Sometimes when I don't have the time to sit down and read, I listen to audiobooks. They're useful because you can listen to them while driving, taking the bus, especially when doing mind-numbing tasks like alphabetizing your library
Sometime ago I read a novel that I had listened to years earlier and had hated. The novel wasn't bad at all so I couldn't figure out why I had avoided reading it. Suddenly I realized that part of the reason I had disliked the book was that my first exposure to it was its audiobook. The narrator's voice had been fine but when he was doing an important character's voice, he would switch to this annoying and harsh way of speaking. So I had never finished listening to the audiobook and assumed it was the story that was terrible.
I've also had the opposite experience. This was a long audiobook read by Simon Vance, which was done so well that later made me want to read the book myself. And this was a book I would have never wanted to read in the first place because it was a genre of fiction I'm not into.
So I've become more careful now with whether I read a book first or listen to its audiobook. And when I do pick audiobooks, read the reviews and listen to samples.
Have you experienced something similar when reading a book and listening to its audiobook version later or vice versa?
by maxwell-cady