What are your thoughts on audiobooks / talking books? [Archive]

fnord

07-24-2005, 03:31 AM

Ah, I tried this once. Had one that I listened too while I was out rollerblading. If you're trying to save time that means you're doing something else while listening. Personally, I couldn't really concentrate on both at the same time, and I'd miss whole...paragraphs.

I also had the book in question in print. I'd listen to a book for an hour or more, and then find my place and see that I could have read it in ten minutes. It seems to be so tediously slow.

Oh...a minor gripe. The narrator pronouced people and places differently than I had in my head, thus poking holes in the continuity of my imaginary world... alas.

Heh, but that's only me. There's a market because some people enjoy them, right? Anyone tried and enjoyed them?

Nightshade

07-24-2005, 12:50 PM

I agree with fnord I got a audio book once from the library and it was about 5 hours long but The book ( ive recentlly seen the hard copy ) would take me only 2 hours to read... and it was lesss enjoyable when I listened because everyone had the same voice and like fnord the narrator prounced things differantl.
Actually thinking about it I had to audio books one was awful the other was okay it may have been the story but I'm more inclined to think it was the narrartors voice.

mono

07-24-2005, 10:58 PM

Oddly, on a demonstrative-learning exam, I tested best as an auditory-tactile learner, but, with audio books, I had a little trouble.
I have listened to only few audio books, and found it an interesting way to "read" a book, but would only attempt it with books that seem easy to understand. With printed books, if the reader does not understand something, he/she can skip back a few sentences or paragraphs to re-affirm something, but, with audio books, it requires a lot of irritating rewinding and listening, while it proceeds at its own pace.
Listening to a book's actual author read his/her own work seems like quite an experience, and worth listening (mostly poetry, I have listened to), but would recommend reading a work simultaneously, or before or after.
In summary, it probably really depends on the person; I have met people who greatly prefer audio books, others who equally prefer reading, but, for me, it really depends on the type of work. If it works for you, wonderful, and I suggest audio books more often, though, like many of us seem to say, it depends entirely on a reader's attention and taste.
Good luck!

fnord

07-24-2005, 11:29 PM

Actually, one more thing. Audio books are expensive, too. For that kind of money, you could buy another book entirely. To buy both the printed and audio version seems sort of redundant, especially considering how fast some people read/buy new books.

Library is a good option though.

Koa

07-25-2005, 12:34 PM

I was wondering if I've ever seen an audio book... :eek:
The only things I can think about are languages books, like novels adapted for learners, that sometimes come with an audiotape, or nowadays a cd, where they read parts of the test, but it's more of a pronounciation thing... and I think most students wouldn't really bother (I have a French one but I dont think I cared much of the audio thing...)
Or books that I had as a child, which had a tape which read the book cos it was for small children... but I liked my mum to read it to me and then I learnt to read quite early...So I didnt use that much either.
I think I wouldnt enjoy an audio book as much as I would enjoy reading it.... Though it can maybe be useful for some people, if they like it.. (LOL I'm imagining some busy person who listens to that in his car while getting to work ;))

NNoah3

07-25-2005, 01:55 PM

I am not a native English speaker, so the audio books that I have are helping me so much with the pronunciation. Thinking of the audio books are focused to businesses, financial independence and personal growth. Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Anthony Robbins and Robert Kiyosaki are some of them.

appledips

07-25-2005, 04:02 PM

I always thought audio books were for the elderly. I never attempted them because I thought it would put me to sleep right away. but maybe one day

FairieQueen

07-28-2006, 12:53 PM

Ok. Well, i'm visually impared (no I'm not old; I'm only 15) and this is why i believe that audio books are amazing. Because of my disability, if I get a book, inorder for me to be able to read it, I must buy a special one which costs alot (I got P&P by J. Austen for £25.50 - in the sale) yet an audio book costs me roughly £10.

I can listen to it while i'm doing other things and it is not as heavy (P&P is 11.3cm thick!)

I personally think they're great but it's upto you.

xSx

Virgil

07-28-2006, 01:17 PM

This is a subject close to my heart. I love audio books, but I may use it a little differently than most. I read the text along with audio book, rather than one or the other. To me it takes reading and entertainment to a higher level. First, the speaker of the audio book is dramatically reading the work, and a great reader finds different voices for each character. The speaker is ususally a fine actor, so that he is orally acting out the narrative. When you find a perfect match of a particuliar speaker to a book, the entertainment value is extraordinary for me, better than a movie. Here are some of my all time favorites:
Derek Jacobi reading The Illiad
Ian McKellen reading The Odyssey
Charleton Heston reading The Old Man and the Sea
Donal Donnelly reading Ullysses
Martin Jarvis reading David Copperfield
Sam Daster reading Kim
Patricia Routledge reading Wuthering Heights

I find that reading along with the speaker allows me to watch the language (sentences, diction, and so on) while being entertained. It also allows me to read faster because it limits being distracted by my own mind or things around me. I also feel I retain more because the dramatic reading engages me and gets burned in. To those that read faster than the audio, I am amazed. You must be very fast readers. I'm not. So this really helps me read more. The one negative that I find is that it can be costly. But I thoroughly enjoy it.

papayahed

07-28-2006, 01:27 PM

I "read" a few audiobooks on my drives home. My only complaint is that I couldn't skip over the boring parts.

papayahed

07-28-2006, 01:41 PM

I "read" a few audiobooks on my drives home. My only complaint is that I couldn't skip over the boring parts.

Bastet

07-28-2006, 02:03 PM

Wow Virgil, the way of using audio books you propose sounds great!! Too bad they don't have them here in Spain! :(

Shannanigan

07-28-2006, 02:32 PM

I tried one audiobook, once, and that was it for me. I like Virgil's approach, but my lifestyle simply wouldn't allow me the alone time to sit and listen to a tape/CD and read. Either you have headphones on and are therefore taking away both your hearing and, to the world beyond your book, your vision (dangerous in some situations) or you aren't using headphones and can only be amongst people who do not mind hearing a book read aloud...

I read in situations where I am surrounded by people, or in a place where I want to hear the sounds around me (beach waves, wind in the grass, birds chirping, etc.) So audiobooks I think just aren't for me...

Nightshade

07-29-2006, 01:18 AM

Im listening to an audio book righ this minute Ive come across one or 2 that Have been awful because I couldnt stand the readers voice.

FairieQueen do you get books from your library... you used a pound sign so I assume your from the uk?
Anyway libaries great places and I dont know about where you live but in Cheshire at least they have alot of "talking books" which they lend like books for three weeks although normally people pay for them ( I hope you dont find this rude) but you'd probably get them free.
:D

superunknown

07-29-2006, 10:59 AM

Never tried them and I don't think I ever will.

subterranean

07-31-2006, 08:43 PM

I "read" a few audiobooks on my drives home. My only complaint is that I couldn't skip over the boring parts.

And another thing for me is that, I got lost somewhere and I hate to rewind

Nightshade

08-01-2006, 03:30 AM

Cds sub, :D

subterranean

08-01-2006, 05:30 AM

yes Nighty, that return and forward button...rewind and fast forward

holograph

08-01-2006, 07:21 AM

I think they greatly subtract from the literary experience. Never for me.

Erna

08-02-2006, 02:54 PM

I'm not very good at listening and doing nothing, radio and music are almost always background. So I think I get lost in a whole book to listen to. The last week I listened some short stories that won't be printed. That worked quite while doing the dishes and during late evening hanging tired on the couch. And I sometimes listen to public lectures or speaches in train, but a whole book I don't like, then I prefer reading.

kathycf

08-02-2006, 03:17 PM

Well, I like them sometimes. It is always more enjoyable to sit and read. I used to work at this boring job in the operations dept. of a local bank. Books on tape and my Walkman made that job a little more enjoyable.

Jean-Baptiste

08-08-2006, 09:17 PM

I've never actually listened to an audio book. That is, however, a great suggestion, Virgil.
I do like to listen to authors read from their own works. That is, if they are good readers--some authors should never be allowed to read their own works. Robert Frost is one that I would place a restriction upon. But then there are writers that I love to listen to, like T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound--and would you believe what a great reading voice Gertrude Stein has? I also heard recently a recording of Anthony Burgess reading from A Clockwork Orange; that was necessary.

randy

10-24-2006, 01:35 AM

Hi to all,
audio books has so many advantages compared to reading books,it saves somuch of time,it improves the listening and comprehension skills.
it's helpful for teachers (i.e;teaching resources),we can listen a audio books while driving a car for relaxation.

amanda_isabel

10-24-2006, 03:45 AM

i prefer books on paper. how many hours of the same voice-no matter how resonant--would bore me... reading text on paper is also a better way to 'see' what the author is saying.

CourtnyG

10-31-2006, 02:37 PM

I always prefer reading a book to listening to an audio book. But I do listen to audio books on a regular basis. I have an hour to an hour and a half of driving each day 5 days a week. I used to just listen to the radio, but that gets old. So I started listening to audio books. I find it best to stick with books I've read before, short stories, or less complex novels. I wouldn't try Dickens or some of the Russian novelists in audio book form. Something by O. Henry, Edith Wharton, or Henry James, or your favorite books that you love but don't have time to read again. I wouldn't try any mysteries or any deep psychological pieces. I would only use audio books for pleasure. If you will be tested you need to read the book. When listening to an audio book you don't get immersed in the story. Sometimes you miss the little things. If you read it yourself instead of hearing someone else read it it's easier to remember the little things, which sometimes show up on tests.

Courtny

metal134

03-19-2007, 04:22 PM

I always thought audio books were for the elderly. I never attempted them because I thought it would put me to sleep right away. but maybe one day
That is exaclty my problem. I recently tried an audio book but I found that if I tried to do something else while listening (i.e., work, play a video game, etc.), I couldn't give it the full concentration it needed. so the other option is to just relax and listen. And because of the fact that it is so relaxing, it does put me to sleep. Plus, there's the other things people mentioned; they move too slow, if you didn't unsdertand a part, it's more tedious to go back over, etc.

And yes, I dug up a thread that was dead for almost half a year!

jon1jt

03-19-2007, 04:43 PM

audiobooks are great, i can't imagine the world without them. :) they don't take away anything from the literary experience because when i'm on the treadmill, food shopping, in my car, i cant hold a book; and what would otherwise be dead time is now brought to life. and there are certain books i dont want to read, like A Thousand Country Roads by Robert James Waller, which i'm listening to now. it's the sequel to The Bridges of Madison County, which i never read. great movie, though. :)

AChristieFan

03-20-2007, 01:51 PM

I'm disabled and so I can't hold a book in my hands like I once did. So, Talking Books or Audio Books are my only options if I want to read for pleasure.

Sancho

03-22-2007, 11:18 PM

I held out for a long time on audio books thinking that they were somehow sacrilegious. But then, not by choice, I began spending way too much time behind the wheel. So there I was, driving along, listening to the radio, when I slowly came to the realization that I’d heard the same damn ten or twenty songs about four-hundred times. And then, resentment set in.

So I started listening to language tapes - and now I can speak, badly:
Restaurant-Spanish
Restaurant-French
Restaurant-German
Restaurant-Italian
And
Restaurant- Brazilian Portuguese (or perhaps, Churrascaria-Brazilian Portuguese, Obrigado!)

And it’s kinda cool, but what’s the utility of that sort of thing for someone who lives in Atlanta – I suppose I could go to a Braves game at the “Ted” and holler “Ole” when Chipper hits a homer, but that’d probably get me a free ride down to Grady Medical Center’s psych ward.

So I bought a couple of lecture series from the Teaching Company. They were fabulous. I listened to a series on “The Story of Human Language” by John McWhorter, and one on “20th-Century American Fiction” by Arnold Weinstein. I absolutely loved these courses; but I am a man and thus I have a limited ability to multi-task, so when the material started getting complex, my driving suffered. Other drivers of the Loop-285 started regularly giving me the one-fingered wave and throwing greasy Chick-Fil-A wrappers at my truck.

Then one day I was wandering through my local Barns&Noble, sipping a Starbucks, and chatting on my Blue-Tooth enabled Sprint phone…yep, I was all Yuppied up. Well, I found an audio book by Jimmy Carter, Our Endangered Values, read by the author. I started thinking; I’ve never had a President of the United States read a book to me – so I bought it. Now I’m hooked. I also bought his book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, and I’ve been listening to it while simultaneously annoying my fellow drivers of metro ATL.

So, I don’t know. I’ve never tried true literature on tape and I don’t think that I will. At the end of the day, I somehow enjoy and even savor the experience of sinking into my ridiculously upholstered wing-back chair and clicking on the floor lamp and starting to READ something.

Basil

03-22-2007, 11:58 PM

The Ted, Chipper, Grady, I-285, Jimmy Carter...my God, Sancho, you used every major Atlantean reference known to man in that post, with the exception of Peachtree and the Clermont Lounge! :p

Sancho

03-23-2007, 12:04 AM

Basil.... what-up?

Heh-heh, I’m a victim of my surroundings. But I failed to mention the Cyclorama!

Janine

03-23-2007, 12:43 AM

I love audiobooks, but only the ones, so far with separate actors such as the Shakespeare series by Arkangel or Naxo. If one person is reading the book they have to be really good and have an engaging voice to capture my attention. I have tried it several times and if I have headphones on laying in bed at night it is a certain cure for insomnia. I always fall asleep.
The Shakespeare plays with a group of performers work best for me, since I can imagine being right there onstage with the actors and seeing the whole scene in my mind so vividly. It makes me very creative visually, and it is great to absorb the correct English pronunciation and poetry of Shakespeare. The timing and diction make all the difference in the world. I love them. The poetry is also quite nice to listen to since the narrator reads it correctly with the spacing and timing and emotion in every line. It all depends on the narration in most of these books. Bad narration and you won't listen 5 mins. Good narration will captivate you. Try different types and find ones you will like. They can be quite an experience and exciting.

higley

03-23-2007, 02:16 AM

My dad devours audiobooks because he hasn't got the time to read them but is able to listen while he works. And really he doesn't feel like he's losing anything in the process; he can get as engrossed in an audiobook as anyone can a paperback. It's entertaining when I'm reading a particular book and he's either listening to the same one or planning to shortly, and we can talk about what's happening and follow each other.

Audiobooks are harder for me because although I enjoy listening to them, I'm just a visual learner by nature and register information better when I read it. Sometimes I'll get an audiobook on a novel I've read already but would just enjoy listening to.

JaneEyre1986

03-23-2007, 11:48 AM

I'm not big on audiobooks, but I seem to actually want them more now that I don't have as much time to read. I really want to read Inkspell (my friend got me hooked on it), and I haven't had time. I'll have see if I can get her to bring the CD into work today.

Virgil

03-23-2007, 01:58 PM

Janine

03-23-2007, 06:59 PM

You know I never really tried doing that, Virgil. I guess I am too lazy to read along. I like best to listen to audiobooks at night, when I can wear headphones and shut my eyes and block out everything else. If I try listening to them on the stereo or on the computer, I can not follow what is happening at all. Strange, but I need total concentration to understand them. Recently I listened to "Pericles"; I had not previously read the play. I had to listen to it twice to understand what was happening exactly. If I had read the play I would have had no trouble, as Higley pointed out.
That's interesting about your father Higbey, and that they two of you share your thoughts on the same books. What a nice thing to treasure. I read my father's books and think of him often, but he is no longer with us. It is nice to feel we shared the same thoughts and tastes in literature.

kandaurov

04-05-2007, 12:35 PM

Audiobooks of poems are actually quite good. As Virgil said, when there is great material and the performer is up to the task, it is quite satisfactory!

Mind you, I only use them for poems, and short ones. As is has also been said, they are key to help with pronunciation when it comes to external languages. I love audiobooks in german from Rilke and Heinrich Heine, they help me a great deal :)

kathycf

04-05-2007, 12:48 PM

I like best to listen to audiobooks at night, when I can wear headphones and shut my eyes and block out everything else. If I try listening to them on the stereo or on the computer, I can not follow what is happening at all.
I sometimes have trouble like that. I used to listen to audiobooks to pass the time at a tedious job and found myself stopping my work because I was trying to concentrate on the story. :lol:

I think we are similiar, Janine, in the sense that I often find I need to block out everything in order to keep focused on the story. I guess things tend to make more sense to me visually then through listening.

bazarov

04-05-2007, 01:46 PM

My last audiobook was Grimm's Cat in shoes( that's surely not an English title) before 15 years ago.
No!

aeroport

04-05-2007, 02:09 PM

For a while, back when I first got my car and it had a cassette deck, I would check out some of Wodehouse's Jeeves books (they have several) and listen to those while driving. It worked well, because they are rather light reading, and they are all in first-person anyway, so the single narrator made little difference. However, I tried this with Far from the Madding Crowd, and stopped after one paragraph. No good.
Unfortunately, since I got a CD player installed the joy of Wodehouse is one I've been forced to seek exclusively on the printed page, as books on CD are a bit scarce at the library, and are in some cases rather expensive. I had thought, however, just for fun, of going ahead and purchasing that audio copy of Ulysses I've had my eye on... :D

Stieg

04-05-2007, 02:25 PM

I had thought, however, just for fun, of going ahead and purchasing that audio copy of Ulysses I've had my eye on... :D

Significantly less brain-eye strain quotient? ;)

kathycf

04-05-2007, 03:34 PM

My last audiobook was Grimm's Cat in shoes( that's surely not an English title) before 15 years ago.
No!
Hmm, I think the title in English is Puss in Boots.

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/kathycf/puss-figure.gif

Anne Boleyn

05-01-2007, 10:52 AM

hum not sure this is the correct section but, is anyone else here who likes audiobooks?
That is a recent discovery for me, I've always been the sort of "a book must be read not listened to" person, but I've recently experienced a couple of dramatized version of two books I've read years ago (the picture of Dorian Gray and Murder on the Orient Express) and enjoyed them very much.

What do you think of audiobooks?

Virgil

05-01-2007, 11:06 AM

Ann, we already had a thread on audio books. Here it is: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12867&highlight=audio. I posted my comments in there.

barbara0207

05-01-2007, 11:06 AM

Audio books are a wonderful alternative to the printed versions. Especially in the evening, when my eyes tell me they're to tired to read, I put in a CD and have first rate actors read the book to me. (I like those better than the dramatized versions, mostly because my favourite parts seem to be missing.) I close my eyes and enjoy. :D

Anne Boleyn

05-01-2007, 11:38 AM

Ann, we already had a thread on audio books. Here it is: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12867&highlight=audio. I posted my comments in there.

thanks so much Virgil :)
is there any search toll in order to avoid double posting?
thanks!!

Logos

05-01-2007, 03:27 PM

It's not really a big deal if such a topic as this is being discussed in more than one thread Anne :) I think Virgil posted that link so he could let you know about it and to not have to re-post his own thoughts.

You can search any specific forum (General Literature or General Chat for instance) by clicking the Search http://www.online-literature.com/forums/images/misc/menu_open.gif link at the top of any page, then choose "Advanced Search".

Nossa

05-01-2007, 04:46 PM

Been thinking about doing this. I think it will help me save some time on my "reading". Plus I'll just read along to the books I already have. This may seem like a cop out, but BOY I have alot of unread books I've bought over the course of the last year.

LOL I guess I can get more reading done if I wasn't on the computer so much and doing my college course. Sigh!

I believe that the beauty of 'reading' lies in actually...'reading' lol
That's why I personally, like reading the novels or the books better than watching them as movies or Tv series or whatever, and sure I'd rather read than listen to it as an audio book.
Holding a book, and sitting there, reading, imagining and contemplating is what matters about the book. Ebooks to me are like songs, you usualy listen to them on the subway on your way home, listening can't capture your feelings and senses...aaaaand,I got carried away as usual, so bottom line is, don't listen,read!...lol.