Comments on: Reading habits

By: My Opinions Are Important · Reading habits

My Opinions Are Important · Reading habits — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:21:46 +0000

[...] at�Confessing Evangelical�and thought I’d join in.Do you snack while you read? If so, favourite reading snack?No I [...]

By: The Scylding

The Scylding — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:59:28 +0000

I second Rick on Dylan Thomas: Truely exceptional. And then – Simon Callow reading PG Wodehouse. It is an exceptional experience. Hilarious, but good.

By: Rick Ritchie

Rick Ritchie — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:12:37 +0000

To tell the truth, I use audiobooks for non-fiction moreso than fiction. With non-fiction, it is less of a problem to miss material the first time through, especially if you are likely to listen again. Probably the key thing that doesn’t come across in a reading if you suffer from gaps is suspense. But I’ll admit that I get less out of that factor than most people. And suspense is not often the chief virtue of non-fiction.

Walter Lord’s “A Night to Remember” was great as an audiobook.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:44:42 +0000

I’m blessed with an exceptionally good public library (it’s been rated as #2 in the nation for communities of the size it serves). I’ve only rarely come across an abridged audiobook. If abridgments were the only options available to me then I wouldn’t enjoy audiobooks either.

By: John H

John H — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:54:22 +0000

OK, maybe I was being more dogmatic than I needed to be there.

My personal, non-dogmatic issues why audiobooks are not for me are:

1. Most audiobooks I’ve seen are abridgements (the unabridged Harry Potter audiobooks read by Stephen Fry were seen as something exceptional; YMMV).

2. I find audiobooks inefficient, since I can read faster than someone can read them outloud. (Yeah, I know, iPods have speed-up/slowdown options.)

3. If I’m in the car, I’d rather listen to music or a podcast than an audiobook – I’m not sure I could concentrate fully on both the audiobook and the road.

4. If I’m not in the car, I can’t listen to talkie stuff without something for my eyes to do. So concentration becomes an issue again.

5. If the book was any good, I’d probably want the hard copy as well. I spend enough on books as it is!

I could make an exception for poetry, but I’d almost see that as an audio performance rather than an “audiobook”. Oh, and I do have a DVD of Johnny Cash reading the New Testament, though my attempt to rip it onto my iPod has proved difficult to carry through, for reasons I won’t bore you with�

By: Rick Ritchie

Rick Ritchie — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:48:02 +0000

Audiobooks are especially good for poetry. Try Dylan Thomas reading Dylan Thomas.

Audiobooks are books. An audio book may not be a codex. But scrolls contained books before codices did.

I posted my replies at Daylight.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:14:00 +0000

What is this prejudice against audiobooks? Probably because you read “mostly non-fiction”. Harrumph.