Let’s settle this once and for all.
On the old social media these past few weeks, my timeline has been inundated with audiobook aficionados loudly declaring that listening to an audiobook “counts” as reading.
Does it?
Let’s do this as a poll. If you’re reading via e-mail or a feed reader, please click through to vote:
Here’s my take.
I think audiobooks are great. I spent an entire day recording one and I would love it if you listened to it on your friendly neighborhood Audible or Spotify. When someone tells me they read my book and someone else tells me they listened to my audiobook, I’m equally happy.
Now, I don’t listen to too many audiobooks because 1) reading is faster and 2) I can’t seem to listen to them and drive a car at the same time without imperiling myself and others. But they’re just fine and dandy.
Here’s the problem with these “audiobooks = reading” takes:
Listening to an audiobook is not reading.
I’m sorry! It’s just not! Consuming an audiobook is a fundamentally different activity than reading. We already have a word for it: LISTENING.
When you read a book, you place yourself in a very unique mental state where you’re taking symbols on a page (and yes, that includes Braille) and fusing your consciousness to the author’s to co-create every single element of the book in your own head. Including the inflection of the characters’ voices.
When you listen to an audiobook, there’s a third party involved: the narrator. Even when an author reads their own book, they’re adding a great deal of interpretation to the story, which results in a very different experience. I’m not necessarily saying it’s a lesser experience, one might even argue that it’s closest to the most ancient forms of storytelling, but it’s different! Which is why we have a different word for it!
You don’t “read” a story told around a campfire. You don’t “read” a movie. Just because you’re consuming a story doesn’t make it reading.
Now, if someone says they read 50 books in 2024 and 10 of those were actually audiobooks they listened to, I’m not going to call the cops on them.
But I have to confess to some annoyance with the loud insistence that audiobook = reading, which, I think, speaks to a cultural moment where it’s not enough to just like something. No. In the social media era, one’s personal preferences must be elevated to the status of an exalted virtue.
Some people sense that listening to an audiobook is viewed as a lesser activity than reading, and rather than just proudly liking what they like, they instead seem to believe they need to change the meaning of a verb in order to place their hobby on equal footing with one that’s more universally viewed as virtuous.
Just like what you like! Listening to audiobooks is great on its own! We don’t need to change the English language just because you’re feeling self-conscious about the way you spend your time.
What say you?
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Art: Pope Leo XIII sends greetings to the American people through the phonograph by Anonymous
Perhaps the focus shouldn’t be on the method of consumption—whether through reading, listening, or touching (Braille)—but on the act of engaging with and absorbing the story or information itself. The true value lies in devouring, ingesting, and utilizing the ideas, emotions, and knowledge a book offers. Regardless of the medium, the end result is the same: a connection with the narrative or content that enriches our minds and perspectives.
I think Braille is reading. You’re taking symbols on a page (whether via fingers or the eyes) and conjuring the book entirely in your head. Listening to an audiobook involves a third party’s interpretation.
That’s like saying radio theatre is like going to the movies. LOL!!!!
Reading is reading. Listening is listening. The experience is different. But there are so many stories I want to consume! I can take in more stories if I listen to some while walking the dogs. Or driving. Or ironing. If it’s amazing, I can get a copy and revel in it. If it’s not engaging, I can quit. If it’s more important to ruminate, I can do that, too. I have listened to some great books that I wouldn’t have finished if I were reading for real. I don’t keep score. I just love reading—even when it’s not officially reading.
I love audiobooks, but I have found an interesting split for my own personal preferences: I greatly prefer non-fiction in audio format, whilst I still prefer fiction in written (especially paperback!) format. The non-fiction was always a struggle for me and having someone “tell” me the information makes it stick better. While with fiction, I like to savor and often pause to contemplate.
I have, however, been enjoying some of the recent audio dramatizations on Audible and other services. The full cast and soundscapes harken back to the golden era of radio plays.
Non-fiction audiobooks also free up my hands to do other tasks and even to take notes. Fiction, I still prefer to hold a paperback and be alone in the world of my headspace. Have missed a few train stops as a result… lol.
I usually really love your takes, but as someone who is disabled, I do find this particular take to be ableist. There are plenty of people who very much struggle to read a physical book or can’t read a physical book due to a disability, and revoking audiobooks as a form of reading is both not taking disabled people into consideration and overall elitist. You’re failing to consider the realities and perspectives of people who aren’t as privileged as you.
Listening to a book takes a lot less time than reading. You want to brag about reading fast and being able to drive. Well, not everybody is that lucky. Go ahead…keep boasting about how you have no disabilities and how those with disabilities are below you.
Regarding the last two comments here, I am definitely open to being wildly wrong on this and that I’m being insensitive, but I’m at pains in this post to point out how I view listening to audiobooks as an *equal* activity to reading, it’s just a different process for consuming a book.
Does listening to/reading a book need to be considered exactly the same? Would we read a movie? Where are the edges of this word?
Elizabeth Warren said she “read” x number of books but they were audiobooks. She even bragged that she sped up the speed. Also, when asked what her favorite alcoholic beverage was, she answered Michelob. I tease my wife that she needs to drink a Michelob while reading an audiobook!
Elizabeth Warren said she “read” x number of books but they were audiobooks. She even bragged that she sped up the speed. Also, when asked what her favorite alcoholic beverage was, she answered Michelob. I tease my wife that she needs to drink a Michelob while reading an audiobook!
Call it reading or call it listening. I prefer audiobooks–partly because I have poor eyesight and partly because as a reader, I have the attention span of a goldfish. For whatever reason, I retain more of what I hear than what I read.
I’m biased, as I make my living narrating audiobooks. But I think all the opinions expressed here are valid.
If reading is taking in the information, as Merriam-Webster says, then who cares how you do it? Each of us gets to choose the method that’s best for us. I love to read, and I read in every way I can—by audiobook, ebook, paperback, whatever.
An audiobook is a “greater than the sum of its parts” situation, because (usually) the author isn’t the narrator, so there’s the person who wrote it and the person who’s interpreting it for you. And then there’s the third person in the equation—you—bringing your own experience to the story.
I really “get” the person who enjoys reading fiction on the page, because you can create the voices and scenes in your head. There are certain books I prefer that way as well. And a bad narrator can ruin a book. But a great narrator can be a real joy to listen to, and I definitely have some favorites.
Technically, not reading, but if people count it as reading, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t think someone needs to explain that they “listened to” a book instead of reading it. If I say, “Sara, have you read The Women?” I wouldn’t expect her to say “No, but I listened to it.” If fictional Sara counts it as reading, I’m good with it. And I love that many folks have the opportunity to listen to books and experience them. On walks, in the car, wherever. P.S. My dad recommends The Women.
I spend a brutal amount of hours every week week commuting on the LA freeways (405 anyone?), so audio books are a salvation that far outweighs the top 40 playlist loops or an opinionated talk-jock. So I enjoy my audio books.
However, as a writer, I often listen to a well written passage, and wish that I could read it myself to absorb the actual words, punctuation, and heart that the author poured into the page. I’ve even purchased particularly well written books just so I can…dare I say…re read them!
Gosh, I so rarely wade in on such debates, but this one has got me a bit riled. 😂
While I acknowledge the “technical” differentiation between reading and listening, like some others here I argue that it’s about consuming the content — and while narrators do indeed add their interpretation (and in my view usually enhance the experience), in the end, it still comes down to the WORDS and how they’re put together.
So, if someone asks me how many books I “read” in a year, I would 100% include every audiobook I listened to as well as books read on the “page” (or in my case kindle).
That said, I do tend to differentiate in general conversation and on social media, because they are a different experience.
As for considering that “listening to an audiobook is viewed as a lesser activity than reading…” I just don’t know what to say to that. 🙁
If you regard books as an art form, I believe you will get the best experience from taking in the art in the medium which the artist chose to express it. For example, I have seen pictures of Michelangelo’s David, but I have not stood next to the statue. I can admire it from the pictures, but I certainly did not get the full experience, and I would never tell someone I had seen it (implying I was there in person.) For a more literary reference, I can read a script, but it will not be as full an experience as seeing the play because the playwright intended for the work to be performative. Again, I can do my best with what’s available, but I would not claim to have seen the play if I only read the script. I think that it is wonderful that we have ways to access works of art that may not be exactly as the artist intended, but we can still appreciate the art. To me, audiobooks fall into the category of a way to access books when you can’t read the book, regardless what your reason for not reading it might be.
This is an excellent point about the medium the artist intended (and we can still appreciate it in other media, but it’s different). Some authors are writing with audio in mind these days, but a book written specifically for audio is rare. They exist, but not many of them.
This was such a wonderful explanation & as my father would say, “In a Nutshell”. ps He was a book collector & instilled in me that books are a treasure to be opened & read.
It’s merely a difference between reading and being read to. I prefer to read a book than to listen to someone reading it aloud. Though I did love when my fourth-grade teacher read us biographies, chapter by chapter, after lunch break. I could have sat there and listened to the whole book. I will convert to audio books on the day I can no longer read on my own. Because books are books.
After my mild traumatic brain injury, I could not read as fast or as long as I did before. Listening didn’t work well for me either. But recently, I’ve discovered my concentration has improved enough that I can listen to books. But, listening is not the same. One one, when listening I am at the reader’s mercy–which drives me crazy at times. Couldn’t they pause long enough to let the phrase resonate???? Besides, when I listen, I don’t feel as invested, as immersed in the story as I do when reading.
I get where you’re coming from because one reason I don’t listen to audiobooks is I can’t see the punctuation and paragraph breaks (or write in the margins).
But this debate is like saying Milton didn’t actually “write” Paradise Lost, he dictated it. When all that counts is that he got the words across.
In the same way, “read” can mean hearing those words. The military and NASA do this all the time: “Roger that, Houston. We read you loud and clear.”
And about voice actors interpreting the story, yeah, Jane Goodall would definitely give a much sweeter reading of Go the F*ck to Sleep than Samuel L. Jackson. But they’re both going to be saying the exact same words.
And yet when you read Flaubert or Tolstoy, you don’t get the same words they wrote, because translators have interpreted those books just like voice actors – trying to give the clearest reading, but still adding their own voice.
So someone could say, “No, you didn’t read Knausgard’s books. You’re never going to actually read them without any third party’s interpretation unless you learn Norwegian and can speak it like a native.”
There’s something to that for literary purists, but that’s not the kind of person anyone wants to be around. Especially when they’re trying to exclude people, instead of doing what books do best, which is bring people together.
I use “reading” for a summation because we don’t have a better word. If I am talking about an individual book, I prefer to use read or listen as appropriate.
“I read 40 books this month. Of those, I listened to 25 narrated audiobooks and 5 text-to-speech ebooks. I read 10 print books.”
“I consumed 40 books.” “I enjoyed 40 books” “I verbally processed 40 books”. None of those work for a collective.
Reading is different experience from listening. A narrator can significantly impact the experience (for better or worse). It can also be a jarring experience when you recognize a narrator in a different genre. (The narrator of a history book I am listened to also narrated many science fiction books. My mind is anticipating the alien invasion!)
If listening is the same as reading, then that means illiterate people can read by getting the audiobook… #farce
The fact is that written communication is different from aural communication. The former must be learned while the latter is innate.
I have found these comments fascinating and intelligent, so I thank you for asking the question. That being said, and at the risk of splitting hairs, I think ‘listening’ to a book can be different depending on how it is consumed. I agree that listening to an audio book while driving is a less fully engaged experience. However, I’ve found there is a big difference between listening to a book while driving vs. listening to a book while walking a trail or walking my dog. My attention isn’t split in the same way. I’m much more deeply engaged, can summon vivid images, think more deeply, etc… I’ve noticed that when walking the same trail without any distractions (like an audio book) later, I sometimes vividly recall some part of a book I was reading at that exact location. So maybe it’s a matter of degree of concentration, imagination and engagement, not just the media?
Brandon, you had me until you said ‘very’ unique.
That’s ‘Nathan’ sorry!