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Originally Posted by Catlady
I am 99.9 percent sure that I've never heard anyone in normal conversation say "I read an audiobook." Certainly I've never said it. I generally say "I read so-and-so's latest book," or "I read such-and-such title." I don't specify audiobook unless it's relevant, or unless I have something to say about the narration or production values.
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I've never heard anyone say it, but I have read it on this board and using that terminology, "read an audiobook." (A sentence that seems peculiarly relevant to the discussion!)
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But now some people are telling me that I haven't been reading, oh no. I've been listening. Please don't piously say that you're not disparaging listening--of course you are; in your insistence on making the distinction, you are claiming that my listening is less valid than your visual reading. Somehow listening is supposedly more "passive" than sitting and looking at a page of text. Seriously?
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Speaking personally, I've acknowledged more than once that having listened to an audiobook, I consider myself as having read the book. It's the "audio" component that requires the word "listening," IMO. This seems congruent with your first paragraph. Nor, again speaking personally, would I disparage a practice I engage in daily to my benefit and pleasure.
I wouldn't use the word "passive;" I agree with you about that, especially since I think it takes more effort to focus on an audiobook!
However, I think it's indisputably true that audiobooks import another sensibility/interpretation to the written word, which is different from a reader's engaging directly with the text. Different. Not inferior, different. At that, there are many books I prefer as audiobooks because of what the narrator adds to it.