Listening is the new reading

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by HarryT

We must agree to differ. I, for example, have both the UK version of the “Harry Potter” audiobooks, which are narrated by Stephen Fry, and the US version, narrated by Jim Dale. Same books, but two very different performances. I use that word deliberately; I think an audiobook narration by a good narrator is very much a performance, and I, as the listener, get my experience of the book filtered through the interpretation that the performer has placed on it. When I read the book myself, on the other hand, all the interpretation is my own; there’s no intermediary.

Audiobook recordings for the blind are not performances; they are read quite colorlessly. Nor does one hear a performance when using text-to-speech to read a book.

And then there are audiobooks read by the author--which presumably enhance whatever meaning the author intended. If I listen to, say, Hillary Clinton's What Happened, I think it's safe to assume I will get a better sense of her take on election 2016 than if I simply read her words on my own. Shouldn't an author be an acceptable intermediary?

[leebase]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Which have you been doing? Reading a book, or listening to someone else read it? Surely you accept that the two activities are not synonymous? I'm not saying that one is "better" than another; simply that they are different. Listening is not reading.

So what? We aren’t in grammar school. We all know how to read or we couldn’t participate here.

If I read a book I have not done some mystically superior activity over listening to a book.

I get that reading isn’t the same as listening...what I don’t understand is SO WHAT? Other than school age kids learning to read....who is impacted in some way if they listened to a book rather than read it?

If I’m laying on the couch or in bed, I read a book. If I’m commuting to work, driving or flying on a trip, I listen to audio books.

I like the tag line as I take it to mean “because of audio books, I’m reading books like I haven’t in a long time...listening is the new reading”

And SO WHAT...if someone doesn’t read very well and yet is able to enjoy books by listening. Good for them! Why should we withhold the enjoyment of books just because some people don’t read so well. Let the joy of the story entice them to read vs. letting the difficulty some have in reading forever turn them off to books

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by leebase

If I read a book I have not done some mystically superior activity over listening to a book.

Nobody in this thread has suggested that reading is superior to listening.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by leebase

If I’m laying on the couch or in bed, I read a book. If I’m commuting to work, driving or flying on a trip, I listen to audio books.

So you Read books and Listen to audiobooks as well

We are more arguing about the usage of the term "Reading Audiobooks"

[leebase]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

So you Read books and Listen to audiobooks as well

We are more arguing about the usage of the term "Reading Audiobooks"

Yes...but there's an undercurrent of "reading is superior" that goes on on this board. As if you gain intelligence merely from READING as opposed to watching movies or listening to music or playing video games.

Gosh, we can't allow "listening to a book" count as "reading" because we are vested in the myth that reading is a superior activity. Doesn't matter if you are reading vampire fantasy romance porn or the history of the Punic wars. Merely that you are READING.

And as a side note, only reading BOOKS counts towards "real reading". None of this "reading on the internet" or "reading texts" or "reading facebook". All of THAT is reading and a lot LESS like "reading a book" than "listening to a book". But not to worry...we ascribe mystical intelligence building powers only to "reading books". (preferably on eInk or Paper).

[issybird]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

We are more arguing about the usage of the term "Reading Audiobooks"

Yup.

I suspect it boils down to which portion of the compound word signifies more to the individual. "Reading audio" is an oxymoron and grates, for me. I also sense no value judgment in the word "listening," prefer it as more precise and a stand against the continual debasement of our vocabulary, and think the experiences of reading a book and listening to an audiobook are different and it's useful to maintain the distinction. But that's me.

I wonder if people would respond differently if we hadn't made a compound word out of it? I've taught my tablet to accept "audiobook," but the angry red line shows it doesn't approve.

[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.

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?

[DiapDealer]

"Reading an audiobook" doesn't sound right to me either, but I don't ever remember the discussion parameters being clearly limited to that one aspect.

My point is that I don't think anyone is entitled to any semantic clarification as to how others "take in a book." In the context of "did you read book X by author Y?", then a "yes" is sufficient regardless of how the words of book X were experienced.

As far as being bothered by the marketing phrase "listening is the new reading" merely because listening is not the same thing as reading semantically; well of course they're not semantically the same thing. That's not what the marketing phrase is trying to imply. Much like no one is implying that orange and black are the same colors in "Orange is the New Black." Conflating disparate things is the point. It's snark in its purest sense.

Among literate people taking in a story, it's OK for "reading" and "listening" to get a little slippery with each other. No one will die and no languages will be harmed.

[cvkemp]

Being someone that is severely hard hearing and can no longer understand a lot of spoken words, reading is my only pleasure.

[leebase]

Ok...how do I KNOW that reading a book and listening to an audio book are "the same"?

If I read a book, I'll still go watch the movie and vice versa. The movie and the book are not the same.

If I've read a book I will not listen to the audio book and vice versa because the are "the same". Or if I do, then I am "re-reading". I do not reread all that much.

Amazon now has some books sync'd where you can buy the audible version in addition to the kindle version and switch back and forth and be sync'd just as you can switch among reading devices and your place is kept.

[issybird]

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.

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!)

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?

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.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

We must agree to differ. I, for example, have both the UK version of the “Harry Potter” audiobooks, which are narrated by Stephen Fry, and the US version, narrated by Jim Dale. Same books, but two very different performances. I use that word deliberately; I think an audiobook narration by a good narrator is very much a performance, and I, as the listener, get my experience of the book filtered through the interpretation that the performer has placed on it. When I read the book myself, on the other hand, all the interpretation is my own; there’s no intermediary.

So, listening to an audiobook for you is more like reading a translation rather than reading the original work? In any translated work you would be getting the interpretation that the translator has placed on the book. I see more room for change with a translator than I do with a faithful audiobook performance. In the audiobook, at least the meanings are all there if not necessarily the exact emphasis I would have given it if I was the one performing it (in my head or otherwise).

In any case, I still read translated books.

[arjaybe]

All in all, whatever company it was that used the slogan, it has achieved its desired effect. It has your attention.

Does anyone else remember when being purposely non-grammatical was a big thing in advertising?

I haven't got into audiobooks yet. I don't have the kind of life that would suit them very well, I guess. They're slower. For instance, I read text at about 400 WPM, but when I'm recording my books it's about 150 WPM. I assume that's close to average. That would be agonizing. You're not tied as closely to audio as you are to text, making distraction more likely. I listen to a podcast on my computer, but I have to play Mah Jongg to keep me there. Not being familiar with them, I can't really comment on whether or not listening to audiobooks is like reading text enough to be called "actual" reading. I do know, though, that I visualize in much the same way when listening and reading.

I think what it comes down to is that the denizens of MobileRead have an almost heroic penchant for quibbling.-)

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

All in all, whatever company it was that used the slogan, it has achieved its desired effect. It has your attention.

Well, no idea what the company was, so probably not that successful.

Originally Posted by arjaybe

I think what it comes down to is that the denizens of MobileRead have an almost heroic penchant for quibbling.-)

Damn straight

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by leebase

Yes...but there's an undercurrent of "reading is superior" that goes on on this board. As if you gain intelligence merely from READING as opposed to watching movies or listening to music or playing video games.

Gosh, we can't allow "listening to a book" count as "reading" because we are vested in the myth that reading is a superior activity. Doesn't matter if you are reading vampire fantasy romance porn or the history of the Punic wars. Merely that you are READING.

I'm curious to know who has espoused the views that you're ascribing to MR denizens. Could you link to some examples of said views being expressed?