I am a fan. A huge fan.
I travel a fair amount for work to exotic places like South Dakota. (JK– I love South Dakota, but exotic it is not.) In any case, when you pair a long car ride alone with obsessive-compulsive disorder, you get nothing but trouble. I learned early on that if I didn’t give my mind something to chew on during those drives, then I would be submitting myself to OCD attacks.
I read Perelandra by C.S. Lewis while driving 75 MPH down I-29 from Watertown to Sioux Falls. And when I say read, I mean read, my eyes flickering every two seconds between the page on my steering wheel and out the windshield. I know, I know– it’s terrible, and it was so dangerous, and I could have killed myself or someone else. Praise God I didn’t.
But in the end, my office awarded me the “FOR GOODNESS SAKES, GET A RADIO” award, and I started using audiobooks, the safer and legal version of reading while driving. Over the years, I have collected a small library of audiobooks, which I listen to rather often since I like to re-read.
Now, here is my question, and maybe you in the blogosphere can help settle a disagreement between my co-worker and myself: is listening to an audiobook the same thing as reading?
I say YES. Sure, it’s a different format of reading, but it’s still reading. I think it is fair for me to listen to an audiobook and then tell a friend, “I just read such-and-such book.” That seems obvious to me.
I cannot understand why my co-worker Josh disagrees. He said it’s not the same thing. I don’t understand why it wouldn’t be. It’s still a BOOK, isn’t it? How then would you describe your interaction with it? “I just listened to such-and-such book”? And if so, what is the difference between saying that and that you read it?
I fear this post is very inarticulate, but maybe one of you readers can help put my thoughts (or Josh’s) into words. Help?
JACKIE LEA SOMMERS 
I am also a huge audiobook fan. That said, there are some things that do not translate well to an audiobook. I listen to audiobooks where it’s okay to miss a few “pages” because I’m trying to figure out if the siren is ahead of or behind me. I listen to primarily mysteries because they’re pretty easy to tune out every once in awhile. But I also find that I remember more from an audiobook than from a regular book. Probably because I skip over so much when I’m reading. It’s a bad habit. I should stop. But I think finishing a book is finishing a book, no matter if it’s being listened to or read to yourself. After all, you wouldn’t tell your child that they’d never read “Green Eggs and Ham”, just because you read it to them, would you?
Ooooh. Hm. I LOVE audio books. In fact I recently discovered the library’s downloadable audio books and it has revolutionized my working out, mowing the lawn, etc. Its just good literature. However, taking in the messages of a book through hearing is different than reading. Both engage the imagination, but I think they do so in different ways. When I read a book with my eyes, my internal filter creates the words, the timber, the pitch of the vocals. I can dwell on the sights and sounds and savor the environment just a bit differently. When I read, I am at the mercy of the narrator’s interpretation – his or her cadence and movement- and I may miss the details, or at least experience them differently. I effectively have the book filtered for me before I filter into my own creative space.
That said, I’m fairly certain I would still use the term “read” as in “I am familiar with this work and the information provided and can speak to it on a conversational level”. Seems dinner party appropriate.:)
I don’t think it is the same. Same story, but reading and listening affects the brain differently. For a reader/writer it may work the same way, but for science I don’t think it does.