What We Get out of Listening to Audiobooks vs. Reading Books

What’s the difference between reading a printed book and listening to the audiobook version? Irish novelist Colm Tóibín has compared it to “the difference between running a marathon and watching a marathon on TV.” Yet audiobooks offer opportunities for hands-free reading while doing otherwise boring tasks, and the growing number of high-quality recordings read by talented voice artists. The narration of Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead (Bookshop|Amazon) by actor Charlie Thurston made a splendid book even more powerful. This is part of a complete episode.

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