Audio books – first impression

A few weeks ago, I have heard about audio books and their popularity. For me the idea seems somewhat strange. I’ve been used to reading a book for ages and, at first, I haven’t seen any reasons for giving it a try. Most of books were “designed” for paper medium, so putting it in sound may give strange results. For example, some philosophical disputes require more time to think then trivial conversations. Because the reader usually recite with constant speed, listener have the same amount of time to process text regardless its content.

On the other hand, I love to listen some kinds of radio broadcast services. My favourite ones are BBC programmes. So maybe other voice pieces could also be interesting. Anyway, Having little to lose1 and a lot to gain2, I decided to give it a whirl.

(e)Shopping

Happily, Polish e-shops with audio books already exist. Despite offering only a small subset of books, I found one that I would like to read. The audio books are available as simple MP3 files. It was a pleasant surprise for me, because I suppose to have them in semi-functional format with DRM. Within usage of my bank account I was able to download them soon after after making a transfer.

Hearing

Thanks to MP3 format, I copied audio book into my portable player. My first reaction after pressing “play” was “It’s different”. Listening a book is like going to the same place at nights. Trees, buildings, sites etc. are the same, but the general impression is other. The same is with audio books. The voice emphasise things which reader could easily miss and vice verse.

Conclusion

If you are still wondering whether audio books are worth hearing, you should definitely try them. They are especially handy when conducting or just waiting for someone. Within them, anyone could increase the number of read/heard books without too much effort.

  1. time + a few $ [back]
  2. find a new interesting thing [back]
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