My experience with audiobooks
Audiobooks have helped me in times when I was very busy to read a proper book.
It has been over a year since I got introduced to audiobooks. And within this small amount of time, they have become a significant medium for quenching my book appetite.
Listening to audiobooks, I have come to understand, may sound rather arcane or plain silly for seasoned book readers. I felt likewise too, although, only initially. One striking blow to audiobooks is that you are not holding a real physical book in your hand anymore! But you aren’t being forced to hold anything at all: not even a book.
Nevertheless, they are fast catching up in vogue and seeking our attention in full swing (like an elephant in the room, if you will). And thus I decided to weigh their pros and cons here for you.
Good, better, best of audiobooks
- One of the most immediate and obvious improvements in audiobooks is that they free up your hands and eyes. Never before was I bestowed so much freedom while consuming knowledge. I could walk around, do menial chores, drive and practically do anything which didn’t involve the use of my auditory senses. I could devour through books on the go.
- By listening to a narrator, you are putting your trust in a person who knows how to read. Far better than you or I ever can.
Narrators undergo extensive preparation to get all the pronunciations, pauses, and tones right. They put their livelihood on the line to give you a proper read. - And sometimes, the books are narrated by the authors themselves. At this point, you have a real, palpable voice behind those words of wisdom. What can be better than that? The writer puts real emotions while reciting his book. You can get a true sense of the feelings that went behind each word written by the author.
Anyone who sees books as written manifestations of their writers (in fact, everyone should see books like this) is in for a surprise. - You can adjust the tempo. Several of my friends complain that listening to audiobooks is slow. But truth be told, most audiobook apps come with an option to speed up or speed down the narration. For as long as you can comprehend sentences being read at 1.5x or 2.0x speeds, you are good to go. It might take a bit of practice, but it’s easily achievable.
- You have more time to finish a book than ever before. You don’t have to sit down every day and read. You can pick up a book and listen to it anytime and anywhere. This expansion in time is straight forward and can easily translate into accelerated learning. You are learning more per day than previously possible.
Let’s reveal the catch
- Note-taking and bookmarking is a pain (in the start). It’s easy with books. You can scribble notes on the sides or just underline for later reference. But the audiobook experience doesn’t directly lend itself to this. You’d have to either use an extra note-taking app or book.
To mitigate this inconvenience, I have seen that some audiobook apps come with an option to take notes. Yet it takes some experimentation and a bit of getting used to. - Your attention wanes faster if you don’t make an active effort. With reading, it’s intrinsic. You are forced to keep an active attention span lest you lose on comprehension. But with audiobooks, it’s so much easier to get distracted.
I had a significant issue with this. I have an unstable attention nerve. There is simply so much wonder in this world that to keep me glued to one thing is a herculean task.
But just to see if only I had this issue, I asked a bunch of my friends as to whether they get distracted but here is what they had to say: That they didn’t get distracted as profoundly as I did.A friend of mine, Vishruthaa B, had this to say: No generally not. But since the pace is slower than when you read the book yourself, the mind wanders. But only when compared against the act of reading the book.
- It’s not the same as reading a book. The feelings aren’t the same. And rightly so. But I believe it’s only us trying to force audiobooks to be the same as printed ones. It’s a different approach but we are pushing it to be something else. Moreover, if you are comfortable in listening to podcasts, then this really shouldn’t come as a surprise or an offset. It’s just a person narrating a story to you.
There. Those are the pros and cons I have noticed. Using audiobooks to consume knowledge is a slight paradigm shift in itself. But nothing that we haven’t seen before. Remember the childhood days when our mothers narrated bedtime stories to us? Yes. It seems like we have come a full circle!
Besides, our phones are already doing so much and I guess it’s okay to squeeze in some more. But obviously, nothing comes close to the feeling of holding a book in our hands. Nonetheless, books in print are dead tree versions. A conscientious choice to prevent the felling of trees wouldn’t hurt that much after all.
If you are intrigued and want to try a few audiobooks
Here are some that I found to be very promising and beautiful:
- Sapiens
Written by Yuval Noah Harari
Narrated by Derer Perkins - An Astronaut’s Guide To Life On Earth
Written by Chris Hadfield
Narrated by Chris Hadfield - Ikigai
Written by Héctor García, Francesc Miralles
Narrated by Naoko Mori - Becoming
Written by Michelle Obama
Narrated by Michelle Obama - Seriously…I’m Kidding
Written by Ellen DeGeneres
Narrated by Ellen DeGeneres
I’ve listened to them all and they’re pretty good. Especially the ones narrated by authors themselves. But Derek Perkins’ is one of the best non-author narrations as well.
Thank you for reading!
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