If you listened to an audiobook, do you say you "read" it? (2 Viewers)

[superchuck500]

On a side note. I really miss listening to audio books. I used to have a 1.5 hour total commute on a daily basis. I hated the commute, but I loved all the time I got to spend listening to audio books. My job also used to have me driving all over the state of Louisiana, including a lot of trips to Baton Rouge, on which I used to listen to audio books. Now my commute is a total of 30 minutes and a rarely ever travel for work. It's nice not to be on the road all the time, but I miss the audio books.

My dad used to have a 60 minute commute. For years he listened to talk radio in the morning, then one day he decided he was going to buy a Spanish course on cassette. He actually had an accountant in his office from Honduras and she said she'd be happy to speak to him in Spanish to help with his learning. He did the whole course and listened to Spanish instruction for long time, maybe a couple of years. And then speaking with her solidified it and he's now still a pretty solid Spanish speaker . . . at least for a dude that just decided to make better use of his commute.

But that opened him up to books on tape and he started listening to the classics - I recall that he listened to both the Iliad and the Odyssey. He would walk around saying "Oh sweet Odysseus!" in the narrator's voice. I don't recall if he said he "read" these works but I have no doubt it was substantially the same thing.

 

[St. Widge]

My dad used to have a 60 minute commute. For years he listened to talk radio in the morning, then one day he decided he was going to buy a Spanish course on cassette. He actually had an accountant in his office from Honduras and she said she'd be happy to speak to him in Spanish to help with his learning. He did the whole course and listened to Spanish instruction for long time, maybe a couple of years. And then speaking with her solidified it and he's now still a pretty solid Spanish speaker . . . at least for a dude that just decided to make better use of his commute.

But that opened him up to books on tape and he started listening to the classics - I recall that he listened to both the Iliad and the Odyssey. He would walk around saying "Oh sweet Odysseus!" in the narrator's voice. I don't recall if he said he "read" these works but I have no doubt it was substantially similar.

There are some things like The Illiad, The Odyssey, and Shakespear that are really much better on audio (audio or a play for Shakespear) because the writing it so strange that it's easier to understand when spoken. I read The Illiad and The Odyssey in college but I don't think I truly understood them until I listened to the audio books. I missed so much just reading them. Part of it is because the language and structure is so strange to modern readers, but I think part of it is also that they were both part of an oral tradition for so long that there is something natural about it. It could also be that I'm likely ADD and get easily distracted while reading but I tend to hyper focus while listening.

And, of course, Shakespear was really written to be listened to and seen so it makes sense that it works better that way.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

this thread has me wanting to read podcasts

 

[Optimus Prime]

Interesting read
============
Insomniacs do it in the middle of the night. Dog owners do it while trudging round the park. Some people do it in the gym, but lately I’ve taken to doing it alone in the car, on long journeys north through the dark when I need distraction from everything circling round my head.

Listening, that is; and perhaps more specifically, listening to things you might once have read instead. The growth of audiobooks, podcasts and even voice notes – those quick self-recorded clips that are steadily taking over from typed messages on WhatsApp and range, depending on the sender, from something like a brisk voicemail to a rambling internal monologue – reflects a steady generational shift away from eyes to ears as the way we take in the world, and perhaps also in how we understand it.

Reading instinctively feels like the higher art, perhaps because bedtime stories used to be strictly for children and oral storytelling is associated with more primitive cultures in the days before the printing press. But is that fair?

If the effort involved in sitting down and decoding written words with your actual eyes were to gradually fade away in years to come – just as the old-fashioned tether of a landline phone gave way to the freedom of a mobile in your pocket, and cash yielded to the clinical efficiency of credit cards – what exactly would we have lost?…….

Yet the idea prevails that listening is flighty or unserious, strictly for skivers who can’t be bothered putting in the hard yards. A sniffy 55% of respondents to one YouGov survey back in 2016 deemed audiobooks a “lesser” way of consuming literature, and only 10% thought listening to a book was wholly equal to reading it.

The view that listening is cheating prevails even though nobody thinks it’s lazy for a student to sit through lectures, and going to the theatre isn’t considered intellectually inferior to reading the play at home.

One study by Beth Rogowsky, associate professor of education at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, asking students either to read a nonfiction book or listen to the audio version, found no significant differences in how much of it they absorbed.

(Although when it comes to something complex or unfamiliar, the US psychologist and expert in reading comprehension Daniel Willingham suggests reading in print may be useful for going back to reread the difficult bits you didn’t quite get the first time, or stopping to think it all through.)……..

Ignore the purists – listening to a book instead of reading it isn’t skiving or cheating | Gaby Hinsliff

From audiobooks to podcasts and voice notes, there’s a steady generational shift in the way we understand the world, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff

www.theguardian.com

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

I was at a book fair at uno maybe a decade ago
Out of nowhere this woman I didn’t know hands me a book and says ‘I think you’ll like this’
It was ‘the blade itself’ - first book of The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie
She was right and I wound up reading all of them
…ff to present day after I finished the Expanse series on audible I really wanted narration close to Jefferson Mays’ incredible work and someone on Reddit said the narrator for the first law trilogy was comparable ((he’s almost as good)), so I decided ‘hey I’ll check the books out again’
I was shocked to discover how little I retained from reading the books - and this was from a time when my brain wasn’t a sieve

Now granted when I read, it’s a night and part of a drifting off process and when I Audible it’s in the car and I’m a captive - but I’m surprised how much more I retain from audio

 

[Optimus Prime]

Apple has quietly launched a catalogue of booksnarrated by artificial intelligence in a move that may mark the beginning of the end for human narrators.

The strategy marks an attempt to upend the lucrative and fast-growing audiobook market – but it also promises to intensify scrutiny over allegations of Apple’s anti-competitive behaviour.

The popularity of the audiobook market has exploded in recent years, with technology companies scrambling to gain a foothold. Sales last year jumped 25%, bringing in more than $1.5bn. Industry insiders believe the global market could be worth more than $35bn by 2030.

Apple was due to launch the project in mid-November, but delayed it as layoffs at Meta and chaos surrounding Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter cast a dark cloud over the technology sector……..

Death of the narrator? Apple unveils suite of AI-voiced audiobooks

Exclusive: tech firm quietly launches new audiobook catalogue narrated by AI – but move expected to spark backlash

www.theguardian.com

 

[Sailorsaint]

Apple has quietly launched a catalogue of booksnarrated by artificial intelligence in a move that may mark the beginning of the end for human narrators.

The strategy marks an attempt to upend the lucrative and fast-growing audiobook market – but it also promises to intensify scrutiny over allegations of Apple’s anti-competitive behaviour.

The popularity of the audiobook market has exploded in recent years, with technology companies scrambling to gain a foothold. Sales last year jumped 25%, bringing in more than $1.5bn. Industry insiders believe the global market could be worth more than $35bn by 2030.

Apple was due to launch the project in mid-November, but delayed it as layoffs at Meta and chaos surrounding Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter cast a dark cloud over the technology sector……..

Death of the narrator? Apple unveils suite of AI-voiced audiobooks

Exclusive: tech firm quietly launches new audiobook catalogue narrated by AI – but move expected to spark backlash

www.theguardian.com

I don't think it will replace humans. AI will have to come a long way further than it is now to be anything but fingernails on a chalkboard.

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[superchuck500]

sick burn

 

[Optimus Prime]

I don't think it will replace humans. AI will have to come a long way further than it is now to be anything but fingernails on a chalkboard.

I listened to a few minutes of an AI narrated book

It wasn't great (putting mildly)

 

[Optimus Prime]

Off topic a bit - but when I "read' a book I prefer a real book with pages over a kindle. Just something about the tactile experience with it I guess

And when you come to the end of the book when the PI is revealing who the killer is and how she figured it out you can easily flip back to and reread chapter 4 and see if that lines up.

Much harder to do with a kindle (and audio for that matter)

I mostly have the kindle because for some reason it's cheaper on Amazon to buy the kindle book and add the audiobook versus buying the audiobook on it's on

 

[GeauxWhoDats]

Do they talk football or read/type football in the SSF?

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Do they talk football or read/type football in the SSF?

For the most part neither really

 

[UptownSaintsFan]

I was at a book fair at uno maybe a decade ago
Out of nowhere this woman I didn’t know hands me a book and says ‘I think you’ll like this’
It was ‘the blade itself’ - first book of The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie
She was right and I wound up reading all of them
…ff to present day after I finished the Expanse series on audible I really wanted narration close to Jefferson Mays’ incredible work and someone on Reddit said the narrator for the first law trilogy was comparable ((he’s almost as good)), so I decided ‘hey I’ll check the books out again’
I was shocked to discover how little I retained from reading the books - and this was from a time when my brain wasn’t a sieve

Now granted when I read, it’s a night and part of a drifting off process and when I Audible it’s in the car and I’m a captive - but I’m surprised how much more I retain from audio

The blade itself is on my list. Glad to hear it was good. Also loved the expanse.

To answer the original question, i currently do all my goods hybrid. I read on kindle/listen on audible via whispersync. It has allowed me to plow through so many more books than i usually would. I love it.

 

[superchuck500]

I’m listening to Shelby Foote’s award winning three-volume chronology of the Civil War. The narrator is very good and the prose is just outstanding for a history. I’m on the final volume and have enjoyed every bit of it.

I was never a CW buff and studied it a bit in college but my interest was not rabid like some people. But listening to this has been great - it’s so well written. The balance between formal history, anecdote, and human interest stuff is artful.