@andyw Same. As soon as I start focusing on the road, I stop hearing the audiobook. The only time I can really focus on them is when I’m in bed and not doing anything else, at which point it’s easier to read a printed book.
As an older person, whose eyes are no where near what they used to be (for the smug and unsympathetic younger crowd, your time is coming, if you live long enough), audio books are a god send. That and large print.
My only complaint as a very fast reader is that I can’t easily speed up the rates.
Some of the narrators are excellent, and really make some books memorable, more so than if one simply read them. Dick Hill reading the Jack Reacher books or Lisette Lecatt reading the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series are but two examples where the reader takes the book beyond the author.
Most “audio file” audiobook players have playback speed controls that work nicely, and the result sounds fine.
It partially depends on the source and format of your audiobook and player
I think that the software players for all of the “big name” digital audiobook sellers (Amazon, Rakuten/Walmart, Nook, Google, Apple, E-Stories, Chirpbooks, etc) have speed controls, tho I haven’t tested all of them for this.
I’m under the impression that the players used by public libraries for their instant-download audiobooks also have these controls. Has been years since I used one, so unsure.
(I’m speaking here of instant-download-type audiobooks from audible, the library, etc; not books on cassette or CD, where playback speed control is difficult)
I run most of mine at around 1.5 to 2.0, depending on the book
(does not make the narrator sound like a speaking chipmunk; the software is way better than that. Sounds fine).
If the book is very technical, or if the book is unusually thought-provoking or complex, or if the narrator has a superb vocal style, then my playback is tuned to “slower”
Genre books and pure entertainment books get played at a faster pace.
{Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic (sensation and emotion), Olfactory (smell), Gustatory (taste)}, different people can prefer one or more above the others.
I grew up listening to the radio back when there were radio programs of adventure, drama, suspense, and comedy, not just music, news, talk in a family of storytellers. I am not a big TV watcher, never have been.
I can listen while doing something else that doesn’t require intense concentration as a rule. So audio books are appealing to me maybe more than the average, younger bear, eh?
The only audiobooks I’ve ever enjoyed are autobiographies or memoirs read by the author. A few examples that I enjoyed: Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah; The Disaster Artist, by Greg Sestero (who does a spot-on Tommy Wiseau voice throughout) ; I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert (which feels like a lost episode of The Colbert Report) ; and any of Kevin Smith’s autobiographies, which are essentially just really long solo episodes of one of his many podcasts.
I find most audiobooks … annoying. Either the voice and reading style of the reader has quirks that distract; they are slow readers (and they’re all slow since I can read a book much faster than I can talk) ; or there are noises in the background. Or maybe being read to makes me feel like a sick child and I keep waiting for the reader to stop and tell me to quit fidgeting and just swallow the awful-tasting medicine! I do have some recordings of authors reading their own books that I enjoy. J.R.R. Tolkien reading his own work is wonderful, since he reads dialogue in each character’s “voice”. But a hired reader just droning through words? No.
I’ve tried listening to audiobooks after reading books that I really enjoyed. I always want to re-read so I catch the little things I missed. For example, the Wheel of Time series. I’ve read it 3 times and still am catching a lot that I missed the first 3 times. However; the voice and speech patterns never match what my imagination created so after maybe 10 minutes or so I feel so disgusted that I can’t listen anymore.
The only audio books I’ve ever listed to are the Harry Potter ones. Even those I think I only listed to the first 4 books. They are excellent though.
I keep thinking I should try to listen to audio books on long car drives. Of course I only think of it after hearing the same songs on the radio (even though I have satellite radio and change the channel often), but by then I’m driving and I’m not going to stop to see what I might have on my phone. When I do stop for gas/food/bathroom I don’t think about it. I’m pretty sure I have an audio book app that came with a bunch of free stuff. So it’s there and ready, I just don’t think to start it.
I love audiobooks. I generally listen all day at work (very tedious job) so I can get through a couple a week. I have a subscription and several hundred books in my “library,” and if I’m out of books, I listen to podcasts instead (Lore, Clarkesworld Magazine, Redweb. etc, etc.)
I like being able to speed up the reading speed to 1.5+ times the recorded rate, usually around my preferred zippy conversational speed. It really makes action scenes POP too! I also visually read fairly quickly, and have shelves and a kindle full.
Interestingly, both Audiobooks and traditional visual books both reside in my memory in the same way/place. I often have trouble remembering if I read a book or listened to it, especially if I want to find it again. I sometime think I read it but it ends up being in my Audible library, or I could swear I listened to it with all the voices and theatricality, but I find it in paperback on the shelf instead.
I tried listening to audio books twice. Couldn’t make it in even five minutes. I have an unusually fast reading speed (was too fast for an introductory speed reading class!) and I felt so bogged down and impatient to get the stories moving.
Having an ebook reader is a joy. If I’m too lazy to track down my reading glasses (I’m a “Golden Gurl”), I just adujst the font, and off I go.
The prob w “reading” with your eyes is that you prob can’t do much else simultaneously.
Some people manage to work out on a rowing machine, treadmill, or exercycle or similar while reading printed material.
Or perhaps knit/crochet, or similar, if someone is good enough to do that without looking?
there’s not that much stuff I can do that “gets life tasks done” at the same time I “read” with my eyes.
But audiobooks! Ah! Prob solved.
Don’t like the narrator’s interpretation? Listen at a faster speed, and learn to “listen thru the narrative style to the words”.
(IE, selectively tune out the expressive, accent, or tonal/personal qualities you dislike, and focus on the spoken text.)
I’ve found only a few narrators whose vocal style I disliked so much that I simply couldn’t “listen thru to the words”.
Is a given audiobook narrated too slowly?
Play it at a faster speed. Just about all the smartphone audiobook software allows this.
Have to jump back x seconds too often?
Slow down the playback.
(Or get used to listening while doing other things, which is an acquired skill that improves over time;
or get use to frequent jump backs, which tend to bother constant listeners less over time, as they become better at listening and better used to audiobooks as a source.)
(I do jump backs after many or most interruptions, for example;
including “stray- or serious-thought” type interruptions.
With the right headset, this is easy and nearly unconscious and automatic.)
I now use my eyes mostly for reading news, essays, commentary, and highly technical material. I’ve always got plenty of that waiting in the to-read pile.
What audiobooks do is extend that amount of ones life available for reading
(listening to many audiobooks means the listener gets better at focusing, and at hearing/experiencing the book the way they want to while using their ears.)
So instead of having only 1-2 hours a day available for reading:
because I’ve added in my ears as an input source, and that means I can multitask while doing mindless stuff with hands, I now have 3-5 times as many hours a day during which I might “read”.
Concerned that “reading” with your ears isn’t as good as “reading” with your eyes in some respect?
For some uses, pretty true, for many persons who need to really absorb the material.
Most of us are simply better at full concentration if we use our eyes.
(Practice makes a huge diff here)
Technical material is often best read w eyes (for most people).
Concentration often needed there.
Academic material, for most of us, is better “read” visually.
(Blind people who “read” with their ears are perfectly competent at academics. However, for their academic work, they usually aren’t multitasking.)
Material that must be marked up, or annotated, or that requires intensive critical absorption, is easier to do with our eyes, for most of us.
Blind persons have found ways to deal with this tho.
There are exceptions that are difficult in audio: specially formatted poetry and novels, etc. Stuff created in order to be seen with the eyes.
I read this stuff with my eyes when I’m in the mood for it.
Want more - perhaps considerably more - free time to read?
Add audiobooks to your life.
Get a great headset for audiobooks. I personally like LG Tone headsets for this. They have the right controls, and controls are the key.
This is spoken word, not music, so good headset controls matter way more than fidelity for this. (I usually listen one-earpiece-in, one-out.)
Start with your fav beach-read entertainment genres: SF/fantasy, romance, thrillers/mysteries, classic novels, just whatever: of whatever stuff you find addicting in print.
Or start with “pop non-fiction” if you like that.
People get better at audiobooks over weeks of listening, and also over years.
Start with many books of the sort that you like and find compelling. Go from there.
After a while mostly of us can do almost anything that’s not science or engineering or math, or other highly techie stuff.
And blind persons have gotten past those limitations.
For those fast readers along us.
I’m one of you. (persons commented on my reading speed when I was in grad school doing highly abstract theoretical work)
Fast reading is great if you are retired. Read all you want!
But will you ever have time to read everything you wish you had time to read?
For most of us, no.
If you have many obligations in your life that limit your reading time available, you will only improve on the time available for reading by either seriously tweaking your lifestyle, or adding in audiobooks.
Audiobooks dont fix the prob of conscious hours being finite. But they can help. And can make the entire business more enjoyable.
I still read in the “traditional” way, but audiobooks allow me a lot more freedom to accomplish other things at the same time, which is kind of a necessary thing these days.
While I can listen to music while working in the shop, the thought of trying to concentrate on a storyline while having my hand inches from a spinning saw blade, router bit or planer knives is a bit terrifying!
I find it hard to concentrate on them in the car and have to repeat sections constantly, so I don’t use them much.
@andyw Same. As soon as I start focusing on the road, I stop hearing the audiobook. The only time I can really focus on them is when I’m in bed and not doing anything else, at which point it’s easier to read a printed book.
The best sleep aid.
@hchavers Thanks. What’s more effective, weather or stock report podcast?
As an older person, whose eyes are no where near what they used to be (for the smug and unsympathetic younger crowd, your time is coming, if you live long enough), audio books are a god send. That and large print.
My only complaint as a very fast reader is that I can’t easily speed up the rates.
Some of the narrators are excellent, and really make some books memorable, more so than if one simply read them. Dick Hill reading the Jack Reacher books or Lisette Lecatt reading the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series are but two examples where the reader takes the book beyond the author.
@Jackinga
Most “audio file” audiobook players have playback speed controls that work nicely, and the result sounds fine.
It partially depends on the source and format of your audiobook and player
I think that the software players for all of the “big name” digital audiobook sellers (Amazon, Rakuten/Walmart, Nook, Google, Apple, E-Stories, Chirpbooks, etc) have speed controls, tho I haven’t tested all of them for this.
I’m under the impression that the players used by public libraries for their instant-download audiobooks also have these controls. Has been years since I used one, so unsure.
(I’m speaking here of instant-download-type audiobooks from audible, the library, etc; not books on cassette or CD, where playback speed control is difficult)
I run most of mine at around 1.5 to 2.0, depending on the book
(does not make the narrator sound like a speaking chipmunk; the software is way better than that. Sounds fine).
If the book is very technical, or if the book is unusually thought-provoking or complex, or if the narrator has a superb vocal style, then my playback is tuned to “slower”
Genre books and pure entertainment books get played at a faster pace.
@f00l Good to know. I don’t have an audio book player as such. Maybe that is my problem.
Of those who have commented here, it seems the majority at the time of this post/reply are not fans of audio books. To each his/her own, I suppose.
Of the
five modalities of how we perceive the world
{Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic (sensation and emotion), Olfactory (smell), Gustatory (taste)}, different people can prefer one or more above the others.
I grew up listening to the radio back when there were radio programs of adventure, drama, suspense, and comedy, not just music, news, talk in a family of storytellers. I am not a big TV watcher, never have been.
I can listen while doing something else that doesn’t require intense concentration as a rule. So audio books are appealing to me maybe more than the average, younger bear, eh?
The only audiobooks I’ve ever enjoyed are autobiographies or memoirs read by the author. A few examples that I enjoyed: Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah; The Disaster Artist, by Greg Sestero (who does a spot-on Tommy Wiseau voice throughout) ; I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert (which feels like a lost episode of The Colbert Report) ; and any of Kevin Smith’s autobiographies, which are essentially just really long solo episodes of one of his many podcasts.
I find most audiobooks … annoying. Either the voice and reading style of the reader has quirks that distract; they are slow readers (and they’re all slow since I can read a book much faster than I can talk) ; or there are noises in the background. Or maybe being read to makes me feel like a sick child and I keep waiting for the reader to stop and tell me to quit fidgeting and just swallow the awful-tasting medicine! I do have some recordings of authors reading their own books that I enjoy. J.R.R. Tolkien reading his own work is wonderful, since he reads dialogue in each character’s “voice”. But a hired reader just droning through words? No.
@rockblossom Back Story by David Mitchell is a good audiobook autobiography. He does a great job reading it.
@rockblossom @yakkoTDI
Thx
I’ve tried listening to audiobooks after reading books that I really enjoyed. I always want to re-read so I catch the little things I missed. For example, the Wheel of Time series. I’ve read it 3 times and still am catching a lot that I missed the first 3 times. However; the voice and speech patterns never match what my imagination created so after maybe 10 minutes or so I feel so disgusted that I can’t listen anymore.
The only audio books I’ve ever listed to are the Harry Potter ones. Even those I think I only listed to the first 4 books. They are excellent though.
I keep thinking I should try to listen to audio books on long car drives. Of course I only think of it after hearing the same songs on the radio (even though I have satellite radio and change the channel often), but by then I’m driving and I’m not going to stop to see what I might have on my phone. When I do stop for gas/food/bathroom I don’t think about it. I’m pretty sure I have an audio book app that came with a bunch of free stuff. So it’s there and ready, I just don’t think to start it.
I love audiobooks. I generally listen all day at work (very tedious job) so I can get through a couple a week. I have a subscription and several hundred books in my “library,” and if I’m out of books, I listen to podcasts instead (Lore, Clarkesworld Magazine, Redweb. etc, etc.)
I like being able to speed up the reading speed to 1.5+ times the recorded rate, usually around my preferred zippy conversational speed. It really makes action scenes POP too! I also visually read fairly quickly, and have shelves and a kindle full.
Interestingly, both Audiobooks and traditional visual books both reside in my memory in the same way/place. I often have trouble remembering if I read a book or listened to it, especially if I want to find it again. I sometime think I read it but it ends up being in my Audible library, or I could swear I listened to it with all the voices and theatricality, but I find it in paperback on the shelf instead.
Audiobooks and true crime podcasts are how I clean the house and sleep
I tried listening to audio books twice. Couldn’t make it in even five minutes. I have an unusually fast reading speed (was too fast for an introductory speed reading class!) and I felt so bogged down and impatient to get the stories moving.
Having an ebook reader is a joy. If I’m too lazy to track down my reading glasses (I’m a “Golden Gurl”), I just adujst the font, and off I go.
The prob w “reading” with your eyes is that you prob can’t do much else simultaneously.
Some people manage to work out on a rowing machine, treadmill, or exercycle or similar while reading printed material.
Or perhaps knit/crochet, or similar, if someone is good enough to do that without looking?
there’s not that much stuff I can do that “gets life tasks done” at the same time I “read” with my eyes.
But audiobooks! Ah! Prob solved.
Don’t like the narrator’s interpretation? Listen at a faster speed, and learn to “listen thru the narrative style to the words”.
(IE, selectively tune out the expressive, accent, or tonal/personal qualities you dislike, and focus on the spoken text.)
I’ve found only a few narrators whose vocal style I disliked so much that I simply couldn’t “listen thru to the words”.
Is a given audiobook narrated too slowly?
Play it at a faster speed. Just about all the smartphone audiobook software allows this.
Have to jump back x seconds too often?
Slow down the playback.
(Or get used to listening while doing other things, which is an acquired skill that improves over time;
or get use to frequent jump backs, which tend to bother constant listeners less over time, as they become better at listening and better used to audiobooks as a source.)
(I do jump backs after many or most interruptions, for example;
including “stray- or serious-thought” type interruptions.
With the right headset, this is easy and nearly unconscious and automatic.)
I now use my eyes mostly for reading news, essays, commentary, and highly technical material. I’ve always got plenty of that waiting in the to-read pile.
What audiobooks do is extend that amount of ones life available for reading
(listening to many audiobooks means the listener gets better at focusing, and at hearing/experiencing the book the way they want to while using their ears.)
So instead of having only 1-2 hours a day available for reading:
because I’ve added in my ears as an input source, and that means I can multitask while doing mindless stuff with hands, I now have 3-5 times as many hours a day during which I might “read”.
Concerned that “reading” with your ears isn’t as good as “reading” with your eyes in some respect?
For some uses, pretty true, for many persons who need to really absorb the material.
Most of us are simply better at full concentration if we use our eyes.
(Practice makes a huge diff here)
Technical material is often best read w eyes (for most people).
Concentration often needed there.
Academic material, for most of us, is better “read” visually.
(Blind people who “read” with their ears are perfectly competent at academics. However, for their academic work, they usually aren’t multitasking.)
Material that must be marked up, or annotated, or that requires intensive critical absorption, is easier to do with our eyes, for most of us.
Blind persons have found ways to deal with this tho.
There are exceptions that are difficult in audio: specially formatted poetry and novels, etc. Stuff created in order to be seen with the eyes.
I read this stuff with my eyes when I’m in the mood for it.
Want more - perhaps considerably more - free time to read?
Add audiobooks to your life.
Get a great headset for audiobooks. I personally like LG Tone headsets for this. They have the right controls, and controls are the key.
This is spoken word, not music, so good headset controls matter way more than fidelity for this. (I usually listen one-earpiece-in, one-out.)
Start with your fav beach-read entertainment genres: SF/fantasy, romance, thrillers/mysteries, classic novels, just whatever: of whatever stuff you find addicting in print.
Or start with “pop non-fiction” if you like that.
People get better at audiobooks over weeks of listening, and also over years.
Start with many books of the sort that you like and find compelling. Go from there.
After a while mostly of us can do almost anything that’s not science or engineering or math, or other highly techie stuff.
And blind persons have gotten past those limitations.
For those fast readers along us.
I’m one of you. (persons commented on my reading speed when I was in grad school doing highly abstract theoretical work)
Fast reading is great if you are retired. Read all you want!
But will you ever have time to read everything you wish you had time to read?
For most of us, no.
If you have many obligations in your life that limit your reading time available, you will only improve on the time available for reading by either seriously tweaking your lifestyle, or adding in audiobooks.
Audiobooks dont fix the prob of conscious hours being finite. But they can help. And can make the entire business more enjoyable.
@f00l Yes, exactly. I used to read all the time and then life got in the way. Now I almost always have a book going.
I still read in the “traditional” way, but audiobooks allow me a lot more freedom to accomplish other things at the same time, which is kind of a necessary thing these days.
While I can listen to music while working in the shop, the thought of trying to concentrate on a storyline while having my hand inches from a spinning saw blade, router bit or planer knives is a bit terrifying!