“Reading” an Audiobook

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Grant, you and I both listen to a lot of podcasts.

Oh, yeah.

Lately, I’ve been trying to mix things up for myself a little bit. I’m not listening so much to other radio shows, but I’m listening to old Sherlock Holmes stories.

Oh, nice.

You know, the Conan Doyle. I’m binge listening.

Binge listening.

But you know what? Sometimes I still feel when I’m listening to audiobooks that I’m, I don’t know, cheating somehow.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah. It feels a tiny bit transgressive, you know, like I’m not allowed to do it. Do you know what I mean?

I do know what you mean.

Oh, good. I’m really, really absorbed. I’m really loving listening this way.

But then, you know, if I tell somebody that I read the book, then I still sort of—

You feel like a liar.

I do. And we’ve been talking about this on our Facebook page, and we’ve had some really thoughtful comments about this.

And I especially liked one from Tyler Connolly, who said that he learned to love reading by having his sister read to him when he was little.

He said, we read the Chronicles of Narnia, the Anne of Green Gables series, and all of the Laura Ingalls Wilders books,

with her sitting in an easy chair reading and me lying on the floor listening.

It never occurred to me that I had only, quote unquote, read those books until much later when people began to question my audio book habit

and my casually mentioning that I had read a book when I had only listened to it.

Yeah, you’re still getting the information.

As a matter of fact, you might be getting it better than you could read it.

Because it comes from a professional actor, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Reading in a great voice, maybe doing accents and voices,

And the pausing and timing that makes it a little more dramatic

Maybe than what’s happening in your head.

Yeah, I feel like I just, I don’t know, I feel it more.

And I’ve been heartened by the comments from people noting that for most of recorded history, well, it wasn’t recorded.

It was just spoken orally, right?

Yep, that’s right.

We heard it.

We didn’t read it.

I’m with you, but I actually horrify people even more when I talk about my listening habits.

Because when I listen to books on tape, I play them at one and a half times speed.

Of course you do.

Because it’s too slow otherwise.

Of course you do.

And people are like, that’s horrific.

You’re ruining the book and the acting talents of the voice, the person doing the voices.

Oh, my gosh.

So they’re at a higher pitch.

You have never experienced pleasure, by the way, until you’ve heard Ira Glass at one and a half times speed.

He sounds great.

But a lot younger.

He sounds like Jerry Lewis.

What are your thoughts about audiobooks?

Does it count as reading if you listen to a book on tape or a book on CD or a book on your iPod?

Let us know, 877-929-9673, or email us, words@waywordradio.org.