn't grow up where I did, but I'm sure the ideas are the same.
My mother claimed to have read every book in her small town library in Kentucky. As a result, I developed a fairly significant prejudice against anything without a cover. So as a result I naturally struggle with audio books, which seem about one short half-step away from the passivity and low-grade quality of t.v.
Snobbish isn't it? It doesn't usually come this easily, must be this retirement fog. I'm losing social appropriateness by the hour.
The second concern (having slipped the first one by you, perhaps even by me, which is worrisome) yes, that second concern I carry around like an heirloom, a precious stone. And it's this: You cannot 'abridge' the works of Joseph Conrad, nor the tinkling quatrains and poetry of Fitzgerald, the perfect metaphors, the memorable objective correlatives -- you cannot just 'trim' stuff. Not without sending a few of us scurrying to our doc to get the the prozac bumped up for the holidays.
And looking around?
I think -- maybe we're going to need it?
8
Audio books are a blessing for many people - the blind, the reading-disabled, long-distance drivers, people with no other time to read save when they are doing physical work (housework, yard work, etc.). That said, I hate the audio narrators' interpretations between me and the texts. So for me, I hate audio books, even though I have made more royalties from the sales of my audio editions than from sales of the print editions. Go figure.
4
Makes me wonder about subtitles in movies.
4
In restaurants, I have others describe to me the smell of my food.
Why I love books....
-I can pause over a difficult or especially beautiful passage, glory in prose excellence
-I can mark the page/para that I want to come back to because it is beautiful or important
-I can study, go back, revisit easily an hour, day, week, year later
-If it is more technical reading I can take my time and get it..
-I can lend it to a friend--or borrow it
-I get to go to the library
-I can decorate my house with beautiful book shelves stocked with beautiful books
-I can see what I've read--a virtual catalogue of interests and favorites that marks my passage
-I don't need electricity and electronics beyond light
-I get to hold a book and turn pages--a lovely tactile experience
-I can enjoy prose that was written for a reader, with a reader in mind
-I can read between the lines, puzzle over nuance and philosophy according to my own pace and needs
-I can look at 6,000 years of written history
-I grew up with the written word, learned from the written word, was evaluated by the written word, evaluated by the written word.
Viva all the other media forms...they all have their virtues and advantages. And they're all based on the written word.
But first after speaking is the written word...You read it here...! :-)
7
Well, "wherefore art thou" refers to the unhappy family connections of Romeo in a dynastic feud. It's not a musing about his name, as in: "Wherefore art thou Romeo, instead of Chuck?"
For the rest: the bias in this article toward an informational metric of text is, well, a bias. We have to allow text at least the possibility to transform, transport and transfix our emotional being.
My wife and I do long haul driving for family reasons, and consume audiobooks during the drive. And of course there are cognitive (staying alert) and emotional (passing the time pleasurably) benefits in that context.
But there is simply nothing like hearing a work of literature read by a consummate voice actor. I can't recommend too highly Jeremy Irons' fascinating interpretation of Nabokov's "Lolita," or Tom Parker's virtuoso multidialect performance of Twain's "Huckleberry Finn."
4
The voice, accent & inflection of the reader (we now say performer) can bring so much to a text that just "sits" in our head. Take the mysteries of Tony Hillerman when ready by a native American actor, or True Grit performed by Donna Tartt who is from Arkansas and understand 19th century diction. I've read the books but the audio versions are clearly superior.
7
Audio books are tools to do things. But, as is with every other tool, there are great uses and horrible ones. Much of my career involved driving and frequently at night and late. A good audio book works like magic. I stay awake and am alert albeit that I have sometimes rode happily past my exit. Audio works great for recreational reading. Sometimes there are problems in listening to, say, David Sidaris and there I have spilt coffee or choked on my sandwich being spewed over my clothing. So, the price is okay. History and biography work very well. But, books that require graphs and diagrams don't work well and I have to fetch the printed version. A good narrator can bring clarity to text. Water damage recently to my "real" books is getting me comfortable to leave my books and rely on Audible and Kindle and the real library. And, anyway, I can find those quickly. A great tool.
2
As a now-retired high school English teacher, I love listening to audiobooks but, if I want to study a book for teaching or any other any reason, I have to go with print editions. I need to see style and craft on the page if I'm diving in. Too often, the nuances of craft becomes somewhat lost in the narration.
4
My 2009 paperback edition of "The AndersonMethod" has become a best-seller in its class, and has helped thousands to understand and solve their stubborn weight problem. It's a self-help book explaining the behavioral weight loss program I created to permanently lose 140 pounds in 1985. I have been teaching others since, and the book has given me the ability to teach it all over the world.
Last year, I made it an audiobook, speaking it myself, and I can testify to the extraordinary ability of audiobooks to convey meaning that just cannot be conveyed in written form. Readers of the paperback and Kindle have written to me, explaining that the audio form is so much more powerful, that they heard things for the first time and understood things I had written about in a new way. There is an energy in the spoken word that was not present in the paperback. It energized them, they developed a conviction from my conviction, an understanding they had not achieved before.
It's true that written text does not convey the meaning that tone and inflection does, but it is so much more than that. I don't know if we can really identify what the voice conveys that is so much more than words. It's emotion, but it's more than that. It's magic. There is an energy that audiobooks can convey that printed words can attempt to convey, but they only convey a shadow of the spirit behind the words.
William Anderson, LMHC
Author of "The Anderson Method"
1
I often combine the two and listen to an audiobook while reading the text. This maximizes comprehension if I'm reading literature in a foreign language and even if I'm reading a difficult text in English like Joyce's Ulysses. There are some great readers out there these days.
11
Thank you for this piece, couldn't be more timely. I am surprised that no one has mentioned how much the narrator's voice can affect what you are reading. Even the actual author's voice can sometimes be too much for me. I think imagining, picturing and conjuring are such important aspects of actually reading a book. We fall in love with our characters in subtle ways, bringing to them content from our own subconscious. This is the land where great novelists, poets, short fiction writers live, the magic of leading you with subtle texture. Don't get me wrong, some writers, poets are the best narrators of their own work, but sadly many or not. I have wondered out loud who is tasked with telling an incredible writer that maybe they should pass the narration onto someone else? I do like that Audible allows you to test drive the narrator. After all, you will be hopefully spending hours with this person on a beautiful, intimate journey.
3
My old kindle has a few audio books; I hate them.
The only audio books I appreciate are of poetry; still listen to my old CASSETTE of Robert Frost reading his poetry.
NPR sounds great in the car.
1
Ah, but the voice. I have the Narratives of Frederick Douglass and the guy who's reading is fast and monotonous, like a middle-schooler reading a book report.
The narrative style is so curt, it all but obliterates the beauty of the language and skips over the profundity of what Douglass is saying.
The readers are actors, and some are better than others. But I've had the paperback on the bookshelf for years and never found the time. Now, I listen while I walk the dog.
1
I listened to audio books when I was commuting for a 1 hr drive each way. It would have been nice to have a button that would replay the last 30 sec which I didn't hear because I was paying attention to heavy traffic. That being said, I found that I got the most out of the books when I listened to them 2 or 3 times in a row. That made up for the fact that I couldn't go back and reread a paragraph for greater clarity.
3
When I first signed up for Audible I felt I was being disloyal to book sellers. I took advantage of my first free book selection to pick the longest book available, The Goldfinch. Listening was a revelation for me. Being a visual person I found my imagination came alive as the story unfolded. Without working to decode or figure out difficult names I was free to flow along with the story. I'd compare it to attending a live performance with your eyes closed.
In the ensuing five years I can say I have become addicted to listening to Audible novels and podcasts of various types. I listen in the car both running errand & long trips, while cleaning house, while falling asleep, while working on the computer. I listen to novels I would most certainly never have pick up to read, but have truly enjoyed in audible form.
I could never give up the printed word, but obviously for those with visual impairment or learning challenges audible can and is a Godsend.
9
While it’s certainly understandable that audiobooks serve a purpose that printed text can’t, there’s no substantive comparison to be made for any individual who has the capacity to read unhindered. If dumbing down the masses is the goal, then audiobooks are ineffably superior.
Personally, I would rather have an orbital lobectomy than be forced to endure hearing a recording of someone else’s voice read books to me.
6
It's not true of all audio book readers, but Edward Herrmann just sounds better in my head than does my own voice or any voice I might conjure up. Michael Beck reading John Grisham does a similar thing for me.
I still enjoy reading, of course, but audio books have introduced an added dimension to this person who has read law for so long.
14
There are also individual differences. I'm a retired professor, so I spent much of my life reading. At some point, I think I was fairly well read. Truth is, however, I never read fiction properly. I read for content and miss a lot. On a trip to Colorado from LR some years ago, we listened to Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom on tape, and it was a revelation. I had read a lot of Faulkner, but when I was forced to hear the words, I suddenly realized why he was so great. I pulled off the road in Tulsa to hear to last few minutes. My reading of fiction has dropped off, and I think I should try more listening.
10
I wonder if there are any studies on the level of distraction when listening to audio books or podcasts while driving (in moving traffic).
Sure you eyes are on the road, but I don't see how your mind can be focused on driving and on a book or podcast discussion.
5
I’ve read books and I’ve listened to books. I’ve read and listened to books at the same time. When I just read a book I’m often wondering how a word or name is pronounced. When I just listen to a book sometimes I want to know how a word or name is spelled.
7
Audio books are helpful to ESL students since they can begin to pick up on inflection and pronunciation. But how sad that the pleasure of holding a book while reading it is being replaced by people on treadmills looking at their "burn rate."
And how awful the comment "As the audio format grows more popular, authors are writing more works specifically meant to be heard." Has the writer of this op-ed piece questioned authors as to how they feel about having to write for someone who is just trying to get to the story?
"Hey Romeo, where are ya'?"
6
There is certainly a place and a purpose for both. I'm a lifelong bookworm and particularly enjoy reading 19th-Century British and American literature. But I could never get through Moby Dick -- until I happened to pick up, on a freebie audiobook deal, a particularly good recording of it. I listened to it in the car on my long commutes to and from work. Hearing an intelligent reader bring it to life for me finally allowed me to appreciate its brilliance and depth. And it led me right back to the joys of the paper book. I now participate in an annual marathon reading of Moby Dick at Arrowhead, the Berkshires farmhouse where Melville wrote it, where the two forms are joyously blended.
20
I experienced the same mental dilemma until I read/listened to Moby Dick. Having both the written (ebook) and audio formats enabled me to review and enjoy the parts that I either misunderstood or just wanted to experience again. Thanks for your comment and I am envious of your annual Moby Dick experience!
6
Once, when I lived in DC, I read John Irving's "The Cider House Rules". Rather, I should say I listened to it on the 40 cassettes it came in. That was then, this is now. Tech marches on. I liked the audiobook because as I was driving (in Fairfax County no less) when I realized I wasn't paying attention to the book - I was actually driving - I could rewind and make the reader of the audiobook tell me that part of the story again... One uses what one has, right? No, that doesn't mean I'm gonna buy a Dot and make Jeff Bezos even richer than he already is...
I've always been a rabid reader and for a while when I had a boring job I worked alone is I discovered audio books. They are best for books I would never have the patience to read.
2
Fascinating analysis that reminds me of reading and listening experiences I have had, where one reinforces the other.
In college, an English professor of mine required his students to choose any twenty five lines from Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” memorize them—in Middle English—and recite them from memory before the class. In addition to reading and rereading the lines hundreds of times, I listened to a recording of a Chaucerian scholar reciting the very same verse at least as many times.
Recently, I obtained a copy of the original screenplay of the great film “Michael Clayton”. The screenwriter and director Tony Gilroy said that he wanted the hour-and-fifty-plus-minute experience of reading the script to last as long and be identical to watching the film itself. Perhaps it was partly due to the excellence of the script but, although I missed the “visuals,” he genuinely succeeded.
Whenever I attend the theater, I try, for a variety of reasons, to read the play in question first—again, so that one activity reinforces the other.
As Professor Willingham rightly points out, reading and listening are neither one better than the other— just different parts of a similar process. As a fan of “prosody,” however, listening will never replace the reading of some of my favorite prose stylists, such as Bellow, Nabokov, James and Roth.
While I have never listened to an audiobook, one that entices me is Jeremy Irons reading the poems of T.S. Eliot. “Let us go then...”
2
I enjoy both, from running my finger over the pages of letter press printed pages to the sounds of the spoken words in plays, However I suggest missing from this discussion is Marshall McLuhan, and the developing world culture increasingly at odds with national sovereigniy. Most of this discussion is focused on the quality of the personal experience between the individual and the type of media, However, electronic media, of which audio is one, is changing the world creating an ever growing conflict between what the emerging world culture will increasingly see as their birthright and natijonal sovereignty. controlled by that group of people who are most resistant to giving up their power without war, i.e. politicans and their idealogy of the sovereignty of the nation state.
OMG, audiobooks have changed my life. They fill the mental void when I swim, garden, commute, etc. - times I can't read. Some people like the 'Zen' aspect of these activities; I on the other hand get through 30 books a year I would never otherwise have time to read. My only lament is that so much great writing is still never recorded as there is no mass market for it. Still, it allows me to get through the popular media and, when it is fiction, to enjoy the narrative style, especially true when the author is doing the reading.
10
I have always been an avid reader and in the last 10 years I have added audio books as a way to explore literature. As a result I now "read" many more books each year. I agree with Willingham that the experience can be very different. Of course I am multitasking when I listen to a book. Sometimes I am distracted but just as I can flip back in a book and reread a passage, I can rewind an audiobook and focus on something I have missed.
I find that the audiobooks that are read by the author are the most satisfying. In those audiobooks I know what the author wants to emphasize, what the author thinks is most important. There is a richness to this experience that cannot be duplicated on the printed page. For my favorite books, I will both read the book and listen to the audio. I certainly do not consider it cheating to listen to a book. Hurrah for both formats.
3
Have you considered the effect of reading and listening at the same time? I listened and read the Odyssey that way. It allowed me to slow down my reading speed and focus on the written word while savoring the spoken. A truly memorable experience.
11
@Martin Moebus Really helps with Shakespeare, too.
4
This was a very thoughtful piece. I understand listening as an alternative to reading words. For some it is an escape from being “present.” Not sure how one can cook or prepare a meal without listening for the sounds of cooking, boiling over, or giving full attention. No matter whether we read words on a page or listen, giving full attention is still required.
2
I'm a fairly fast reader - not a skimmer - but fast. I continue to prefer a compelling "easy" read, like a crime novel, in book form. I've discovered, however, that I hear and absorb the beauty and the cadence of a more complex novel on tape, perhaps slowing me down and allowing me to hear the poetry of the written word.
8
Putting aside the fact that I don't listen to books, as I can't discipline my mind from wandering off on its own or being jolted away by some visual disturbance, I would question that any narrator of books is the definitive interpretation of the language, unless it's the author themselves. If we can view a piece of fiction as a work of art, what's to say the reader isn't entitled to her or his interpretation of the meaning of a sentence? I read a sentence and my mind and perhaps my heart respond to it. I will be sent down a path by that response, possibly unique from the author's intent, but once art is shared, it belongs equally in the hands of the viewer/reader.
2
As a print devotee, I don't sniff at all at audio books. (Forty years ago, one of my sisters who was mentally disabled listened to Books for the Blind, on vinyl.) Where I take issue is the notion of "multitasking": when you mop the floor, be present while mopping the floor. Or as Thich Nhat Hanh explains: "While washing the dishes, one should only be washing the dishes, which means . . . be[ing] completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes. . . . [W]hy put so much stress on a simple thing? But that's precisely the point. The fact that I am standing there and washing these bowls is a wondrous reality. I am being completely myself, following my breath, conscious of my presence, and conscious of my thoughts and actions. . . . [Otherwise] we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact, we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink." The same goes for eating a tangerine, or listening to an audio book.
3
I also love both formats, but I have read many more audiobooks in the past few years than paper books because it expands my time available to read and is also more available when I get unexpected reading times (waiting in a waiting room, stuck in traffic, etc). I love audiobooks read by the author as they will put inflections exactly where they intended them. I do tend to read more technical books on paper as I can re-read a complex paragraph or if there are illustrations/graphs/diagrams. I also use the audiobooks at night to go to sleep and set my sleep timer so I don't fall asleep and miss portions. I find the books to be more distracting that white noise but I have sometimes gotten so into the story that I keep resetting my sleep timer!
4
@DJ Great minds think (read) alike. I am totally addicted to going to sleep with an audiobook! The next night I usually have to back up a few chapters to catch what I slept through.
3
I spend more time reading on my iPad than I do listening to audiobooks. I read probably twice as fast as any audiobook presenter, and, as necessary as their low[er] speed is, their slowness irritates me. Further, I have a deep reverence for the printed word, but my hands are arthritic and holding anything heavier than a small paperback gets painful. The iPad has solved this problem. However, the books that I truly cherish and wish to keep ready at hand I buy in hard copy.
1
I have bookcases all over the house, filled with the thousands of books I've read over the years. And now my Kindle is full, too. In all that time, I've listened to just one audiobook.
I found that listening to the audiobook in the car while driving to work was distracting and dangerous. And inevitably, I'd arrive at work in the middle of a chapter, which was especially frustrating because I'd have to wait until the drive home to hear the rest of it. No thanks.
When you read a book, you create the environmental surroundings of the story in your mind. You exercise your imagination. You hear the voices and sounds according to your own perspective. You fall into a mental and emotional zone, where you become a part of the story. Your focus is intense, and it is so upsetting to be distracted out of that by someone talking to you. It is a magical, escapist experience.
That doesn't happen with an audiobook because the entire experience is served to you on a silver platter. For me, it was more like watching a movie instead of acting in a life role.
Others may think differently. But my experience, based on hearing just one audiobook, is that reading counts, not listening.
5
@Max Dither Remember that people listened to stories before writing was invented. A lot of the Bible was transmitted orally for probably centuries before being written down. This is all a matter of personal choice, so what you prefer is just as valid as what I prefer, but listening counts too.
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@Max Dither
So you think that only one "exposure" is necessary to give you full ground to assess radio books? How could your own imagination be better than hearing Trevor Noah's own voice recent his childhood? Can you really supply his accent, inflection & cadence?
3
The problem I encounter with audio books is that it’s too easy to become distracted or pretend one can multitask while listening. The recording doesn’t stop during those moments that the mind drifts. The printed book, on the other hand, doesn’t continue as the mind wanders, it stops and waits until attention is returned.
3
In my 20's, I read Alfred North Whitehead's "Process and Reality." It was worth it, but I labored over each sentence several times, slowly. Those were complex thoughts! Textbooks, manuals, all need repetition and often slowing down. With fiction, though, a good story benefits from a good storyteller. As Dickens wrote each of his novels, before it was available in print, he sold out auditoriums reading them to the public, complete with acting out the characters voices and mannerisms. Different writing serves different functions.
15
I love audiobooks. I commute by train, so in theory I could read a print book. But audiobooks don't give me motion sickness.
11
I have been listening to audiobooks for about 25 years. My wife and i would get books on tape for car trips. Then I figured out that I didn’t have to be on a trip to listen. I could do it whenever I was in the car or engaged in any mindless activity. I still have 3 or 4 Walkmans around the house from those days. But the activity that really facilitated my listening now to hundreds of books (shout-out to my local library) is going to the gym for over 20 years. On the treadmill or the weight machines, I’m listening, about 1.5 hours per visit.
I have some favorite narrators. To name a few, Edward Herrmann is great, as is Alyssa Bresnahan. For mysteries, you can’t go wrong with Scott Brick. John Lee is great for English epics. And George Guidall for almost anything. I can’t remember the narrators, but some books I have listened to especially stick with me. Two examples would be The Poisonwood Bible and A Fine Balance, great stories of our shared humanity. Good narrators bring characters to life. I read books, but audiobooks have allowed me (and my daughters who have followed my lead) to get through far more than I would have without them.
16
@John Woods
Yes, I loved George Gidall reading some of the Tony Hillerman mysteries. His tone and cadence is like listening to a very good storyteller - extremely satisfying.
4
Your brain processes written words and verbal very differently. Books are meant to be read. How do I know this? I have my Phd in Enlish Literature from U of C and read thousands of books in my early life, often a book a day. This doesn't mean I am "against" audio books. The world changes and most of us change with it. We are becoming an audio culture, and honestly it is much better than being a "twitter" culture. However, any competent reader, can absorb more information more quickly thru reading. Our cultural inability to read today has ramifications for critical thinking and culture. I've studied all forms of communication. I had a talk radio show before it was cool. I was a scholar of literature & film history. I welcome the return of thoughtful conversation in podcasts. It is something we have been missing for years in our coporatized culture. And it may lead us back to reading which is really can a form of deep thought. It can also be a form of novelistic escapism. I am in favor of both. The voice of radio ushered in a new era of lieteracy and thoughtfulness in the 1940s. I don't know where it leads us today, but I will probably be llistening to a podcast today.
7
A chapter in an excellent book dealing with our changing mental schemas is in The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr, 2011. Specifically, there is a chapter dealing with the changes to our brain when our main form of reading is from internet website texts, and when we listen rather than read. It's contributing to the "dumbing down" of Americans.
1
Listening to a book is never as good as reading it. What many real books lack, is an index that makes it easy to find certain passages.
1
@Tuvw Xyz If you think that, you aren't listening to the write readers! A great reader can make listening way better than reading.
1
I took a 'speed reading' course while still in grade school. We had to grasp the essence of printed material momentarily projected on a screen. After each passage we took a quiz to assure that we had captured the meaning. As the course progressed the printed material appeared ever more briefly. It was hard and it was one of the most valuable courses I ever took.
It even helps today when I read dense material like court decisions, government regulations, and financial statement footnotes.
I can read ordinary printed material much faster than anyone can speak it. But I do enjoy listening to audio books when driving. I don't retain much of what I hear though.
2
Are we cheating by listening to audiobooks? Writing is less than 6,000 years old, but the oral tradition predates that by millennia. Humans from all over the globe have been gathered around the fire to listen to stories that have resulted in the written texts of the Bible and Homer's The Odyssey. Technology is allowing us to come full circle in during our busy lives with earbuds taking us to the front row of the town center to hear modern takes of folklore, mythology, and epic poetry. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
11
Thanks for this.
I typically check out 5-6 books at the local library each week, and equally enjoy listening to "books on tape." What I do if I want to tackle a big subject - say, a work of classic literature whose physical read is dense - is to listen to a summary of it first, then go after the actual book.
But! Listen to this.
If I need to really wrap my head around, say, a complicated long-form NY Times article about electric vehicles or what our government is doing in Yemen, I will read the article out loud, as fast as I can, into Garageband, then download an MP3 and listen to MYSELF reading the words in my earbuds at, say, the gym or in the car.
Reading is one thing, comprehension another, which is why a concerted effort is key - "I can't 'half-know' what's been said, and I really want to make sure I get it" is my motto.
5
Basically what you are investigating is what goes on inside everybody's head and I guess it's not always the same thing . I learned to read at the age of about 5 and after a year or two I was reading about a book a day and was only conscious of the individual words if they were new. As today, as I read I hear the words inside my head and even that is rapidly converted to moving pictures as I read. I had always assumed that was how everybody read and it seems the experience differs greatly between individuals.
5
As an ex music major and sometime writer, the sound of words is part of the fun.
Even under-inflected text-to-speech apps get me through my trove of daily newsletters.
And the iPad voice that reads the screen when you swipe two fingers down, she read me this article, is now my preferred news anchor.
Information overload is making us sound collage artists.
3
The only book I've listened to was Huckleberry Finn. Loved it. Sometimes when I got home from an errand, I would sit in the car waiting for the end of a chapter instead of going in the house.
I had read the book a couple of times, once when I was too young to understand everything, especially the theater episodes, but listening to it brought a whole new appreciation.
I tried to listen to Sherlock Holmes, read by Stephen Fry, but couldn't get into it.
I prefer reading fast to letting a reader decide the speed. I was a passionate radio fan in early childhood and still enjoy listening to old-time radio. Detective shows, soap operas, etc.
2
I always have one audiobook going and one physical book (sometimes on Kindle and sometimes the book). It depends on when I'm reading which one I go to. I was a long time wedding photographer and spent hours on end editing photos. I find it just this side of impossible to edit photos anymore without a book playing in the background.
Because I needed to sit at my desk for so long, I choose thrillers and spy stories on audio because they keep me in my chair and make the time past very quickly. Michael Connelly has helped me edit many a wedding!
When I'm reading a physical book, I can go with something more literary.
Now that I'm moving out of photography as a career (I'm now a travel adviser) and can't listen at my desk anymore, I listen when I drive or doing household chores. So for me it's not either or but when and why.
8
@Cayce Callaway Same here, I always have one of each going. For me it is most often fiction for the audiobook, nonfiction on the kindle. I'm in the middle of a transition (retirement relocation) so all my physical books are currently in storage.
2
I wish I had ventured into audio books years ago when I first started commuting. I have little other time for reading at this point, though, nearing retirement, I am looking forward to that changing. The two forms of reading are very different. I do find that the narrator makes an enormous difference - There are several books I have been unable to continue because I find the narrator's voice or style so annoying or inappropriate. And I often feel that I need to purchase the written copy when I particularly enjoy a book and know that it contains prose or information I would like to revisit. Also, the importance of these books to people who have lost their vision can't be over-emphasized. I only wish that more had been available when my father, always an avid reader, suffered with MD during his 80's.
10
I was never much for literature as a kid, until my dad tuned into Dick Estelle, the Radio Reader on WBAI. From there I was hooked, and made his program a regular feature of my day. Thank you public radio. I continue to find listening to fiction superior. I close my eyes (not while driving!) and am transported to the world the author has created for me. Plus I get all the correct pronunciations! Non fiction is tougher to hear. I tend to history and economics, and can't do without the photos, maps, charts and graphs. A place for both.
4
Good article. It was (I'll use a phase that I rarely get to use much anymore) "fair and balanced".
2
As a Reading teacher of 6th grade students I make sure they have the text in front of them as they listen. This process allows them to use text and graphic features to support their comprehension.
4
Since it seems the whole world is reading Michelle Obama's "Becoming", that same world should know she narrates the audio version of her book and, I kid you not, it feels like she's telling her story personally and directly to the listener. It unquestionably adds to the experience of the book.
27
A book: paper, ink , marks left by previous readers..
The possibility to stop at the end of a sentence, read again to understand better.
The connection with previous owners of the book, with ancient times the book travelled through...
Audiobooks and kindle books are not for me..but...
I recently bought audiobooks for my 93 year old father who recently turned blind and found out they can help.
I like to read science on Kindle, because you can enlarge figures and see them much better...
3
Interesting piece, but I wonder why this is considered opinion.
1
When you're reading a book it's just you and the writer. When you're listening it's you, the writer, and the narrator.
4
I find that I am able to “read” much faster than I can listen so I stick with ebooks from the library.
1
Bad choice of a Shakespeare quote: the word "wherefore" actually means something closer to "why" than "where."
2
I used to regularly drive 2.5 hours each way to visit a Colorado prison to provide meditation classes. The riide out was fine BUT I had major problems staying awake on the ride home. This was despite coffee, Prairie Home Companion, etc. Then my girlfriend suggested Audio Books. What a revelation !!! No more drifting off to snooze. I told her, truthfully, she probably saved my life.
14
In those long-ago days before television, when radio dominated the public consciousness, listening was necessary and valuable. Today we are conditioned/addicted to speed, flashy images, lots of sound and fury signifying more sound and fury. How many concerts would be disappointing without plentiful fireworks with million-dollar sound and lighting extravaganzas?
Our children, hooked on computers (like this one) and multi-multi phones seem to need constant "entertainment" -- making a teacher's job a matter of performance art -- or a matter of letting hi-tech do the teaching.
Words have sounds, good writing is more than a mere string of words. Rhythm, emphasis, pronunciation -- meaningful pauses . . .
For students and others who may have trouble reading for whatever reasons, audio works are a blessing. Consider how difficult (even impossible) it is to introduce (say) Shakespeare without hearing the words spoken by experienced actors, without seeing the plays performed live (or on film). And audio books for the vision impaired are vital to the listener.
The Internet and its abbreviations tell us that language is not important. U c?
There is beauty in listening, just as there is in reading printed language. Perhaps without losing an ability to listen, we would not have elected some of our political embarrassments.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
108
My library has a limited selection of audiobooks--very well selected by intelligent, educated librarians.
I probably would not have picked these out on my own for pleasure reading--many seem hard and difficult or perhaps outside my interest zone. My work day is so draining! I also don't feel like doing chores when I come home.
Combine chores and a 'hard' book, and I get a lot done. Not as much as if I were studying the topic in a university course--but a lot.
Here are books I would (probably, who knows) never had read, but I 'read' while doing yard work or home repair, or just house work:
Atlantic, by Simon Winchester
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956, by Anne Appplebaum
Power, Inc
Power, Inc.: The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business and Government,by David Rothkopf
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee
The library audio books come in 3-5 minute sections. Sometimes I listen to the same section multiple times.
4
There are so many novels i would never consider reading because, reading snob that I am, they aren't worth the time. But when one spends hours outside with lots of ambient traffic noise, listening to a well performed book is a sanity saver. I've listened to all of Patrick O'Brian and will listen to anything Davina Porter performs, no matter what the literary value. I've even started listening to Georgette Heyer! And young adult books? Fantastic! But I still read Faulkner and read and listen to Dickens --Great Expectations, what larks!
7
Prof. Willingham ~ As a UVA alum, Col. '71, BA English, I dearly wish I had access back then to the audio I enjoy today. I've been reading mostly by audio now for 3+ years and have "read" more books in that time than in the previous 40 years. I am NOT exaggerating. What a thrill it's been for me. Most of Dickens, is one example. I'd have never gotten through those with "books in my lap," so to say. As a slow reader who stupidly took 18th century British and 19th century American lit in the first semester as a Second Year (UVA terminology)-(and, where was I with my advisor? one might ask), I experienced performance suicide. If I'd had audio versions of the quality we have today (Simon Vance for Dickens is just one stellar example), and if I'd also followed the text as I'd listened, I might have achieved a few A-'s instead of mostly B-'s and C's (and worse). As a history teacher to younger students my entire career since, I cooperated often with my English teacher associates for discerning learning styles and difficulties among our students. In recent years (though now retired from the classroom) I've argued for adding audio as a serious option for the more challenged readers, but the idea has gone nowhere. So I argue for it with parents when I can, and many agree. I hope schools will gradually continue to add audio
as a curriculum option. Thanks for this clear and balanced column; posting now to social media with similar commentary as I keep arguing for audio wherever I can.
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I have been the narrator of several audiobooks. I’ve never listened to my own recordings, nor have I ever listened to any audiobooks. I own about 10,000 print books, as well as several thousand on Kindle, though reading on my I pad is never what I desire. Simply out of room for physical books!
Audiobooks are wonderful for many, but not for me. If I can do something else while listening, I cannot be absorbed. Further, as numerous studies on writing by hand show, there is a different process involved than typing. As a writer, I always begin with pen and paper; except when using the comments section of The New York Times. Somehow, I think reading physical books and writing by hand are linked in their neural pathways.
Podcasts are great, yet I always abandon them prematurely. However, if I’m a passenger in a car, I’ll listen to anything. Short stories are wonderful on drives. One other exception, poetry. I could listen to that anywhere, any time.
To note: my New York Times and my New Yorker subscriptions are on my I pad. I still get both print publications.
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@Person
If I can do something else while listening, I cannot be absorbed.
You obviously do not knit. : )
35
@Person
I agree about the preference for pen and paper and print publications. I moved countries about a decade ago and had to whittle down my physical library, which just about killed me. I tried to keep the books I couldn't replicate on Kindle--art and other "coffee table" books, as well as books that felt weird to me to read electronically (mostly literature and historical fiction). I'm back in the States now, but when I was abroad with no access to English language bookstores, my Kindle was a godsend, as were audiobooks. Even now, I'm in a fairly remote location, so I haven't cancelled my Kindle Unlimited or Audible subscriptions.
As for audiobooks competing with whatever task I'm doing, it depends entirely on the task. I can wash dishes, fold laundry, and paint walls almost on autopilot, so I don't feel I'm losing any of the content by multitasking with an audiobook. And if the time flies by without my noticing how long I've been at a given job, that's the sign of an engrossing book for me (and often a gifted narrator). I love listening in the car too, although I wonder if it's as distracting as talking on the phone. Also, audiobooks in the car are a highly personal thing. I can only listen when driving alone.
14
@Person I recommend that you listen to at least one of your readings. Some narrators of books are great; others just drone on. I abandon books that are flat in their narration.
Yes, we own print and kindle books. We prefer the hard copy, but take the kindle on every trip.
We write on computer, edit and read on hard copy. Read aloud to each other to listen to the language.
There is an old saying.
Tell me and I will forget.
Show me and I might remember.
Involve me and I will understand.
So the audiobook has to engage us to remain with it.
Lydia and Charles Frenzel, writing as L.C. Frenzel
7
A very interesting article! Thank you.
I would add that reading the printed page also gives me the opportunity to "talk back" to the author--underlining, making marginal notes, adding question marks beside sections I will need to revisit. I feel more engaged by this type of reading.
4
Some books are better appreciated in print form because they're too confusing to listen to. I recently finished a novel on CDs that jumped back and forth between different time periods and also shifted without warning among the points of view of different characters whose relationships to each other weren't made clear until the end. It was very well-written, but I missed some key plot developments because I was so disoriented.
For the past 12 years, I've owned two homes that are a 14-hour drive away from each other. An unexpected benefit has been the opportunity to listen to books when traveling between them.
Over the years, I had tried several times to read James Joyce's Ulysses, but I had never been able to get into it. The $250 I spent on the CD version was well worth it. As soon as I started listening, I realized for the first time what a truly funny, entertaining, engaging novel it is. Another example of a book I had tried to read but Ioved only after listening to it was Lolita, brilliantly narrated by Jeremy Irons. Dickens' Bleak House was also a great audio experience.
I now listen to dozens of CD books every year. I end up buying the print versions of many of them because I want to make sure I haven't missed a word (on the road, traffic and weather conditions can be distracting).
89
@Carson Drew Jeremy Irons reading Lolita still holds my number one spot for best narration of any of the hundreds of books I've listened to. What a voice. What innocence and menace. Sheer brilliance.
20
@Carson Drew, Ditto as to Jeremy Iron's voicing "Lolita."
6
@Carson Drew Be careful driving ! It's not the "traffic and weather conditions that can be distracting", it's the audiobook that can be distracting from the primary task of driving safely.
8
Audiobooks were a lifeline for my father, an avid reader, after macular degeneration stole his vision. They were recommended by a very perceptive doctor, who sensed that my father would enjoy maintaining some of the activities that he had lost along with his vision. What a godsend! Books on CD helped keep Dad mentally engaged through the end of his life. He had always loved owning physical books, too - his collection filled cases and shelves on every floor of the house - but he enjoyed their audible counterparts just as much.
251
Perhaps, Dr. Willingham, it depends on the individual. Mavis Gallant, a Canadian journalist and author of short stories, remains reticent when writing semi-autobiographical notes. The death of her father, Angus, at 32 was a defining moment in her life at age ten.
'In Youth in Pleasure', she returns to Canada and receives three different versions of how he died. This is how she concludes: 'The revolver featured in all three accounts', but it is the fourth account that the reader, let alone the listener might wish to revisit.
'Angus kept it at the back of a small drawer in a tall chest used for men's clothes, and known in Canada as a highboy. In front of the revolver was a pigskin box of ironed handkerchiefs. Just describing that drawer dates it. How I happen to know that it was loaded and how I learned never to point a gun even in play is another story. I can tell you that I never again in my life looked inside a drawer that did not belong to me'.
Now. Had a reader been 'listening' to this story, it is possible that this account, while recorded, might have been lost in the power of a written testimony.
There is also the matter of learning grammar, while reading, and learning the difference between a story-teller and a writer. One may be brilliant at capturing the attention of listeners in the embroidery of anecdotes, causing them to wish that you would write.
In the interim, you have inspired this reader to 'listen' to "A Cricket in Times Square" for a view.
As Mr. Willingham surely knows, many students now no longer wish to read (or re-read) long, difficult texts (let alone read anything at all). If something can't be comprehended immediately, it must mean the text is not comprehensible. While audio books are wonderful, and I've used and enjoyed them myself, I worry about our culture's loss of focus and attention. As the article notes, "When we focus, we slow down. We reread the hard bits. We stop and think. Each is easier with print than with a podcast."
When we stop exercising those muscles, we risk losing our ability to think through difficult ideas and problems. And that, in turn, has risks for our body politic. This is not an inherent problem with audio books, of course, but rather a cultural observation that convenience and efficiency have become priorities in our lives.
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I enjoy audiobooks while on long car trips. The experience is clearly different from reading, and the narrator can make or break my opinion of the work regardless of how I might view it in printed form.
To me it's no different from podcasts vs. reading online.
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I've always had trouble with reading comprehension (was diagnosed at age 52 with ADHD--now I know why). In college I took an upper level Shakespeare course and was floundering, until someone suggested I listen to the plays. Our library had most of the works on record albums (yes, that long ago). I sat for hours and hours in a tiny room wearing ear-numbing headphones, as I made my way through the master's oeuvre. I ended up with an A in the class.
5
A great article about something I often ponder. And the points made here, especially the inability to bookmark or highlight, are the same weaknesses I have discovered about listening. I have definitely found some books work better for listening - punchy, action filled mysteries in particular. But then, I’m often driving when listening.
And when I don’t care for a book that I’ve listened to that others are praising, I wonder if I would have liked it better had I read it.
1
I like having a choice in how I read/listen to a book. I prefer having a book in hand but have used a Kindle and listen to audio books on my daily commute.
I think it all comes down to choice and preference. And if there comes a time when I am unable to read I will welcome audio as I cannot imagine a world without books (in any form).
5
Using the bard as an example actually undercuts the author's argument or turns it on its head. Shakespeare's plays were meant to be heard and seen, not read. So the question arises: what have we lost when we only read them?
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Like a number of other readers/listeners here, "overdrive," "audible," cds from the library, whatever it takes... life is short and there are far too many brilliant books. I am getting them into my eyes, ears, and mind in any way I can. I am truly one of those who cannot imagine dying without having read everything I want to read, and can imagine heaven only as a place where I will have the time to do so. The Twilight Zone episode with Burgess Meredith.... remember? His broken glasses? I wept.
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Not to hijack the topic, but this difference is why we should not consider audio books as a replacement for Braille for people who are blind, especially children and college students. Literacy must include reading.
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@Righty
I don’t think the article made any such assertion. I find the idea interesting and wonder if you can support it?
3
I now listen to more books than I read. I live in a city, and walk everywhere, so it fits. I also find that when I read, I often skim through slow parts, and therefore miss some really good writing. This first hit home when I listened to Steinbeck's East of Eden -- the first bit is a beautifully written, yet lengthy description of the Salinas Valley - had I been reading it, I would have missed so much.
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It is not either or.
Most of the books that I love are not available in audiobook form. I notice that older books are not available and certainly not those in many other languages. I have a library of over 1,000 books in Hebrew that are devoted to Torah learning; none are available as audiobooks.
In Modern Hebrew, there is an Israeli firm that issues audiobooks but their selection is paltry and unsatisfactory for me.
I have five rooms filled with books, arranged by category and author, and in multiple languages.
I would guesstimate that less than 1% are available in audio form.
However, I do listen to audiobooks when I drive and take my daily walk.
Your public library will have thousands of such books available gratis via Overdrive. You can download their free app, Libby, to listen to them. I supplement this with Audible. Check out their silver plan which they do not advertise. It is much cheaper than the gold plan and will not load you down with unwanted credits which expire at some point if not used.
I used to read with ease but those days are diminishing as I age in spite of cataract surgery and reading glasses which I never used for over 68 years.
I have always loved listening to a superb reader read a book to me. Both Overdrive and Audible let me listen to free samples to determine if I enjoy the narrator's voice and presentation.
So I find that audiobooks are helping me enjoy books more than before.
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@simon sez
I cannot find any mention of the silver plan on Audible's website. How can someone find out about it?
can depend on the narrator, of course - I love Dylan Thomas reading Under Milk Wood, but the New Yorker has recently started offering their articles read aloud, and it is always this weird female voice that gets inflections wrong, IMHO..
10
As for the works of Shakespeare, hearing the words not only spoken, but also acted out on stage immensely increased my understanding and enjoyment. I highly recommend it.
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@Gary
Shakespeare wrote plays. They were never meant to be read. Prosody is a critical element. Using Shakespeare as an example is meaningless.
2
Reading print automatically generates an internal video of the story in my mind, but this does not happen when I listen to audio books. I cannot create an absorbing new reality with the latter, no matter how hard I concentrate, and therefore I find listening to a book ultimately unsatisfying.
The above applies to fiction, as I have never tried listening to a non-fiction audio book.
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@SD
Try it, you might like it. I find non-fiction much easier to listen to than fiction.
PS. Sometimes I do both, listen and read.
5
@sjs
Thanks, I'll give it a go. I'm going to download Stephen Fry's "Mythos". If I can't get into that, then there is something seriously wrong with me.
1
I have been an audible.com subscriber for 15 years, and I also now have more kindle books than physical books. Sure, I love the feel and smell of a nice hard-cover book, but I don't have any more space. And, I spend many hours on long flights that used to make me crazy from boredom until I could bring a whole library of audio and electronic books on the plane with me (together with music and games, but mostly I do books). For audiobooks there are readers, and then there are READERS. For example, if you haven't heard actor and great-great-grandson Gerald Dickens read Charles Dickens, you have really missed out. Small bonuses: most books are cheaper with an audible.com subscription, and you can return any book that you don't like. And in many cases you can synch the audio book with the kindle version, a big help getting through extra-long volumes. You can get audio books from your public library, just like physical and electronic books.
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@ZiggyZ7 Gerald Dickens, WOW !!!, I will look for his reading.
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@Errol You won't be sorry!
1
Excellent article. I wish the NYT had a text to speech option. I would most likely read (listen) to more articles as I commute to work.
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@Tom D. Absolutely! NYT - are you listening? Many of us would love to listen to the paper while doing other things. The app Audm gives a small portal for that idea, but I love your idea, Tom D.
1
@Tom D. The times has a new news summary/exploration called The Daily and it is great. Sometimes I read the paper and list to The Daily. It should probably have several subject podcast in addition to this one. One on the arts. One on Business. and so forth.
1
@Uofcenglish
Both The Guardian and the BBC have tons of Podcasts that cover a wide spectrum of news and culture.
2
"I can’t hold a book while I mop or commute."
I admit to the fact that I do not mop very often, and it would certainly not be long enough for an audio book, but I do commute. While I know of commuters who listen to books, or lectures, I find music much more relaxing during the occasional stress of travel .
There is one point missing from Prof. Willingham's op-ed: the elderly. In some cases, an audio book is what there is because their eyesight, for a variety of medical reasons, no longer allows them to read, whether in regular print or large print.
I wish everyone good ocular health as well as auditory health in order to make good on either option at a time and manner appropriate.
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My favorite novel is "The Ambassadors" by Henry James, which I've re-read over many years. But in the last year or so, listening to the novel on Audible -- read by Stephen Hoye -- has been revealing. When read on the page, a phrase that James separates with a comma stands out in the mind. But when Mr. Hoye's voice dips down to reach that same phrase and make it amuse or interrogate or startle, you more fully appreciate the way James' consciousness could work on more than one level. There are even more reverberations.
Put another way, I've found that reading and listening can enhance one another, can get a book to do more work than it would in either format alone. I still read more than I listen, but one facet of audio that the article doesn't mention is more basic: listening to books can make for a quietly comforting form of companionship.
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@creepingdoubt
I listen when I knit--mostly the repetitive parts of a sweater or while churning out potholders and hats for Christmas. When it comes time to follow a chart or count something more critical, I choose music --without lyrics. Either way, I agree about a form of companionship. Some people feel this way about TV, but I killed mine 30 years ago as I only ever found it to be intrusive and intellectually insulting. PBS was once a refuge before incessant pledge drives and increasing commercialization, and I use it online for the really tedious knitting. (Don’t everyone tell me about streaming services. I’ve used them, but run through appealing content fairly quickly.)
11
For me an insomnia cure
With tones mellifluous and pure,
I find my eyes closing
And soon I am dozing
To listening just cannot inure.
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@Larry Eisenberg
For sure, safer and cheaper than some hideous big pharma solution... none of that walking dead feel in the morning.
1
3 great listens for newbies ..Bruce Springsteen reading his autobiography, Tale of Two Cities, The Phantom of the Opera.
7
Although I personaly vastly prefer reading to listening or watching I am distressed by the ideal that listening is "cheating". There is no moral imperative to read; enjoying a story or essay is not a contest.
It is like asking if music with lyrics is superior or inferior to music without.
If you like, hate, and/or are inspired by what an author has to say then you and the author have succeeded, no matter how you got there. What you do with *that* is then your business.
35
Just one good natured quibble: writing and reading are integral to “humanness” and therefore, I think, there is a moral imperative. To wit, djt.
5
@DV Henkel-Wallace As a professor of literature I have to disagree with you. If I was a filmmaker and you just listened to my movie you wouldn't be experiencing my art. This is the same with books. They were not mean to be consumed so slowly, and you brain visualizes and draws different perspectives from the written word. An audio book is always a form of performance and interpretation. Books allow you to see in their words a story that you, the reader, constructs. It is very different. This is not to say that reading literature isn't valuable. It is just that most books were not written to be read. I this desire for audio books is changing our written form today to make them more readible and performance oriented. But know that this was never intended with most books written in earlier time periods.
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@Uofcenglish
I don’t think film and print are the “same thing” at all. Film is a visual medium and some of most films contain significant non-audio content that would hinder following the plot with audio alone--although if you had an audio form of closed captioning, you could manage. For a Professor, of leiterature no less, you draw a terrible comparison and I’m giving you a D in logic.
5
The always great @DTWillingham - terrific and so well written for the general audience. I have to admit that I tend to pause podcasts to go back and re-listen to something that I realize is important and that I forgot. But can't do that when I am driving, so my typical listening experience is just what you say - I get the gist but maybe not the details. This reminds me of one of the down sides to the Kindle - the challenge of flipping back and forth across pages means that I don't do it as often as I do with a "real" book and I just reconcile myself to doing without that little piece of understanding. Clearly these different technologies give us all plenty of fodder for research in the future - looking forward to reading (*ahem*) it using whatever tech I have at hand in the moment!
1
Recently I've been feeling guilty that I've read nearly nothing but news and scientific discoveries for years, with few exceptions. I was considering audio books, which would make being stuck in traffic bearable, but was worried I might miss some important subtlety. It certainly couid never be as jarring as seeing a movie adaptation of a story first read wondering: "Who cast this?" and "This scene was not in the book!" After this cogent piece, I feel reassured the subtleties I will miss are fair trade for a greater exposure to the ideas and creativity of talented authors.
11
Oh, no. You’ve missed one of the greatest pleasures of books: the tactile. The soft, yielding feel of the pages, which only get better after being touched, turned and used. The cool, smooth feel of the covers, hiding the inside treasure. And the Aroma. The smell of printed papers, fresh or decades old. And a Leather covered book is one of the greatest and most memorable scents on Earth. Give me Actual Books. Please. Lifelong avid reader.
26
@Phyliss Dalmatian This strikes me as a bit fetishistic. Yes, paper books are a lovely medium, but if you find that the physical sensory aspects of a book are more pleasurable than the words, sentences, and ideas expressed within, then I’d argue that you’re missing something. Apologies to Marshall McLuhan, but the medium is NOT the message.
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@Tony Beville
MORE pleasurable ? No. It’s the total experience. And yes, I own about 3000 books.
So there.
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@Phyliss Dalmatian
I love books, and my Kindle for when taking books (plural -- who only has just one going at a time?), and my audiobooks for times when reading would be dangerous.
My love for paper and ink and texture and smell is not lessened by being able to list to a book on my commute, my walk, or while cooking.
and you forgot to add "neener, neener, neener."
14