Hi all, I’ve only ever listened to one series as an audiobook (Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’) when I was in high school and had an overnight job. Loved it, but I’m also a much different reader now. I don’t “annotate” in the obnoxious way that I see booktok people put 400 color-coordinated tabs in the latest 280 page pulp romance novel and turn the pages into a coloring book with quippy comments in every margin that add nothing to the text or subsequent re-reads (I’m being harsh but I just have disdain for how annotating is treated now, I digress), but I do like to underline or bracket, give my thoughts where I feel they’re too important to think to myself, leave a note or write in my journal if I feel like I have more to say than a few words or a starred passage. I also generally have always found that physically reading books, especially those that I am really trying to take something away from, helps me more with focus, retention of themes/material/whatever, the ability to go back and reread/meditate on certain passages, etc etc. (I read a lot more classics/literary fiction than I used to).
However, between work, errands, the gym, etc, I’m probably commuting for an hour a day on average now, and have a desk job that allows me to pop an earbud in while I work. My original idea was just to do the genre fiction/more mindless stuff on audiobooks and my headier reads on paper, but I’ve also heard people say that audiobooks like the full-cast “Dracula” on audible are really good too. So I feel like I’ll end up dipping into literary fiction if I end up going down the audiobook road but again, I worry about the integrity of the material in my mind if I’m listening.
I am, all in all, apprehensive to a medium of experience that I do not understand, but would love to know if anyone else felt similarly to how I do and how they were able to ease into audiobooks regardless. I’m thinking of starting with A Song of Ice and Fire.
by BrennusRex
2 Comments
Well, ultimately it’s about whether you enjoy it, right?
I think a lot depends on whether you enjoy each individual narrator’s voice/performance. And yes, some books are much more suited to work as audiobooks than others.
I felt the same way for a long time, finally took the dive about seven years ago and I love audiobooks now. Most audiobook platforms have a “bookmark/save clip” feature that is essentially the same as underlining a passage.
I used to drive a snowplow in winter and there’s no way I could have gotten through it without my trusty booktape. It doesn’t replace reading for me, but it allows me to “read” or experience the story while doing other tasks. There are still books that I have read and prefer the paper copy to the audiobook and books that I intentionally avoid until I have time to sit down and read them, but I’ve found myself downloading the audio versions of some of my all time favorite books for rereads.