Is Listening to an Audiobook ‘Reading?’

Question for the writers in the room (and by extension, the readers in the room):

What’s your view on Audiobooks? Do you love ’em? Hate ’em? Or are you ambivalent?

And for a bonus point, do you count an audiobook you’ve listened to as ‘Reading?’ I ask because Steven King once said: “Some critics claim that listening to audiobooks isn’t reading. I couldn’t disagree more. In some ways, audio perfects reading.”

My 2-cents? While the experience is different from traditional reading, listening to an audiobook should absolutely be thought of as ‘reading’ a book. I mean… who are we to argue with Steven King?!

I love a real, physical book… of course I do. How could I be a writer and not love them? I fell in love with words because of the physical books I read and owned as a child. There are too many to mention (or remember) now that I’m officially older than Noah, but a special Gold Star for influential books for me goes to The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (and the entire Narnia series) when I was a wee nipper. Lord Foul’s Bane (the first trilogy) in my early teens. And The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the entire series) in my later teenage years.

I fell in love with words by getting lost in these exciting worlds every night. By escaping through genre into another time, another place. I loved holding the books close to my face. The feel of them, even the smell (which is still one of my favourite smells in the world!), it all combined to make me want to become a writer. To use words to elevate and transport the reader, not just to communicate.

But now, as an adult, with a company to run, a wife, and a (gulp) actual grown-up life (don’t ask me when that happened!), getting free time to read a physical book is harder and harder to come by. Because, during the working week, I’m looking after the needs of my clients, and doing all the work that comes with being a small business owner. And on the weekends, I’m in my Writing Room working on the next novel on my novel conveyor belt (and there’s always a next one, ask any writer!). Which leaves precious little time for relaxing in a comfy chair with a good book in my hand.

Which is where audiobooks come in. I listen to them every night. I listen to them when I’m walking or at the gym. And best of all, I love listening to them when I’m on a long drive or a long walk by myself, because I get to go through multiple chapters in one sitting, which really helps me get lost in the narrative.

The irony is–given I was a professional film actor for a decade (and still record audiobooks myself under my Uncle Logie’s Bedtime Stories & Sleep Meditation Brand), is that I won’t listen to an audiobook with multiple narrators! Because if I wanted to listen to a radio play, I’d listen to one! Give me one brilliant voice actor, doing all the voices, all the narration, and a great horror, thriller or action story, and I’m set like jelly!

So, to loop back to my earlier question, the answer (for me at least) is that YES, listening to an audiobook is absolutely reading. Mankind started by sitting around the campfire hearing the tales about how the great hunters escaped the Sabretooth Tiger and came home safely. Audiobooks is just mankind getting back to where storytelling all began.

And if we fast-forward a hundred years, will people still read and collect physical books? Or will it become like vinyl records are now, the domain of the ‘collector?’

If in the dim, dark, distant future, the cost of a new novel is $250 a book, will people pay it? Or will ebooks and audiobooks be the only books available? Time will tell. But for many people of a certain age, having a physical book in your hand is still one of life’s real pleasures. But listening to an audiobook is still ‘reading.’

Cheers!

Brian M Logan

The M is for Monsters