Audiobooks

I'm not a neurologist, so I can't speak to the way the brain processes the spoken word vs written word, but I have worked with Audiobooks before.

First thing I have to say is that they are distracting. Music is great because it needs a fraction of the attention and at points where my focus is 100% on my work I notice I haven't heard a note of the tunes I listen to. Literally I've finished off a technical report or drawing and find myself in the middle of my favourite song with no recollection of the first half. With audiobooks however I find that I make mistakes in my work at a staggering level because I'm engrossed in the story more than my job. I say this as a caution to listening to audiobooks while working. If you find your productivity doesn't suffer, I am both happy and jealous.

Otherwise, I have consumed audiobooks almost exclusively over the past four or five years. I just don't have the time to sit down and crack open a novel like I used to (far too much child in my life atm) so audiobooks to the rescue. I can listen to them while making supper, going into work, sewing up pants, vacuuming, whatever. I can't tell you if you get exactly the same informed understanding of a given author's prose or style as with reading, but you do get something. I can tell the difference between Jim Butcher, Ben Aaronovitch and Sheanan Mcguire when I'm listening to the books. I can also tell very quickly if I like or dislike a writing style in the books I listen too. There is definitely something to be absorbed, especially if the reader portrays the book well and you can gather the inflections from their voice.

I whole heartedly endorse audiobooks as a medium, I fully intend to get my books published as such when the opportunity arrives, but they do need an amount of attention to read and I warn you to be wary of that.

Hope that helps,

<3 Tulip Mama

Will you learn things from listening to an audio book? Yes. Will you learn the same things as you would from reading the book? No. Listening stimulates different parts of the brain than reading does. In audio, the writing is filtered and interpreted by a narrator, instead of allowing your own brain to do that work. That's where the learning comes from. You doing the work on your own. There's nothing wrong with audio books as an entertainment medium, but you simply cannot replace sitting down and reading a book on your own.

Different people will have different experiences with audiobooks. It's going to depend rather a lot on the individual, and the book.

Cephus said:

There's nothing wrong with audio books as an entertainment medium, but you simply cannot replace sitting down and reading a book on your own.

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This is an entitled and ignorant response.

• The human brain was evolutionarily designed to learn via audio and visual stimuli, among other parts of the sensorium.
• We've had text for a mere 3000 to 4000 years; that's really a pretty short time period, evolutionarily speaking.
• Literacy in Western languages has only recently been common; as in the last 100-200 years, depending on geography and social class.
• Telling someone who can't see or has dyslexia that they're doin' it rong is ignorant at best, and potentially hurtful.
• Anyone who thinks reading poetry or drama is unilaterally, qualitatively "better" than hearing it, needs to explore the history of poetry, which predates writing by thousands of years.

Read or listen as much as you can and find beneficial. Discover what works for you. We don't live in a binary, thank heavens. It's often interesting to read and listen to the same book. Take joy and learning where you find them.

You won't learn how to spell characters' names from andiobooks, if that's important to you.

At the time of listening, I feel like I miss some things, and some things even if I rewind several times I still miss. If you're trying to learn about writing, that may teach something about keeping a reader's attention, I guess. But I've found that after a while there is very little difference in what I remember, to the point that I couldn't tell you whether I read visually or listened to a particular book.

I'm guessing it's very much an individual thing, how one's attention works, what one's primary learning style is, etc. Try it and see.

In general, audiobooks are awesome!

When I worked in Silicon Valley, my commute was an hour+ each way, and I discovered that the best way to not go crazy in traffic is to listen to an audio book. These days (I'm retired) I only listen to them when I'm on a long trip in my car (never on the motorcycle). I love it! It makes the time and miles fly by and is IMO just as good as reading.

I wish there were a GOOD but inexpensive way to create and audiobook though - for me as an author it's price prohibitive.

I know they say that the ancient bardic tradition of some cultures included people who knew huge amounts of poetry.

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I don't want to derail this conversation - but being Irish I've learned a little of bardic history.

Of interest is that many suppose that societies with such a tradition lack a written language - it is not correct. In Ireland, there was a very ancient usage of a written language. Ogham (the bronze/iron age written language in Ireland) actually used the Greek alphabet (written as runes) learned via trade. However, history was NOT written because they knew that a thing written is by default considered to be fact. A person singing or speaking we can judge, but books are inviolate. As the saying goes, the victors in war write the history books... usually painting themselves as virtuous and those they vanquished as savages.

These days we find Ogham written only on stones that mark the boundary between properties / fiefdoms.

indianroads said:

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I wish there were a GOOD but inexpensive way to create and audiobook though - for me as an author it's price prohibitive.

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You can always create your own audiobook - if you're okay with being the voice of the narration, it's actually fairly easy with a USB condenser mic, a laptop, and a coat closet. I actually ran a fairly successful podcast for a number of years, and do volunteer work for librivox. Will never be at the Audible level, but the paid professionals make really good coin for their work (as you've noticed...)

There's also Fiverr...not used them for that specifically, but have had varying degrees of success with customization of wordpress themes, logo design, etc.

AW Admin said:

Different people will have different experiences with audiobooks. It's going to depend rather a lot on the individual, and the book.

This is an entitled and ignorant response.

• The human brain was evolutionarily designed to learn via audio and visual stimuli, among other parts of the sensorium.
• We've had text for a mere 3000 to 4000 years; that's really a pretty short time period, evolutionarily speaking.
• Literacy in Western languages has only recently been common; as in the last 100-200 years, depending on geography and social class.
• Telling someone who can't see or has dyslexia that they're doin' it rong is ignorant at best, and potentially hurtful.
• Anyone who thinks reading poetry or drama is unilaterally, qualitatively "better" than hearing it, needs to explore the history of poetry, which predates writing by thousands of years.

Read or listen as much as you can and find beneficial. Discover what works for you. We don't live in a binary, thank heavens. It's often interesting to read and listen to the same book. Take joy and learning where you find them.

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I agree wholeheartedly. I'm dyslexic and haven't ever been able to really get poetry unless it's read out loud. I can understand the words but because I read slowly, the poetry of it is lost. If it wasn't for Omnia's rendition of The Raven by Poe (they're a pagan folk-rock band and have set it to music) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCF2pson54s I would never have been able to appreciate the sheer beauty of this poem. As I understand it, Poe liked to perform The Raven himself to an audience, rather than just having people read it. That would be beyond amazing - listening to Poe read The Raven, live. You'd hear it exactly as he intended it to be heard.

Note: Omnia's version is somewhat abridged (some people might not like that and it would be cool if they performed the entire thing but it's probably just a tad too long to work well as a folk ballad) and they also changed "bust of Pallas" to "bust of Eris" (as they are pagans, I suspect this change from a goddess of wisdom (Pallas Athena) to goddess of chaos (Eris) was deliberate and not for aesthetic reasons).

Also, I think hearing The Raven in this way has changed how my brain processed it. After listening to it many times I seem to have accidentally memorised most of it. And my 14 yr old appears to have memorised nearly the entire periodic table by listening to this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz4Dd1I_fX0

As mentioned by AW Admin, through our evolution we're wired up for oral history, not writing. That's probably why dyslexia is so common. It's also why it's a lot easier to memorise stuff if it's poetic.

Now I would like the Financial Conduct Authority and similar to issue their rules/guidance in the form of poetry (read out loud and set to music) as I have to know them for qualifications I'm studying for my day job.

As part of a church talent show back as a kind (early teen years), I had studied laboriously to memorize The Cremation of Sam McGee in its entirety. The act before me read it with book in hand and hammed up the reading a bit.

Oddly, I was eating a plum for lunch a few weeks ago, and thought as I got to the pit: "I wonder if a plum tree could be cultivated in TN?" Immediately, I laughed out loud as it took me back to the poem (it's the last line...)

Personally, I don't like them because I find them passive entertainment (where reading print requires more engagement) and I miss stuff. Secondly, I learnt a lot about how to format dialogue by reading printed books. Also how the page appears (i.e. paragraph construction etc.) There's nothing more off-putting than a page of solid text.

Kalyke said:

Yes, I did know about Ogham. It was my understanding that few artifacts were found using it-- Certainly not epic poetry. I thought that maybe it was used about like Linear A&B which was inventory, borders, royal decrees, and of course standing stones. I may be wrong. Just because archeologists have not found something does not mean it did not exist. I am of Irish descent myself, (County Cork). Ireland is fascinating.

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Co. Kerry & Co. Cork here.

And I agree - that majority that's survived of Ogham is on stone, but it's likely to have been used on other mediums - wood or parchment would have deteriorated over time.

indianroads said:

Of interest is that many suppose that societies with such a tradition lack a written language - it is not correct. In Ireland, there was a very ancient usage of a written language. Ogham (the bronze/iron age written language in Ireland) actually used the Greek alphabet (written as runes) learned via trade.

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It's generally believe that Ogham was derived from the Roman alphabet; the Romans were already trading with the Irish by 4th century CE, and in fact there were already Irish monastics by then. It's not runic; that's a Nordic/Germanic system, and involves actual glyphs. Ogam is written with a series of straight vertical lines and an occasional diagonal. It's meant specifically to be written on the edge of something, like a stone, and is primarily found in the early attestations (pre 12th century) on burial stones and occasionally on boundary stones, in Ireland, Scotland, Wale, and the Isle of Man. Ogham is suitable only for very short inscriptions; it would take an eternity and a great deal of space to do much more than a hic jacet sort of thing.

It was also used for exemplar sorts of thing in later manuscripts; the Book of Ballymote is the Ms. with ogham-related content. Things like the tree-alphabets were Medieval monastic creations.

indianroads said:

Co. Kerry & Co. Cork here.

And I agree - that majority that's survived of Ogham is on stone, but it's likely to have been used on other mediums - wood or parchment would have deteriorated over time.

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I'm not Irish; I am a Celticist.

Ogham absolutely was not intended for or usable for anything other than short inscriptions; it's exceedingly inefficient as a writing system, and would take far too much surface material to copy anything lengthy. The glyphs are very labor intensive, involving multiple lines.