I read about 100 books last year. I read on my commute, about an hour total there. And before bed. And on vacation - no tv ever turned on in hotel or movies/wi fi on planes, so I usually get though some extra books those weeks.
Years ago I decided to limit book reading to the night time hours because if I didn’t I would spend all my time either reading books or searching out books to read. During the daylight hours I read newspapers, internet etc. I think listening to a book is the same as reading it in terms of information absorbed. I think for me it might be too linear. I like knowing where I am physically in a book. I found the same is true with a Kindle. It detracts from my reading experience not knowing where I am in the book (and percentage read doesn’t give me the same information.)
I have a friend who reads constantly either physical books or audio books but gets frustrated with audio books because she likes to skip to the end to see which characters still figure in the plot so she knows who is important and that’s hard with an audio book.
When I have trouble sleeping I listen to audiobooks. I have Bose wireless speakers that don’t wake hubby and by laying still in the dark with my eyes close I drift off to sleep.
I read pretty fast so a lot of times audiobooks are too slow for me.
I “read” audiobooks in the car on my 2+ hour commute. I have favorite readers and there are some authors who I enjoy in print but dislike in audio. Likewise, there are some series that I prefer in audio.
When S1 was young, he had a form of dyslexia, and audio books were a great way for him to bridge the gap between what his brain could process and what his eyes could decode. And his younger sisters enjoyed reprising the HP books on CD after first reading them in print. Jim Dale rocks!
I’ve listened to only a few audiobooks, but I want to try more. I really liked “The Handmaid’s Tale” as read by Clare Danes. Wow, she did a good job. She really brought the character to life.
“Beneath a Scarlet Sky” as read by Will Damron was also excellent. Hard to stop listening to it!
I think of audiobooks as storytelling rather than reading. Reading is very visual and you get more information in the form of sentence structure, spelling, context etc. than you do with audiobooks. I think reading uses different parts of your brain (my opinion not a fact) and allows you to create a different picture than listening does (I find my picture of what is happening more vivid when I read). Where reading is impossible or not practical listening allows you to enjoy the story. I’ll get audio books when going on long drives or as a distraction when I exercise and certainly enjoy them.
I prefer hardcover books, but do listen to audiobooks. It’s interesting to me that in my book group the folks who listen to the audiobook often have a different perspective on it than those of us who read the book. If audiobooks gets more people to read—that’s great.
This feels a little tit for tat overall. A book is a story. A story is for “hearing”. How you hear it is up for choice. If I knew someone who had reading difficulties, visual impairments or other special needs and an audio book was the key to them hearing and absorbing a story, then heck yeah, I’m thrilled this is an option!
My H has vision problems that make reading a paper book very difficult. Now that there are audio books, he’s a voracious reader. He can tell you all about the book he’s “read” and follows the plot line.
Me, I will listen to an audiobook when we are on trips but I’m easily distracted and would rather listen to podcasts. I like to read on a printed page and retain more that way.
Different people, different ways of absorbing information
The majority of my book consumption occurs via audio books while driving, gardening, or doing household chores. I can fall asleep, become distracted, or become absorbed in the plot and characters just as easily while reading the written text as I can while listening to a recording. I do count audio books in my reading challenge total for Goodreads and if asked, I do say that I have “read” a book even if it was an audio book.
According to Oxford English Dictionary:
read
Def. #1
“Look at and comprehend the meaning of (written or printed matter) by interpreting the characters or symbols of which it is composed.”
.
.
.
Def. #8
Hear and understand the words of (someone speaking on a radio transmitter)
‘‘Do you read me? Over.’’
[#8 is the only definition which even comes close to “reading” an audio book]
I think it’s a matter of semantics since they are technically different skills, but in the end, equal knowledge or enjoyment can result from either method of “reading” a book unless there are pictures or tables/charts involved.
You could be essentially illiterate and “read” an audiobook.
And that’s a problem? Better than not “reading”, don’t you think?
@Wellspring I don’t think it’s a problem. I don’t think listening and reading are the same thing either. Reading is a skill. It takes focus and uses many parts of your brain. Listening is something you can do passively. I don’t think you get the same information listening to a book while driving and paying attention to cars on the road, where you are heading etc. nor while running on a treadmill. Now does listening to a book allow you to claim you read it. I would say that doesn’t matter. It’s all for entertainment anyway.
Completely disagree. I get completely engrossed in those books. I can engage and discuss these books with those who have “read them” and no one would be aware that I consumed them via audio book. If I can’t focus (traffic is too tricky or my attention is too diverted), I turn it off. But on long drives or while biking on a dedicated trail that doesn’t require paying attention to car traffic, I am in it completely. Not everyone experiences audio books that way (but many do); for that matter, people don’t always read without distractions or losing focus.
I admit that the books I “read” in the car tend to be light entertainment. But it still counts as reading in my opinion.
By the logic seen in some posts, there is no such thing as a well-read blind person. If you can’t “read,” you cannot claim to have read even one book.
My first child, ShawSon, was/is severely dyslexic (even more so than his mother). To get his IEP, he was tested very early on and had an extremely high Verbal IQ. For IEP purposes, he was tested every few years. I wish we could have been shareholders of Audible.com, as he listened to several audiobooks a week and has probably listened to the entire scifi/fantasy genre. When he was entering middle or high school, the head of Special Education noted some surprise that his Verbal IQ had not declined. The surprise was because the IQ scores of most dyslexic kids decline over time because they are reading less. In his case, the massive intake from audible has meant that his IQ did not suffer.
To increase his speed, he has taught himself to listen at 4 to 5 actual speed, which is unintelligible to the untrained ear. So, functionally, he got all of the benefits of reading via audible. I suspect that all of the audible reading helped him with the verbal parts of standardized tests.
My son is dyslexic as well. I stopped disclosing how much I read to him to teachers because they didn’t always approve. He would read something and have no idea of the meaning or hear it and be extremely insightful. He also tested higher on the verbal iq than the math portion and he was a pretty strong math student.
One saint of a teacher gave him history tests orally.
‘By the logic seen in some posts, there is no such thing as a well-read blind person. If you can’t “read,” you cannot claim to have read even one book.”
Reading Braille is reading. The process of translating symbols into words and understanding a story based on that is reading to me.
If you only listen to audio books I’d say that you can be “ knowledgeable and informed “ as a result of being read to. Which is indistinguishable from being “well read.”
But “reading” is a different skill than being read to.
I agree that reading and listening employ different sets of skills. My youngest daughter was a voracious reader (and still is) reading everything she could get her hands on, particularly sci-fi and fantasy, but also plenty of non-fiction and other genres. She developed a great understanding of the written work, but I wish we had also encouraged more audio books, or read to her (she preferred to read on her own, though we often got 2 copies of books and discussed them either as we went along, or once finished. What I noticed was that while she understood the written word, she often had no idea how words were pronounced, and sometimes there was a disconnect when she heard a word and didn’t recognize it as the written word she knew well.
Our family mostly consumes audio books while travelling, and we reserve a few series just for that. I have found that the reader really does make a difference. I would prefer to hear an autobiography read by the author, because I think there’s an added dimension. I also think the books that lend themselves the best to the audiobook format are those written from the perspective of a narrator, rather than a significant amount of dialogue