Yes! And No! It doesn’t have to be absolute — just the same way as all reading isn’t the same in value. I don’t read the back of a cereal box at the breakfast table the same way I read an Eliot poem — but I use the same word to describe the action.
As I get more into audiobooks (my usage quadrupled last year), I am learning to distinguish between the books I want to habit-stack with, and the books I want to immerse myself in. The more complex fictional narratives are often ones I want to sit down, sit still, and simply listen to, or even, sometimes, read along in the physical book while listening — which is quite a marvelous experience!
But more than that: Audiobooks can be a true positive add for the reading experience. I’ve read Pride and Prejudice probably 15 times, but I’ve also seen the BBC miniseries, which came out when I was a teenager, 30 or 40 times. So whenever I read the book, I had those particular characterizations and actors and intonations in my head. Fine as the are, they aren’t Austen herself. The only way I broke the cycle and started to hear the author again was when I listened to an excellent audiobook production. It was unabridged, and voiced by one actor, but she did such a fine job inhabiting the voice of the narrator, that I could finally find Austen again.
I simply do not see the reason to be dogmatic about this. It’s a good thing. It may not be the very best thing, but it doesn’t take away from reading in any meaningful way, and can add to the experience and enjoyment of life as a whole.
(I *love* the cigar rolling lector story! Thank you for sharing!)
A perceptive article (as usual), Joel. My first response was to solidify the distinction between silent reading of a book, which of course is a fairly new phenomenon, and the passive listening to a book being read. The experiences seemed so different. But it's worth remembering as well that books serve purposes other than being read. They are more plastic tools than we think sometimes.
The purpose of the book read to children at bedtime surpasses words in the book, building bonds and love and helping a little one fall asleep (and letting mom or dad have some time of their own). I recall weeks of reading The Lord of the Rings to my three kids as we sat together on the sofa. I read with voices -- I do a pretty good hobbit and a wizard. Yes, a book was read. But the effect of the words resonated well beyond the story.
Audiobooks are a key tool for me. I read picture books aloud to my kids myself, but chapter books are way better out of the mouths of great actors. IMO, Audiobooks > screen time. I cannot tell you how often I’ve been grateful for the distracting effect of an audiobook while driving. Reading makes me carsick. Finally, it doesn’t seem to have reduced my kids’ passion for physical books at all. Am I looking forward to a day when I can sit down and read a physical book myself uninterrupted? ABSOLUTELY. Something will have to console me when I graduate to empty nester.
I'll sidestep the yes/no question and simply say that I only enjoy reading with a weighty book in my hands (preferably an old one with lots of pleasant texture to the page). However, our youngest son has spent likely thousands of hours listening to audio books over the years, which have given him access to content that he would not have been able to read fluently at his age (he just finished listening to "The Art of Clear Thinking" by a stealth fighter pilot and is currently making his way through Unbroken). What the two modes share in common is that the language comes in the form of sentences, and thus both contribute to developing depth of attention, syntax, and breadth of vocabulary. Also, loved the part about the cigar rollers! Thanks for this engaging piece:)
I’ve been a book lover (and writer) all my life, but I’ve always had a poor attention span with text. Eye strain worsened this issue so that, by the mid-2000s, I was no longer able to read novels and really focus. Then one day in the early 2010s, my wife brought home an audiobook for Dune from the library (the audiobook was inside a small “Playaway” device). Suddenly the world of literary possibilities exploded again! From then on, I have continued to do 80% of my fiction reading via audio.
I don’t experience audiobooks as passive. When I listen, it is a very focused listening. As a novelist, I also find myself better able to focus on the structure of the writer I am listening to, down to the sentence level, as I’m always keen to learn how other writers do their craft.
I’m a slow adopter and/or Luddite with most technologies, many of which I find weaken our cognitive abilities. But with audiobooks I have found the opposite—sharper mental focus, and more capacity for exercising my imagination, vocabulary, and writerly sensitivity.
Peco, I saw you mention this in your European Conservative interview on Exogenesis! It made me happy (and a bit vindicated, myself). Visually tracking and reading physical books has always been a bit of a struggle — since I was a girl, well before the internet as we know it. When my parents would put on "radio theatre" performances of all kinds of books, I ate them up. My siblings didn't have the same magnetic attraction towards them.
Perhaps this also has to do with learning styles. Kinesthetic movement mixed with auditory listening is really where I've always thrived in focusing. For others, they are very distractible in that format and audio doesn't serve them well. Just as we take learning styles into consideration for children in education, I think we can do so for adults (while retaining the merits of being able to read text!)
I still love slowly reading through a couple physical books at a time, but it's not always as enjoyable or profitable — a lot depends on the type of book.
I wonder if there is some confusion between the concepts of "passive" and "receptive" when people argue that audio books don't count as reading. Not all receptivity is passivity, and listening can be quite active and engaging. I certainly am not simply passive or along for the ride when listening to Charlotte Mason's "Parents and Children" every morning. Sometimes I have to pause the book to digest what I just heard. Often I respond vocally to something particularly insightful, interesting, or thought-provoking.
Neither was I passive when my dad read me Lord of the Rings for the first time. I was very actively interacting with the words I heard by conjuring images of the landscape being described, the facial expressions of the characters who were speaking, etc. In fact, as someone who tends to read pretty quickly, I believe I absorbed the richness of the language more fully when I was read aloud to in that first reading (and when I've read it aloud to my own children) than in the many times I've read it silently to myself.
If I want to savor the language while reading silently I have to force myself to slow down; otherwise, at least when reading fiction, I tend to tear through words on the wings of an absorbing plot or compelling ideas. (And then there's poetry, which is truly meant to be read aloud and appreciated.)
I think we do engage our brains differently when reading with our eyes than our ears and so some books are probably more suited to one or the other. But unless we are going to discount reading aloud to others (which I would debate heartily!!), I don't see how anyone can dismiss completely dismiss audiobooks as reading.
Here's another thing to consider - the number of blind children in the US who were fluent in Braille in the 1960s was estimated to be about 50%. Some estimate that that number has dropped to 10% today. Books in Braille are hard to produce, ridiculously expensive, extremely bulky, and I'm guessing here, but it seems logical that they wear out more quickly than regular print. Add to this that many people go blind as they age, and they're probably not going to learn Braille as a senior citizen (not to mention, people's ability to feel also decreases as they age).
(Awhile ago, I was looking into the feasibility of creating a compact Braille "writer" - a device that could electronically create the Braille, maybe a couple lines at a time, from electronic text. Looking now, it does seem that a couple of devices of that type have been introduced BUT have to use special file formatting... Don't get me started on that! )
In any case, audiobooks that can be carried around on a phone or an MP3 player are a gamechanger. Gone are the days of stacks of records necessary for a talking book! Audiobooks today don't take up zero space, they are mainstream enough that there's a huge variety of what is available, and they're inexpensive to free. The downside is that if you have no electricity, you've lost that link - in theory, a book in Braille connects a person with a book with no "middleman". As useful a skill as Braille may be to some - and in some circumstances - the audiobook phenomenon seems to have won out here as well.
- How can you count audiobooks as reading? You’re just listening.
- Well, and you’re just looking.
I count audiobooks as books and reading. I am a slow reader, but in the first two months of this year I’ve read 8 books, which is a lot for me. I went back to check, expecting at least 5 to be audio, but it’s actually 50/50. I listen while driving, and I find that I am able to concentrate on the book pretty well.
I just finished listening to Till We Have Faces, and it hit me right in the feels. I read it a couple of years ago, so I knew the story somewhat. I am still deciphering the book, but listening to it opened up a different view, so to say.
Joel - great article. I have had this discussion with many people over the years. I don't consider myself a purist, so my personal feeling is that consuming books, in whatever format, is beneficial. I listen to audiobooks on my commute to and from work, when I walk the dog, when I do chores around the house, etc... I am selective about which books I listen to. But once I have finished listening to the recording, I annotate the book in my notebook as having read the book. Is it a different experience than reading a physical book? Of course! But it doesn't make it any less of a reading experience. There are some fantastic narrators out there (Thandiwe Newton's reading of Jane Eyre is exquisite) who bring a story alive. Some terrible narrators can make for an awful experience. I liken audiobooks to different translations. Picking the right one makes all the difference.
I love the story you shared about reading aloud in the cigar factories. It reminded me a bit of a favorite book News of the World. I have had a kindle forever but it is definiately taking a backseat to audio books for all the reasons you mentioned. And of course it counts as reading! I know there are trade offs in comprehension and some books are better read of course. Also - I have noticed in our bookstore, that many more people mention listening to books rather the using their kindle. I often suggest books that are better read in physical form to these guests. But it is interesting how big a role I am seeing audio books play in readers' lives. And of course I try and spread the word about Libro. FM (instead of Amazon) and Libby/Hoopla.
As the mother of a dyslexic child, I say absolutely yes! That child is now an adult and an avid reader. I credit the many, many audiobooks he consumed as a child with instilling a lifelong love of story. I read aloud every night, but having audiobooks to listen to while he played with Legos, or to supplement required school reading were life altering for him.
I really enjoyed this article. Thank you! I am not a big ebook reader, I do prefer the physical copy. I am just now getting into audiobooks and I think it can be compared to reading aloud. My daughter, who is 20 loves book but suffered an accident that has limited her ability for silent reading. I have been reading aloud to her for 5 months now and we have gotten through so many books. She would definitely say that she has “read” all those books. I think audiobooks are a great option! Thank you again
If we encourage parents to read aloud to their kids long after they can read to themselves, I see no reason why I can't have someone else read to me, the mom. :) My husband and I try to incorporate some read-aloud time with each other in the evenings, too.
I don't listen to a book if I need to be rigorously, cognitively engaged elsewhere of course! But during some of those repetitive tasks and chores I can do on autopilot.... or while keeping an eye on my kids play outside? Oh yeah. Let's ask parents of young ones who need their hands and eyeballs all day if audiobooks count. haha I literally would not have my substack newsletter if I didn't incorporate audio into my intellectual life as a mother.
Years ago, I spent long hours in the Thomas Nelson basement, binding galleys (rather than rolling cigars). LibriVox, at that time, was my cigar-factory reader. In those days, I downloaded a LibriVox recording to an MP3 player before work. I’d take a dolly of unbound manuscripts and a LibriVox recording down the elevator and get lost in a new-to-me classic. It would’ve been a miserable task without LibriVox. I wouldn’t be nearly as well-read in a world without audiobooks. As a mom and a caregiver of a child with a disability, audiobooks enable me to feed my own brain and soul while tending to the vast and varied needs of my darling family.
The Ebook thing is interesting. I believe that they really fall short of their potential.
Back in 2012, we went for the Nook HD+ as an ereader because of its support of EPUB files, which meant it was easier to get free books (Amazon had its own standard, which helped them, but probably helped dampen Ebook enthusiasm in general) and the fact that at the time, our oldest were 1 and 3, and the Nooks were far superior in terms of children's books - kids' books on the Nooks were truly interactive, and had some nifty features, including the ability to record one's own audio for them.
What I didn't like was that B&N also tried having their own walled garden with the Nook, and that the devices would occasionally hang, forcing one to do a factory reset. There was no good way to save the audio files, for one, to another device, so every time this happened, those files were gone. Also, the settings would then default, and the purchased books kept going back to the cloud if they weren't opened in a certain amount of time. Fine, I guess, if you've filled the thing with romance novels that you probably won't read again, not cool for kids' books... I ended up losing a fairly expensive ebook in all of this, which I had really enjoyed reading digitally, because it was one of these where you're supposed to read a couple of pages a day.
Recently, in learning how to write EPUB files, it's amazing to me that they are, in essence, self-contained websites, and it's possible to easily embed all sorts of pictures and even sound. Imagine having an "all-in-one" book that you could read or have read to you, depending on the mood, or if you wanted to re-read a point that you heard! And pictures! And video!
I think a lot of the issue is that Amazon charges for file size in its ebook store (deducting a data transfer charge with each purchase) , so apart from some kids books, nobody wants to inflate the file sizes "unnecessarily". But imagine what one could do with, say, writing short travel guides with pictures and embedded audio! It's just interesting because, as always, it's not just a matter of something being possible, but rather whether it catches on.
Yes! And No! It doesn’t have to be absolute — just the same way as all reading isn’t the same in value. I don’t read the back of a cereal box at the breakfast table the same way I read an Eliot poem — but I use the same word to describe the action.
As I get more into audiobooks (my usage quadrupled last year), I am learning to distinguish between the books I want to habit-stack with, and the books I want to immerse myself in. The more complex fictional narratives are often ones I want to sit down, sit still, and simply listen to, or even, sometimes, read along in the physical book while listening — which is quite a marvelous experience!
But more than that: Audiobooks can be a true positive add for the reading experience. I’ve read Pride and Prejudice probably 15 times, but I’ve also seen the BBC miniseries, which came out when I was a teenager, 30 or 40 times. So whenever I read the book, I had those particular characterizations and actors and intonations in my head. Fine as the are, they aren’t Austen herself. The only way I broke the cycle and started to hear the author again was when I listened to an excellent audiobook production. It was unabridged, and voiced by one actor, but she did such a fine job inhabiting the voice of the narrator, that I could finally find Austen again.
I simply do not see the reason to be dogmatic about this. It’s a good thing. It may not be the very best thing, but it doesn’t take away from reading in any meaningful way, and can add to the experience and enjoyment of life as a whole.
(I *love* the cigar rolling lector story! Thank you for sharing!)
I don’t want to be the 13th person to like your comment so let me say here that I heartily agree.
A perceptive article (as usual), Joel. My first response was to solidify the distinction between silent reading of a book, which of course is a fairly new phenomenon, and the passive listening to a book being read. The experiences seemed so different. But it's worth remembering as well that books serve purposes other than being read. They are more plastic tools than we think sometimes.
The purpose of the book read to children at bedtime surpasses words in the book, building bonds and love and helping a little one fall asleep (and letting mom or dad have some time of their own). I recall weeks of reading The Lord of the Rings to my three kids as we sat together on the sofa. I read with voices -- I do a pretty good hobbit and a wizard. Yes, a book was read. But the effect of the words resonated well beyond the story.
Such a fine post to read this morning!
I think my pre-reader children would argue that they have “read” Green Eggs and Ham....and I’m not going to tell them any different.
Audiobooks are a key tool for me. I read picture books aloud to my kids myself, but chapter books are way better out of the mouths of great actors. IMO, Audiobooks > screen time. I cannot tell you how often I’ve been grateful for the distracting effect of an audiobook while driving. Reading makes me carsick. Finally, it doesn’t seem to have reduced my kids’ passion for physical books at all. Am I looking forward to a day when I can sit down and read a physical book myself uninterrupted? ABSOLUTELY. Something will have to console me when I graduate to empty nester.
I'll sidestep the yes/no question and simply say that I only enjoy reading with a weighty book in my hands (preferably an old one with lots of pleasant texture to the page). However, our youngest son has spent likely thousands of hours listening to audio books over the years, which have given him access to content that he would not have been able to read fluently at his age (he just finished listening to "The Art of Clear Thinking" by a stealth fighter pilot and is currently making his way through Unbroken). What the two modes share in common is that the language comes in the form of sentences, and thus both contribute to developing depth of attention, syntax, and breadth of vocabulary. Also, loved the part about the cigar rollers! Thanks for this engaging piece:)
Any way a book is shared with the reader,be it by reading or listening to someone else read it is good in my opinion
Thanks, Joel, for this piece!
I’ve been a book lover (and writer) all my life, but I’ve always had a poor attention span with text. Eye strain worsened this issue so that, by the mid-2000s, I was no longer able to read novels and really focus. Then one day in the early 2010s, my wife brought home an audiobook for Dune from the library (the audiobook was inside a small “Playaway” device). Suddenly the world of literary possibilities exploded again! From then on, I have continued to do 80% of my fiction reading via audio.
I don’t experience audiobooks as passive. When I listen, it is a very focused listening. As a novelist, I also find myself better able to focus on the structure of the writer I am listening to, down to the sentence level, as I’m always keen to learn how other writers do their craft.
I’m a slow adopter and/or Luddite with most technologies, many of which I find weaken our cognitive abilities. But with audiobooks I have found the opposite—sharper mental focus, and more capacity for exercising my imagination, vocabulary, and writerly sensitivity.
Peco, I saw you mention this in your European Conservative interview on Exogenesis! It made me happy (and a bit vindicated, myself). Visually tracking and reading physical books has always been a bit of a struggle — since I was a girl, well before the internet as we know it. When my parents would put on "radio theatre" performances of all kinds of books, I ate them up. My siblings didn't have the same magnetic attraction towards them.
Perhaps this also has to do with learning styles. Kinesthetic movement mixed with auditory listening is really where I've always thrived in focusing. For others, they are very distractible in that format and audio doesn't serve them well. Just as we take learning styles into consideration for children in education, I think we can do so for adults (while retaining the merits of being able to read text!)
I still love slowly reading through a couple physical books at a time, but it's not always as enjoyable or profitable — a lot depends on the type of book.
I wonder if there is some confusion between the concepts of "passive" and "receptive" when people argue that audio books don't count as reading. Not all receptivity is passivity, and listening can be quite active and engaging. I certainly am not simply passive or along for the ride when listening to Charlotte Mason's "Parents and Children" every morning. Sometimes I have to pause the book to digest what I just heard. Often I respond vocally to something particularly insightful, interesting, or thought-provoking.
Neither was I passive when my dad read me Lord of the Rings for the first time. I was very actively interacting with the words I heard by conjuring images of the landscape being described, the facial expressions of the characters who were speaking, etc. In fact, as someone who tends to read pretty quickly, I believe I absorbed the richness of the language more fully when I was read aloud to in that first reading (and when I've read it aloud to my own children) than in the many times I've read it silently to myself.
If I want to savor the language while reading silently I have to force myself to slow down; otherwise, at least when reading fiction, I tend to tear through words on the wings of an absorbing plot or compelling ideas. (And then there's poetry, which is truly meant to be read aloud and appreciated.)
I think we do engage our brains differently when reading with our eyes than our ears and so some books are probably more suited to one or the other. But unless we are going to discount reading aloud to others (which I would debate heartily!!), I don't see how anyone can dismiss completely dismiss audiobooks as reading.
I loved the story about the cigar rollers too! Also where can I find John Cleese reading CS Lewis???
Here's another thing to consider - the number of blind children in the US who were fluent in Braille in the 1960s was estimated to be about 50%. Some estimate that that number has dropped to 10% today. Books in Braille are hard to produce, ridiculously expensive, extremely bulky, and I'm guessing here, but it seems logical that they wear out more quickly than regular print. Add to this that many people go blind as they age, and they're probably not going to learn Braille as a senior citizen (not to mention, people's ability to feel also decreases as they age).
(Awhile ago, I was looking into the feasibility of creating a compact Braille "writer" - a device that could electronically create the Braille, maybe a couple lines at a time, from electronic text. Looking now, it does seem that a couple of devices of that type have been introduced BUT have to use special file formatting... Don't get me started on that! )
In any case, audiobooks that can be carried around on a phone or an MP3 player are a gamechanger. Gone are the days of stacks of records necessary for a talking book! Audiobooks today don't take up zero space, they are mainstream enough that there's a huge variety of what is available, and they're inexpensive to free. The downside is that if you have no electricity, you've lost that link - in theory, a book in Braille connects a person with a book with no "middleman". As useful a skill as Braille may be to some - and in some circumstances - the audiobook phenomenon seems to have won out here as well.
I saw a joke once about the topic:
- How can you count audiobooks as reading? You’re just listening.
- Well, and you’re just looking.
I count audiobooks as books and reading. I am a slow reader, but in the first two months of this year I’ve read 8 books, which is a lot for me. I went back to check, expecting at least 5 to be audio, but it’s actually 50/50. I listen while driving, and I find that I am able to concentrate on the book pretty well.
I just finished listening to Till We Have Faces, and it hit me right in the feels. I read it a couple of years ago, so I knew the story somewhat. I am still deciphering the book, but listening to it opened up a different view, so to say.
Joel - great article. I have had this discussion with many people over the years. I don't consider myself a purist, so my personal feeling is that consuming books, in whatever format, is beneficial. I listen to audiobooks on my commute to and from work, when I walk the dog, when I do chores around the house, etc... I am selective about which books I listen to. But once I have finished listening to the recording, I annotate the book in my notebook as having read the book. Is it a different experience than reading a physical book? Of course! But it doesn't make it any less of a reading experience. There are some fantastic narrators out there (Thandiwe Newton's reading of Jane Eyre is exquisite) who bring a story alive. Some terrible narrators can make for an awful experience. I liken audiobooks to different translations. Picking the right one makes all the difference.
I like that ‘translation’ analogy. Also +1 for Thandiwe Newton anything. Her ‘War and Peace’ is excellent.
I love the story you shared about reading aloud in the cigar factories. It reminded me a bit of a favorite book News of the World. I have had a kindle forever but it is definiately taking a backseat to audio books for all the reasons you mentioned. And of course it counts as reading! I know there are trade offs in comprehension and some books are better read of course. Also - I have noticed in our bookstore, that many more people mention listening to books rather the using their kindle. I often suggest books that are better read in physical form to these guests. But it is interesting how big a role I am seeing audio books play in readers' lives. And of course I try and spread the word about Libro. FM (instead of Amazon) and Libby/Hoopla.
As the mother of a dyslexic child, I say absolutely yes! That child is now an adult and an avid reader. I credit the many, many audiobooks he consumed as a child with instilling a lifelong love of story. I read aloud every night, but having audiobooks to listen to while he played with Legos, or to supplement required school reading were life altering for him.
I really enjoyed this article. Thank you! I am not a big ebook reader, I do prefer the physical copy. I am just now getting into audiobooks and I think it can be compared to reading aloud. My daughter, who is 20 loves book but suffered an accident that has limited her ability for silent reading. I have been reading aloud to her for 5 months now and we have gotten through so many books. She would definitely say that she has “read” all those books. I think audiobooks are a great option! Thank you again
If we encourage parents to read aloud to their kids long after they can read to themselves, I see no reason why I can't have someone else read to me, the mom. :) My husband and I try to incorporate some read-aloud time with each other in the evenings, too.
I don't listen to a book if I need to be rigorously, cognitively engaged elsewhere of course! But during some of those repetitive tasks and chores I can do on autopilot.... or while keeping an eye on my kids play outside? Oh yeah. Let's ask parents of young ones who need their hands and eyeballs all day if audiobooks count. haha I literally would not have my substack newsletter if I didn't incorporate audio into my intellectual life as a mother.
Years ago, I spent long hours in the Thomas Nelson basement, binding galleys (rather than rolling cigars). LibriVox, at that time, was my cigar-factory reader. In those days, I downloaded a LibriVox recording to an MP3 player before work. I’d take a dolly of unbound manuscripts and a LibriVox recording down the elevator and get lost in a new-to-me classic. It would’ve been a miserable task without LibriVox. I wouldn’t be nearly as well-read in a world without audiobooks. As a mom and a caregiver of a child with a disability, audiobooks enable me to feed my own brain and soul while tending to the vast and varied needs of my darling family.
The Ebook thing is interesting. I believe that they really fall short of their potential.
Back in 2012, we went for the Nook HD+ as an ereader because of its support of EPUB files, which meant it was easier to get free books (Amazon had its own standard, which helped them, but probably helped dampen Ebook enthusiasm in general) and the fact that at the time, our oldest were 1 and 3, and the Nooks were far superior in terms of children's books - kids' books on the Nooks were truly interactive, and had some nifty features, including the ability to record one's own audio for them.
What I didn't like was that B&N also tried having their own walled garden with the Nook, and that the devices would occasionally hang, forcing one to do a factory reset. There was no good way to save the audio files, for one, to another device, so every time this happened, those files were gone. Also, the settings would then default, and the purchased books kept going back to the cloud if they weren't opened in a certain amount of time. Fine, I guess, if you've filled the thing with romance novels that you probably won't read again, not cool for kids' books... I ended up losing a fairly expensive ebook in all of this, which I had really enjoyed reading digitally, because it was one of these where you're supposed to read a couple of pages a day.
Recently, in learning how to write EPUB files, it's amazing to me that they are, in essence, self-contained websites, and it's possible to easily embed all sorts of pictures and even sound. Imagine having an "all-in-one" book that you could read or have read to you, depending on the mood, or if you wanted to re-read a point that you heard! And pictures! And video!
I think a lot of the issue is that Amazon charges for file size in its ebook store (deducting a data transfer charge with each purchase) , so apart from some kids books, nobody wants to inflate the file sizes "unnecessarily". But imagine what one could do with, say, writing short travel guides with pictures and embedded audio! It's just interesting because, as always, it's not just a matter of something being possible, but rather whether it catches on.