Do You “Read” Audiobooks? Or Some Other Verb?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there. My name is Jane. I’m calling from Denver, Colorado.

And my questions are about the way we talk about the difference between versus listening to an audio book.

I grew up doing both. I love listening to audio books. I love reading.

But somehow, whenever I want to tell somebody that, oh, I read that book, I feel the need to almost apologize and say,

Oh, but I actually just listened to the audio book.

And so I’m hoping we have maybe on the horizon a better, more useful,

A more graceful term to use instead.

Is it guilt, Jane?

I don’t know.

I have been kicked out of a dinner party over this discussion before.

Oh, really?

Wait, what?

You’ve got to tell us about that.

The host had a very strong, I think, undertone or under feeling

That reading a book is in some way more valuable.

And I kind of agree that it is more difficult, right?

You’re kind of translating a written word into a spoken word in your mind and using that to create an image.

And so it’s kind of like, you know, reading through a foreign language, if only for a medium.

But I staunchly believe that the similarities in the way we experience books through our ears or through our eyes are very, very similar.

And so I wouldn’t give ground on that.

And he rather abruptly said, oh, man, I think it’s snowing out.

You should probably get home.

Oh, wow.

So, yeah, just kind of a funny story.

Yeah.

And if he had listened to an audio book on the way home, then he would have gotten some more reading done.

Right.

Or some more listening, anyway.

As a matter of fact, I think we listened to your podcast on the way home from that.

Oh, is that right?

Yeah.

Jane, I have the same kind of, I don’t know, self-consciousness about audio books.

I listen to a lot of them now, and I absolutely love them.

There’s a different layer of experience. It’s not necessarily better or worse, but

Well, in some ways I think it is better. I mean, there are some amazing narrators out there who

Add all kinds of things to text. And I really, really appreciate that. But I, you know, I’m with

You. I do get a little bit self-conscious. And the other thing that is interesting to me is that,

Well, a couple of things. One of them is that sometimes when I’m talking about one of those books to somebody else, I can’t remember if I read it on the page or listen to it as an audio book.

You know, it’s just kind of it’s its in my mind.

The other thing is that the vast majority of the time I end up buying the print copy afterward.

I do. I do. I do the exact same thing. I love to reread.

So anytime I’m drawn back to a book multiple times and I really feel like, man, I’d love a way to quickly reference this without scrolling through, you know, several hours of somebody talking, I’ll make sure I have a copy on hand.

And what’s wrong with that?

Nothing as far as I’m concerned.

But I think I come down on the side of so what?

You listen to it and you took it in.

And, you know, I mean, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that medium.

And the question that Grant raised about, you know, what do you call that?

I think I read the book.

There are some verbs out there being used.

Some people call it ear reading.

Some people call it audio reading.

Some people call it experiencing.

The verb audible is out there, but it doesn’t have a lot of play.

Some people say listen to the narration of, which is long and awkward.

But I think audio read and ear reading are widely used and have a good chance of lasting.

Do you really?

I like audio read.

That’s nice.

Or ear reading, you know.

I don’t know.

What do you think, Jane?

I quite like audio read, mostly just because I think ear read is kind of an awkward transition from the first dip song into the rest of the word.

Oh, perfect.

Yeah.

So well said.

I want to add two things in here.

I think the experience for listening to fiction and the experience for listening to nonfiction is different.

Oh, that’s interesting.

For example, if I’m listening to somebody talking to me about science versus somebody reading to me science fiction, the first is not harmed at all by listening to it, where the second might be harmed a little bit.

Wait, the fiction?

By first?

No, no.

I think that fiction sometimes is better in print than it is listened to.

Really?

In my experience.

I was prepared for the argument that you can’t learn geometry through your ears.

I don’t ever consume geometry in print or listening to.

I’m surprised to hear that stories which were originally oratory in our history, that that’s the part that you find harmed by the page.

So much of this is personal taste, isn’t it?

Maybe there are no universals here.

The other thing I wanted to say is I listened to two drama podcasts, one from BBC and one from RTE, which is the Irish national broadcaster.

And those cannot be.

I don’t have enough experience with drama in print to render them properly as a reader.

And the only way I’m going to get maximum value from them is having them dramatized for me by professionals.

Like the same way I don’t get enough from Shakespeare reading it.

I have to see it performed in order to be as an ignorant consumer to be properly, you know, informed how Shakespeare should be consumed.

So seeing the words.

Yeah. Well, I do. I do also get things from the words.

What I’m saying, like as somebody who is not a Shakespearean, I need to see the performance to really get the maximum value.

Yeah, I think there are probably a lot of books that are better on the page.

Like Cormac McCarthy’s books have a startling lack of punctuation.

And that lack is almost a character through the book.

Like it changes the way the book feels.

And you don’t always get that through your ears.

But on the other hand, I think there are plenty of books.

Like I believe the author Neil Gaiman, whenever he has a book performed as an audiobook, he wants to do it himself.

I think he said in the Forward of Coraline that he prefers to have his books spoken aloud and to do it himself because that’s how he hears them in his head.

I love that.

So I would say that to some extent it’s up to the author which one would be better for that book.

Right.

Yeah.

But I don’t think that my experience listening to the books is so significantly different that I want to have a different word to say what it is that I did.

Okay.

Yeah, I think it’s fair to use the verb red.

I think audio red sounds a little bit apologetic to me.

I’m going with red.

I like that.

Take care of yourself and good reading.

You as well.

Thank you so much for your time.

Bye-bye.

Thanks, Jane.

Bye-bye.

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