Do you hear what I’m reading?
Neil Gaiman and Siobhán Parkinson talk audio books – separately mind – I don’t know if the world is ready for a Gaiman/Parkinson collaboration…
Siobhán defines an audiobook as:
Right, let’s get one thing straight to start with. Audiobooks are books. They may tend to get grouped, in the adult mind, with other technological enemies of reading, such as DVDs and computer games, but audiobooks are on the side of the angels. An audiobook is a book, if in an alternative form, unlike, say, a film that is only based on a book.
While Gaiman reckons that it is apart from a regular book, something in its own right:
An audiobook is its own thing, a unique medium that goes in through the ear, sometimes leaving you sitting in the driveway to find out how the story is going to end.
Parkinson comments on the scarcity of audiobooks – while Gaiman celebrates the increasing number of writers’ who have caught the ‘tapeworm’ bug… (euw)
There are some drawbacks to having to rely on audiobooks for your literary intake, and the greatest of these is undoubtedly restricted choice. – Parkinson
In the past six years, I’ve recorded six audiobooks, and although it can be exhausting, I’ve loved the process and have been delighted with the result. Author David Sedaris is someone else who records his own audiobooks… - Gaiman
And what of the future of audiobooks? iTunes is seeing a huge jump in audiobook sales (blame the iPhone/iPod) while CD audio sales slump…
I absolutely think the audiobooks are getting better: the level of sophistication of the narrative formats; the ways they are interpreted; the variance in kinds of formats; the decisions within the format. It’s something that adds a whole layer of experience. – Don Katz, president of audible.com (via Gaiman)
And the last word? We’ll go out the same as we started… over to Siobhán Parkinson:
It is just as valid an aesthetic and imaginative engagement to listen to a book as it is to read it, and it makes the same kind of imaginative demands on the listener as reading does.
So – do you listen to books?
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I refused for years to listen to audiobooks, ‘They are not REAL books!!’But last year my sister convinced me to try them out. I uploaded The Spiderwick Chronicles to my phone and listened to it while out walking…I am now a complete convert.
There really is something about listening to a great story that I love – though they can be expensive! :/
I use audio books when doing my research – it means I can exercise at the same time as learning!! I LOVED Neil Gaiman’s reading of The Graveyard Book. His voice is like melted chocolate.
If i didn’t have a voice like a helium filled gerbil on a cheese grater, I’d be tempted to read my own.
Thanks for this post! I work at AudioFile Magazine, the magazine for people who love audiobooks, and our readers talk about this all the time—does listening “count” as reading?
I think that whether you consider audiobooks to be books, or take the Gaiman route and see them as their own medium, one thing is for sure—audiobooks allow the listener to experience a book and engage with it in a new way. And the narrator makes ALL the difference—a good narrator can make the experience amazing, and a bad one can ruin it.
I agree Katie. The audio book I’m listening to at the moment is narrated by Steve Hodson and he has done an incredible job. Mind you, it helps that it is also a fascinating book.
Yes, Celine, it’s a shame when a good narrator is stuck with a lame book! What book are you listening to?
William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-slave Trade Campaigner by William Hague. It’s superb.
I like the free audiobooks at newfiction.com . They are fun and entertaining.