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''' '' BOOK !E-WOW!
BOND '' '''
POLICY : THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY - at its very greatest, gives Mankind and Students of the World a chance to respond actively to the world's pain and suffering and to work for the greatest good.
AUDIOBOOKS AREN'T CHEAP shortcut to reading. Sometimes they elevate a book beyond its text alone.
WHEN AND WHY LISTENING TO A BOOK is better than reading it :
When the market for audiobooks began to skyrocket in about the past decade, people would sometimes wonder whether they counted - that is, when you listened to a book.
Could you say that you had read it? It was mostly silly metaphysical debate {in the vein of Have you really been to a city if you've only flown through its airport? or If you replace an ax's handle and then you replace it's blade, do you have the same ax?} but the question illustrated a deep cultural bias.
The audio version of a book was often considered a CliifsNotes-type shortcut. It was acceptable in a pinch, but as a matter of cultural value, audio ranked somewhere lower than the real, printed thing.
I rise now to liberate the audiobook from the murky shadow of text. Audio books aren't cheating. They aren't a just-add-water shortcut to cheap intellectualism.
For so many titles in this heyday of audio entertainment, it's not crazy to ask the opposite : Compared to the depth that can be conveyed via audio, does the flat text version count.
Obviously, there are writers and subjects that translate poorly to audio; writers who excel at a kind of textual virtuosity, like David Foster Dallas, are better read than listened to. I have also had trouble listening to dense, especially technical books, mainly because audiobooks are often consumed while multitasking.
[ For me there are there are few greater pleasures than cooking while listening to a book. ]
Yet there are just as many books that achieve a resonance via the spoken word that their text alone cannot fully deliver. Listening to a book is not just as reading it. Sometimes, perhaps even often, it's better.
For a certain kind of a literary snob, them's fighting words, I know. But consider one of the publishing industry's most popular genres, the memoir.
When they're read by the author, I've noticed that audio versions of memoir sparkle with an authenticity often missing in the text alone. In fact, it is the rare memoir that doesn't work better as audio than as text.
Recently, I have been telling everyone I know to listen to ''The Last Black Unicorn,'' the comedian Tiffany Hadish's account of her rough childhood in the foster system and the many hardships she endured on the way to making it big in show business.
Her narrative is compelling enough, but she is one of the best stand-up comedians working today, so it's hardly a surprise that the tragedy and hilarity of her story are punched up by her delivery in her audiobook.
As spoken-word audio has taken off, the publishing industry and Amazon, whose Audible subsidiary is the audiobook business's dominant force, have invested heavily in the medium.
Now audiobooks often benefit from highend production and big-name voice talent, and there are innovations in digital audio - like spatially rendered sound, which gives listeners a sense of being surrounded by audio - that may turn audiobooks into something like radio dramas.
Still, as popular as audiobooks have become, I suspect there will remain some consternation about their rise, especially from book lovers who worry that audio is somehow eclipsing the ancient sanctity of text and print.
But that is a myopic view. Telling stories, after all, is an even older form of human entertainment than reading and writing stories. Banish any guilt you might harbor about listening instead of reading.
Audiobooks are not to be feared; they do not portend the death of literature on the altar of modern convenience. Their popularity is a sign, rather, of the endurance of stories and of storytelling.
The Honor and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Times and Trends, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Farhad Manjoo for his opinion.
With respectful dedication to all the book readers of the world, and then the Students, Professors and Teachers. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :
Good Night and God Bless
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