Press "Enter" to skip to content

Audio books

Piggy-backing off of yesterday’s topic…where I talked about writers who had transitioned some of their material to more spur-of-the-moment stage storytelling…

How many of you listen to audiobooks?

I see a lot of audiobooks, working at the publishing house. It’s one of the big imprints that we do catalogs for, and audiobooks seem to reach a lot of people. (Though I have yet to understand the logic behind Abridged versions of a book. Sure, it’s less CDs, but it’s also not the full story.)

I’ve never had too much experience with them. Maybe it’s because of my television complex. If I come into a room with a t.v. on in the background, and someone tries to talk to me, I really have to focus hard on listening to them rather than being drawn into whatever show is playing. Same with an audio program, or even the radio. If I have to divide my attention between two things, it makes both things less enjoyable or efficient. When I read a book, I like being able to lose myself solely in the story, not having to worry about what’s going on around me, or perhaps driving a car. I know that if I had an audiobook playing, and if the story was good enough, I’d eventually want to stop and just listen to it, which seems to negate a lot of the reasons people listen to audiobooks. It’s so they don’t have to sit and read…they can cook, or drive, or workout while listening to the story. I guess my mind doesn’t work that way.

Not to say that audiobooks are bad in any sense. I have listened to a few, but I still prefer picking up the pages and flipping through, rather than having someone talk in my ear. Besides, when I read a story through my eyes, I can create whatever voices and emotional pauses or tones to the words that I want. In an audiobook, that’s all done for me, and the result is not what my reading would have produced, but what the hired and paid professional got out of it.

I dunno. Anyone out there a big fan of audiobooks? Am I totally off track in avoiding them?

I see that smile.

%d bloggers like this:
Skip to toolbar