Audiobooks vs. Printed Books: a debate as a reader and an author

https://newsandreviews.substack.com/p/audiobooks-vs-printed-books-a-debate

by zeristor • 1 year ago

32 65 1 year ago

newsandreviews.substack.com

zeristor2• 1 year ago

I’m curious as to what people think about Audiobooks?

They just seem so expensive to me, and the concept still feels like cheating to me.

petepete• 1 year ago

After a day of staring at a screen being able to listen with my eyes closed is nice.

I don't mind reading either, it's not like one is better than the other.

azangru• 1 year ago

I've switched completely to audiobooks for any kind of books (fiction primarily, but also non-fiction) that do not have code in them, or any other material that requires visual consumption. I made the switch more than 10 years ago. I am doubtful I'll ever be able to consume heavy prose requiring concentration and re-reading of the same or previous paragraphs via audiobooks; or poetry; so probably no Gravity Rainbow, or Infinite Jest, or the Bible for me; but for light reading, it's perfect.

cellis• 1 year ago

Audiobooks are just a far superior experience to me. It's like reading someone's blog vs their podcast. I probably won't read the Huberman blog.

beezlebroxxxxxx• 1 year ago

I find audiobook performances are usually quite bad or cheesy. Even the ones that people rave about. I also find radio plays, or podcasts with full scripts, the same way.

I also find them simply boring to listen to, even the ones of books I love. It feels very passive and I'm always slightly annoyed that I can read significantly faster than the wpm of an audiobook (speeding up an audiobook ruins the performances).

senectus1• 1 year ago

the cheesyness really depends on the narrator.

Personally I have a fondness of a few select narrators. One guy who is increadibly talented is Jeff Hayes.

He's almost ruined audiobooks that aren't narated by him for me...

matsemann2• 1 year ago

They're only "cheating" if you consider it some kind of virtue or competition to read books. So I'd start with reconsidering that viewpoint.

hennell• 1 year ago

This is a fascinating view to me. What exactly do you think it's cheating? The physical experience is different maybe, but take a 100 people reading and they'll have a different physical experience in the process of reading. Are some of them cheating?

If you consider a book as an information delivery system or "experience" delivery system, the information and experience is delivered in both formats?

What are you ranking a book on that audiobooks "cheat"?

(This is a genuine question, this topic fascinates me and I'm interested in people's views on it. I've been an audiobook reader a long time, but find the idea that "audiobooks are the same as reading" just as weird as the idea "audiobooks are a lesser / invalid reading".)

cladopa• 1 year ago

As someone who has read thousands of books in his life, and always asks about the books on the shelves on the houses I visit, I would say that there is a so much people that do not read books with intrinsic and genuine interest.

They buy books as a status, intellectual symbol, but they couldn't care less about its content. It's an ornament, like a flowers' vase.

I like audiobooks too. It can only be cheating if you believe there is a proper way to experience a book. I enjoy specially some books narrated by their authors, because it adds the nuances of what they consider important, emphasis and information that is lost on paper.

cyberpunk4• 1 year ago

I’ve never actually seen that in the wild. Plenty of houses with no books at all, which always makes me feel rather sad for the people who live there, but I’ve never seen one of these “status” bookcases.

What do they even fill it up with? How is it status when they don’t even know the contents?

makeitdouble2• 1 year ago

For non fiction it's I think audiobooks are a no-brainer.

For fiction, having a narrator's voice brings a social context and coloration that might not be appreciated, but when the choice is between not finishing a book (= not buying any sequel any other book after that) or getting a slightly different experience, I'd take the latter, and I think the market is better for it.

lucumo2• 1 year ago

They just seem so expensive to me

Unlimited services like Storytel are pretty cheap. Not library-cheap, but similar to Spotify.

and the concept still feels like cheating to me.

Nah. It'd only be cheating if you somehow need the practice in physical reading. Like school kids or something. I'm confident in my abilities to parse the written word. I "read" books to absorb the ideas in them and using spoken books allows me to do that while driving or cleaning.

reify• 1 year ago

Its not cheating, some books can only be read, while others are improved with audio.

I prefer reading books, there is something special about holding a book in your hands, insering a book mark or jotting down something illegible in the margins.

I have read a massive amount of books in my time as a psychotherapist for 25 years.

For me, it is far better to read books to fully understand and examine the theories, concepts and methods illustrated by the authors. Marginalia comes to its fore.

However, I do listen to my fair share of audiobook. My main gripe with audiobooks is the readers voice. I cannot stand the squeeky, high pitched, robotic, nasally, sounds like AI, might well be AI, especially american female voices. Being British, just one paragraph and I am immediately put off and turn them off.

I have recently tried to listen to "Into the Into the Deep Wood 01, The Witch by Polina Volkova". I had to stop listening after a few paragraphs. If only the reader had a british voice.

I find switching back and forth between pages to find something you remember reading a few days ago is too difficult with an audiobook. No marginalia with audiobooks.

Do authors select who reads their books. maybe they do not. They should have readers from different countries and different languages.

My favourite audiobook reader is David Thorpe. I have the entire series of Mark Dawson's; John Milton, Beatrix Rose, Isabella Rose, Group 15, plus the novellas and more recently the Charlie cooper series.

I do not experience the same excitement reading those books.

SubGenius• 1 year ago

I like David Thorpe too. George Guidall and John Lee are probably my favorite narrators. Jonathan Cecil narrating the Jeeves books is wonderful. So is Stephen Fry, but he's pretty much amazing in anything.

voidUpdate• 1 year ago

I have issues with voices too sometimes. My favourite audiobooks are the Doctor Who audiobooks that are actually read by David Tennant, because then you get the proper Doctor voice, a nice scottish "narrator" voice, and he does reasonably good impressions of everyone else too. I got The Stone Rose, The Resurrection Casket and The Feast of the Drowned as freebies with the Radio Times when I was very young, and I listened to them so much. I recently found them again on youtube, as well as some others I'd not heard before, and it was a fun experience since I can apparently recite a lot of them from memory now

cyberpunk4• 1 year ago

The horror when the narrator changes halfway through a series is real.

Douglas Adams did a narration of HHGTTG which holds a very dear place for me too.

5423542342352• 1 year ago

My main gripe with audiobooks is the readers voice. I cannot stand the squeeky, high pitched, robotic, nasally, sounds like AI, might well be AI, especially american female voices. Being British, just one paragraph and I am immediately put off and turn them off.

I would say that this could be said about books and the writing style. Whether it is Hemingway's bare bones style or Cormac McCarthy's lack of punctuation, they can put you off the whole book. To be fair, the voice of the narration is in addition to everything in a written book that could put one off.

Do authors select who reads their books

I am no authority, but as a general rule, authors only have some input in the process, but the publishers are the main and final deciders (unless it is a big name author).

yuvadam• 1 year ago

For me, the difference is being able to listen to - and finish - an audiobook, versus having dead tree sitting on the shelf and never even starting to read it.

matsemann2• 1 year ago

For me it's both. Listening to an audiobook while I otherwise do a mundane task (cleaning, commuting) it makes it possible to get through books in situations where I normally would not.

But some books I need (or want) to concentrate on to get the full experience. And then I don't want to spoil it by half-listening while doing something else. At the same time, I'm not really able to just sit in the couch doing nothing but listen. So then I prefer a book to actually read, otherwise I end up never getting through it.

isaacremuant• 1 year ago

I don't understand what's the debate unless you're assigning some higher value to the written form, like people who think reading makes you more disciplined or a better person than others in some way.

If you remove that and realize reading is a form of communication then it doesn't matter how you make it happen. There was a time when stories and knowledge was mostly shared verbally so it's not like reading is "the truest form".

Do what you like/works for you.

4ndrewl• 1 year ago

They're two different things, that employ different senses and are neurologically demonstrated to provided different experiences.

We don't need them to battle it out unless for the clicks.

rapsey• 1 year ago

They are different pathways to an equivalent experience.

thrill• 1 year ago

They are most definitely not equivalent experiences.

numpad0• 1 year ago

I prefer to read books literally multithreaded. Different parts of my brain gets the pages through the bus or through different paths and do each their things.

I can't be alone. I get that being able to finish a book anyhow is nice, but isn't that also like leaving half a steak cut on the plate?

zeristor2• 1 year ago

Amazon is trying hard with Audiobooks, but they seem to be extremely expensive to me, maybe that’s their way of making a lot more money than kindle format.

I spend my listening time just trying to catch up with podcasts.

What audio book formats are there, and services. Dare I say it are there any open source ones?

There are many podcast players, are the many audiobook players?

Is there anything really useful in an audiobook player? I guess going through chapters, maybe linking into the actual text.

xupybd• 1 year ago

With a subscription I basically have more access to audiobooks than I can consume

stevenwoo• 1 year ago

Free as in paid by our taxes - my local public library system in Santa Clara County has a decent selection via the Libby and Hoopla apps. I'm not sure why they have two apps, but maybe it's to give us more selection - there are differences in what is available in each (more older books, and current TV shows/movies in Hoopla, magazines and new releases in Libby), From what I've read, the library system pays a fee for each item borrowed via Hoopla, and there is very little overlap so I assume there is some exclusive licensing for some reason. VLC can go to chapters in book format audio files and lets you make bookmarks and change playback speed and lets you transfer files from your PC to mobile device pretty easily.

constantcrying4• 1 year ago

Is there anything really useful in an audiobook player?

Over a regular music player, absolutely. Most podcast players treat a podcast as a single file. Audiobooks aren't single file and they become almost unusable without a dedicated player.

cyberpunk4• 1 year ago

I can’t believe (well; okay I actually can) than in 2025 I still can’t save a bookmark in apples “books” app when listening to an audiobook…

You fall asleep with it on? Better hope you remember the timestamp…

subpixel• 1 year ago

Audiobooks are preposterously expensive. I used the library and (although the BBC is pulling the plug on it outside the UK) BBC Sounds, both of which have audiobooks as well as audio plays.

grokgrok• 1 year ago

Well narrated audio contains an interpretation, a layer of sublexical meaning that transmits value judgement, emphasis and often the narrator's imagination as to the nature of the character's voices. Often desirable, but sometimes we want our own interpretation, unique and uninfluenced by the narrator's biases.

scary-size• 1 year ago

I really liked John Green's take on audiobooks [1].

...the point of reading is to ingest someone's words and ideas in the most transparent way possible...

For some that's reading, for others that's listening.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80SCl6n0TEo

wintermutestwin• 1 year ago

Why is there no Spotify for audiobooks? Audible’s pricing model is stupid. I guess the bean counters know better than I, but I imagine there are a lot of people like me who just shrug and listen to what I can get for free through my library’s Libby access. I would gladly pay 15$ a month for unlimited.

_glass• 1 year ago

They do though: https://www.spotify.com/us/audiobooks 15h per month at least.

fnordian_slip• 1 year ago

15h per month? Even without heavy listening, this sounds really low, doesn't it? And if you want to listen to a series if books, like Malazan book of the Fallen at 388h, you wouldn't know anything about the start by the time you are finished, as it's been two years. I would expect that most casual listeners who only listen to half an hour of content a day instead listen mainly to podcasts?

At least that's what I do when I don't have the time for audiobooks. But maybe I shouldn't generalize from my own experience, as everyone is different. For me, audible + the occasional torrent works quite well, and I wouldn't like to use the Spotify interface for audiobooks anyway, considering how bad it is for that use case.

nes350• 1 year ago

Storytel is pretty popular in Europe

lucumo2• 1 year ago

There are quite a few services like that. Though they resemble video-streamers a bit more, in that not everything is available everywhere. There's a lot of books that are only available in certain countries, and also a lot of books that are only available on certain services.

I use Storytel myself. It's available in many countries. I think it's one of the best services out there for the unlimited listeners.

willis936• 1 year ago

Libby is great, but the wait times for popular books is heavy.

I use libro.fm. It doesn't have a subscriber model, but they give you DRM-free audio files.

silves892• 1 year ago

Can I read a physical book when I'm running? Can I read a physical book when I'm doing house work? Or throwing pots in my studio? Or knitting? Or cooking? Or driving?

Can I stay focused if I'm just sitting and listening instead of reading? Absolutely not.

There's no 'vs' here. They occupy different spaces. All hail text, whatever form it takes.

tigrezno• 1 year ago

and books occupy physical space, something I can't afford on my tiny apartment

constantcrying4• 1 year ago

I have hundreds of books in the size of paperback. E-readers are great for reading, I wouldn't want to go back.

constantcrying4• 1 year ago

Exactly. Reading and listening are different experiences and the books I read are very different from the books I listen to.

chistev• 1 year ago

How do you listen to audio books when you're engaged in other activities? You'll be distracted and won't get everything. That's important to me.

silves892• 1 year ago

That's a great question! It comes up for me a lot.

I can walk through my local woods and listen very carefully but I don't think I could read a recipe book and pay attention to an audiobook!

So for me and I guess for most people it depends on the intensity of the activity and on the nature of the book. I have gradually found where the balance is for me and I've learned to hit the pause button or rewind 30 seconds.

I also pick different types of books to read and to listen to. I _love_ having an engrossing story as an audiobook. And popular science is a great listen, e.g. I loved the audiobook of Stolen Focus. But with physical books I tend to choose more involved or complex novels (e.g. Deep Wheel Orcadia), poetry, and for non-fiction books that are more specific to my interests (psychotherapy, ceramics).

51124124• 1 year ago

These type of audio books tends to not be very dense, key points are often re-iterate, the pacing is slow. The type of activities they do are often not very engaging also, e.g.: if they're cooking, it is just a common dish that they already know from memory, not some new recipe they are trying to learn, etc...

Spooks• 1 year ago

The activities are mindless. Cutting grass, shoveling snow, cleaning the house, gardening, painting, and going on a run. Sure, I'll get distracted by something and need to rewind it back in 20 seconds, but that happens in books, and I'll need to re-read a page.

jowea2• 1 year ago

A lot of rewinding, books that aren't ultradense non-fiction, and mindless tasks you can do on autopilot.

TroubledTrumpet• 1 year ago

I think it entirely depends on what audiobook you're listening to. If I'm listening to something that's lower complexity or aimed at younger audiences (e.g. The Martian by Andy Weir or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams), I can miss bits and pieces of the narration without losing too much of the story. As long as you don't lose track of several uninterrupted minutes at a time, you'll probably get most of the relevant context. The same applies if I'm in the mood to listen to a story that's already familiar to me, like Lord of the Rings.

It definitely becomes more difficult to multitask with harder reads; which is where I prefer to have a book in hand. I'll have to rewind several times per chapter to catch everything. Though it's still doable for some, I'm sure.

5423542342352• 1 year ago

It depends on the book and the activity. Not just audiobooks, but I can read a nice fiction book at a busy coffee shop no problem, but I need a controlled quiet environment for a dense, technical read. With audiobooks, I have the mental bandwidth for a fiction book or nontechnical story based non-fiction book. If I’m going for a walk or a light jog, I can listen to a book no problem. If I’m going for a run, I can’t concentrate enough. Vacuuming and other mindless chores are fine, but cooking is too much of a mental load. It isn’t a binary thing, it is just depends on how much mental bandwidth you have vs the book you are consuming.

BugsJustFindMe• 1 year ago

How do you listen to audio books when you're engaged in other activities?

The same way you can probably carry a conversation while walking. As long as the other activity doesn't engage the language processing part of the brain there's no conflict. I can't listen while reading, not even small package labels in a grocery store, but I can easily listen while washing dishes or exercising or eating a meal because different sections of the brain are responsible for them and can be active simultaneously.

makeitdouble2• 1 year ago

I feel we're in the golden age where the format matters so much less.

Taking "99% invisible" for instance, the content in the podcast, on the web or in a book are fundamentally the same level of quality and interest.

Then light novels are pushing the boundaries of what novel literature should look like and we get hundred page books formated as SMS conversations or with ASCII art like layout without much issues.

And on the other end interview and reporting shows are becoming way more researched than the bog standard columns in printed magazines.

Patreon is behind a lot of this change, allowing money to flow to creators whatever their medium, and I'm all for it.

alok-g• 1 year ago

As such, both print and audio have worked well for me.

Lately, font sizes for printed books has become an issue. I getting old and cannot read with small font sizes.

Meanwhile, publishers seem optimizing for lower prices (less paper) and younger people it seems.

Someone recently told me that hardcover editions tend to have larger font sizes.

shelled• 1 year ago

You don’t "read" audiobooks. You listen to them. Big difference - not better or worse, just not the same. When it comes to listening, I Love podcasts - esp. with multiple hosts/guests. Solo ones work too, if they feel like conversations and not recitals.

Audiobooks are not for me. I’ve tried. Reading hits different. But sure, for self-help, productivity, coding and shit you need to use them, so you use them. Interestingly, the biggest audiobook junkies I know are also heavy readers. They know the difference—and they don’t mix the two.

pnutjam• 1 year ago

I don't see anyone else saying this, but I don't like audiobooks because of the voices and over production. If I want to listen to a book, I use TTS, it's gotten very good. I can pick the voice and I just hear the story. I can also switch back to reading without trying to figure out where I am since the Text to speech is using the same epub I'm reading.

nlnn• 1 year ago

I've found it really varies by audiobook.

Same as you, I found some I absolutely hated, especially where they added background music, sound effects, etc. - I just want the book, not a production.

Others I found that a good narrator really added to the experience, especially when they were good at changing voices/accents for different characters speaking. I found that made it a lot easier to track what was going on or who was speaking, especially in books with a large number of characters.

dwighttk• 1 year ago

The experience is different but the Venn Diagram is not two separate circles.

dhosek• 1 year ago

46 comments at this point and nobody clicked the link where the author’s thoughts are behind the paywall and instead argue a point that she explicitly says she’s not going to address!

maxglute• 1 year ago

Why cling on the book label? It's 2025, it's visual content vs audio content. I'd like listening to my content. Rather I like doing both, listening at 3x speed robot voice while reading text, be it a book or transcript. I'll adjust playback speed and attention if the content pleases me.

pimlottc• 1 year ago

The full essay appears to behind a subscription paywall, anyone have a link?

timonoko• 1 year ago

There should be better text-to-speech readers by now.

Human readers are now little bit better, but when AI recognizes characters and narrators, the came is over.

Worst thing on text-to-speech readers is when you fall asleep and dreams and text get weirdly mixed and you have search afterwards where you dropped off and started dreaming. AI might help on this also because smartwatch recognizes sleep stage quite well.

Audiobooks vs. Printed Books: a debate as a reader and an author

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