I used to be an avid consumer of books on tape and on CD/DVD when I regularly drove 500 miles a week to and from work, but since I retired, I avoid recorded books because I dislike being led around by the nose. Reading is an active experience. One pauses, rereads, or skims at a roaring pace depending on reactions to the text. Listening is at at the pace of the recorded voice, not my pace.
The voice is also present in reading. I and--I suspect--everyone else can spot AI generated text within a few lines because the AI voice is garbled and incoherent; an average, not an intellect.
I find the problem of having to go back to find things you missed or misunderstood to be huge! It makes me see how much reading is a non-linear experience. And one anecdote re AI recording: I keep listening to a recording of Democracy in American that I get out of the library that is so beautiful, the prose strikes me as so finely balanced between wit and attention and sobriety. Then I tried to buy an audiobook of a newer and supposedly better translation and I could barely understand it. It was such a striking difference. I came to think the second one must be AI, though I’m not sure, because conveying these complicated, delicately balanced sentences so that they were comprehensible required understanding and informed modulation. I didn’t feel that the difference was the translation.
This is a fascinating take on the ascendance of audiobooks. I don't know if I agree that listening is always more passive than reading, but it does take effort to focus on an audiobook if you tend to multitask. I often listen to books while I'm doing other things with my hands (when I was listening to the Slow Horses series I could not find enough laundry to fold). The best storytellers--I'm thinking especially of Irish authors Anne Enright and Kevin Barry--have such a fantastic rhythm to their prose, listening to them is on the same level, if not sometimes more beautiful, than reading on the page. I make myself do nothing but listen, and I always learn something about how to write.
You definitely have a point. So many writers encouraged their students to read their own work aloud to hear it; there is certainly something oral in the way we appreciate prose and story.
This is such a fascinating conversation. It makes sense that more and more people are listening to books rather than reading them – with the ability to speed up the recording, you can consume more material in a shorter amount of time. It's so interesting to think about how our brain interacts differently while listening rather than reading. I love a good audiobook when I am commuting or on a long road trip but nothing compares to reading a physical book.
I’ve never been able to speed up an audiobook! It sounds awful to me, but maybe it’s something you can just get used to. I feel like it would stress me out.
I haven’t done it. But I have heard of people speeding up recorded lectures / podcasts. Not my cup of tea but there are definitely people out there that want to optimize everything!
I don't listen to many audio books, but I do love a well produced, limited edition podcast. Perhaps that's partly because I recently released one (That Sinking Feeling: Adventures in ADHD and Ship Salvage) but also because there are so many wonderful ones! A small list: My Mother Made Me (Jason Reynolds on Radiotopia), Cement City (about a dying town, a Smog Museum, a mayor named Piglet, and not a whole lot else), Embeded:Tested (about women in sports), Exit Scam (about a mysterious death and a missing fortune).
Interesting read! Audiobooks are amazing for folks who may not be able to engage with a text some other way, but for me, I lose too much listening—I can't see the page layouts or punctuation, and these things feel crucial to me in trying to get what an author is doing. I also resent the insertion of another mind/interpretation between mine and the author's—even when it is the author's own voice, their intonation, breath, and pacing add a layer between me and the words that I don't want; there is often so much to be found in a text beyond what an author intends that gets obscured if someone else is speaking it. If a work was specifically written to be performed or read aloud, that's different, and I imagine a fair few books now are written with audio audiences in mind. Podcasts aren't meant to be read, and I don't mind listening to a play. But I haven't found audiobooks to be much use to me as a reader.
I so agree about the additional layer of interpretation. I’ve noticed since I started listening to audiobooks how much I depend on the layout of the page for remembering things and finding my way back to them. Sam Mendes has made a series of audiobooks of “audio drama” adaptations of Dickens. This interests me: I love the idea of a radio play. When I was younger my British writer friends used to make decent money writing radio plays for the BBC, don’t know how much that still goes on.
What's interesting about this article is that I listened to what I assumed is an AI reading of this post via the Substack app while simultaneously reading the post. Is my assumption incorrect?
It is!! That is a new feature. I thought about mentioning it but then got distracted. I kind of get listening to AI reading articles, so you can do things with your hands. I don’t think of my Book Posts being anything like Virginia Woolf! Though maybe AI had trouble with my too-long (I admit it) sentences—I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to AI reading me! If we reach this promised world of “artificial general intelligence” maybe the AI will start to alter readings of texts critical of AI!
We will soon find out how AI will one day rule the world, I'm afraid. In the meantime, I enjoyed the AI reading, although you added an asterisk and it read, "Asterisk." I do like this new feature, however.
Regarding the different views on audiobooks vs. reading, I've found a method that works well for me: combining both. Listening to the audiobook while reading the text, especially with classic literature, has been a game-changer for my comprehension. The narrator's interpretation, like Richard Armitage's work on David Copperfield, can add a whole new dimension to the story and doesn't detract from my own visualization of the characters; in fact, it enhances it. Armitage's interpretation of Mr. Creakle's raspy voice was perfection; I laughed out loud the minute I heard it.
Have we come full circle, a time circle with a diameter of a Millenium?
By which I mean a thousand years ago, the Norse sagas were oral tradition. The Icelandic Sagas, I argue, are the opposite of our ongoing move from written words to audible. Transcribed from oral stories, the Sagas became medieval manuscripts.
Did we lose something in the transformation, similar to the loss when we transcribe written words to audio? I believe we lose something in both directions.
I remember feeling as I read Beowulf (waiting at the gate in SFO for my flight) how wonderful it must have been to sit by the fire in the longhouse and listen to the story. Oral, written — it is the story that moves us.
I used to be an avid consumer of books on tape and on CD/DVD when I regularly drove 500 miles a week to and from work, but since I retired, I avoid recorded books because I dislike being led around by the nose. Reading is an active experience. One pauses, rereads, or skims at a roaring pace depending on reactions to the text. Listening is at at the pace of the recorded voice, not my pace.
The voice is also present in reading. I and--I suspect--everyone else can spot AI generated text within a few lines because the AI voice is garbled and incoherent; an average, not an intellect.
I find the problem of having to go back to find things you missed or misunderstood to be huge! It makes me see how much reading is a non-linear experience. And one anecdote re AI recording: I keep listening to a recording of Democracy in American that I get out of the library that is so beautiful, the prose strikes me as so finely balanced between wit and attention and sobriety. Then I tried to buy an audiobook of a newer and supposedly better translation and I could barely understand it. It was such a striking difference. I came to think the second one must be AI, though I’m not sure, because conveying these complicated, delicately balanced sentences so that they were comprehensible required understanding and informed modulation. I didn’t feel that the difference was the translation.
This is a fascinating take on the ascendance of audiobooks. I don't know if I agree that listening is always more passive than reading, but it does take effort to focus on an audiobook if you tend to multitask. I often listen to books while I'm doing other things with my hands (when I was listening to the Slow Horses series I could not find enough laundry to fold). The best storytellers--I'm thinking especially of Irish authors Anne Enright and Kevin Barry--have such a fantastic rhythm to their prose, listening to them is on the same level, if not sometimes more beautiful, than reading on the page. I make myself do nothing but listen, and I always learn something about how to write.
You definitely have a point. So many writers encouraged their students to read their own work aloud to hear it; there is certainly something oral in the way we appreciate prose and story.
This is such a fascinating conversation. It makes sense that more and more people are listening to books rather than reading them – with the ability to speed up the recording, you can consume more material in a shorter amount of time. It's so interesting to think about how our brain interacts differently while listening rather than reading. I love a good audiobook when I am commuting or on a long road trip but nothing compares to reading a physical book.
I’ve never been able to speed up an audiobook! It sounds awful to me, but maybe it’s something you can just get used to. I feel like it would stress me out.
I haven’t done it. But I have heard of people speeding up recorded lectures / podcasts. Not my cup of tea but there are definitely people out there that want to optimize everything!
I don't listen to many audio books, but I do love a well produced, limited edition podcast. Perhaps that's partly because I recently released one (That Sinking Feeling: Adventures in ADHD and Ship Salvage) but also because there are so many wonderful ones! A small list: My Mother Made Me (Jason Reynolds on Radiotopia), Cement City (about a dying town, a Smog Museum, a mayor named Piglet, and not a whole lot else), Embeded:Tested (about women in sports), Exit Scam (about a mysterious death and a missing fortune).
Thank you for telling us about your audiobook! And for sharing this list!
Interesting read! Audiobooks are amazing for folks who may not be able to engage with a text some other way, but for me, I lose too much listening—I can't see the page layouts or punctuation, and these things feel crucial to me in trying to get what an author is doing. I also resent the insertion of another mind/interpretation between mine and the author's—even when it is the author's own voice, their intonation, breath, and pacing add a layer between me and the words that I don't want; there is often so much to be found in a text beyond what an author intends that gets obscured if someone else is speaking it. If a work was specifically written to be performed or read aloud, that's different, and I imagine a fair few books now are written with audio audiences in mind. Podcasts aren't meant to be read, and I don't mind listening to a play. But I haven't found audiobooks to be much use to me as a reader.
I so agree about the additional layer of interpretation. I’ve noticed since I started listening to audiobooks how much I depend on the layout of the page for remembering things and finding my way back to them. Sam Mendes has made a series of audiobooks of “audio drama” adaptations of Dickens. This interests me: I love the idea of a radio play. When I was younger my British writer friends used to make decent money writing radio plays for the BBC, don’t know how much that still goes on.
What's interesting about this article is that I listened to what I assumed is an AI reading of this post via the Substack app while simultaneously reading the post. Is my assumption incorrect?
It is!! That is a new feature. I thought about mentioning it but then got distracted. I kind of get listening to AI reading articles, so you can do things with your hands. I don’t think of my Book Posts being anything like Virginia Woolf! Though maybe AI had trouble with my too-long (I admit it) sentences—I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to AI reading me! If we reach this promised world of “artificial general intelligence” maybe the AI will start to alter readings of texts critical of AI!
We will soon find out how AI will one day rule the world, I'm afraid. In the meantime, I enjoyed the AI reading, although you added an asterisk and it read, "Asterisk." I do like this new feature, however.
One more thought...
Regarding the different views on audiobooks vs. reading, I've found a method that works well for me: combining both. Listening to the audiobook while reading the text, especially with classic literature, has been a game-changer for my comprehension. The narrator's interpretation, like Richard Armitage's work on David Copperfield, can add a whole new dimension to the story and doesn't detract from my own visualization of the characters; in fact, it enhances it. Armitage's interpretation of Mr. Creakle's raspy voice was perfection; I laughed out loud the minute I heard it.
Have we come full circle, a time circle with a diameter of a Millenium?
By which I mean a thousand years ago, the Norse sagas were oral tradition. The Icelandic Sagas, I argue, are the opposite of our ongoing move from written words to audible. Transcribed from oral stories, the Sagas became medieval manuscripts.
Did we lose something in the transformation, similar to the loss when we transcribe written words to audio? I believe we lose something in both directions.
I remember feeling as I read Beowulf (waiting at the gate in SFO for my flight) how wonderful it must have been to sit by the fire in the longhouse and listen to the story. Oral, written — it is the story that moves us.
So true. Also, what happens to our attention when the necessity of remembering things is no longer built into it?