Do Audiobooks even count? | 2 To Ramble #153

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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:11 What to expect in this episode
2:29 Is there anything lost in Audiobooks?
6:11 Audiobook Production/Sales Stats
11:49 Reading comprehension with Audiobooks
28:35 Increased convenience w/ Audiobooks
34:14 Austin takes us on a tangent
38:49 Closing thoughts

[jaxnd]

17:12 me listening at 2x... Rich, I promise it's not a chore! It's just ADHD!🤣🤣🤣

[zacharygooden]

The dramatized audio versions of the red rising series made audiobooks even more awesome

I mainly listen on my work commutes, if I’m at home I won’t make myself sit down and read

[prettyshamarlee]

It's hard for me to accept audio books as actually reading the book. I treat it the same as politics and religion, where you don't discuss your opinions in public.

[dportnov]

I've gone back and forth between audiobook only, immersion reading, and physical/ebook only. What I've found for nyself is that the narrator and genre of a book matter to me a lot when choosing which format to read. I tend to prefer nonfiction in audiobook or immersion reading format because it feels more like listening to a podcast. I don't necessarily read nonfiction for pleasure to retain every bit of info, so I don't kind missing something here and there as long as I get the gist. I do this thing with fiction audiobooks where I might get distracted for a second and miss a detail, but I won't go back and re-listen. I will just make up what hapoened in my head and make it make sense to me. Bad for discussion, great for personal enjoyment. It's not something that has affected me negatively because I've gotten the broad strikes about what might have happened in a couple of sentences I've missed maybe two to three times in a book. I'm definitely a lot more focused reading physical/ebooks.

[connorxoneill]

I’m going to come right out with it and say that when someone tells me they did the book on audio, I think less of them!!

[Cattensu]

I am going to say that at least for me, drawing, and even sculpting is route memory, so takes little mental power. So I listen to audiobooks while drawing/painting, and have for 20+ years.

I have never listened to audiobooks on any speed other then what it is recorded as. I have no goal for number of books read in a month. And I honestly think I would be overwhelmed and possible burn out if I read more then 10 books a month. Especially if they where all different series.
But part of the thing with me and listening to them at normal speed is I started listening to audiobooks back when cassette tapes where a thing, and then compact disks. So I have never really gotten into on my phone audiobooks outside of the library, and I get frustrated with the librarys digital download audiobooks, especially after listening to one that was missing about 1 hour and 30 minutes of the book after switching severs. So I don't check them out often. I reported it to the library, but no idea if they ever fixed it. Last I checked they hadn't.

There are some books I am happy to listen to or read the physical copies of. But I have to have listened to the book first.
If I read it first, then decided to try the audiobook version, 9 times out of 10 I am going to dislike the audiobook due to the voices given to the character.
I hate when audiobooks in a searies have a different reader part way thought the searies. The InkWorld are a great example, love the books, hate that each one of the three has a different reader. It is so distracting.

[nagatharunthatikonda]

I have finished listening to a full audio book and I can say I have not done anything else other than listening to the audio more that 80% of it

[novahawk]

I have dyslexia & ADHD. Audiobooks are a lifeline that allows me to consume books in the best way for my brain.

I remember audiobooks (even when multi-tasking) far better than either print or ebooks. Both of those two CAN be great, but can also be a giant pain and more of a challange than their worth, especially if badly formatted.

The normalization of ablism that assumes that everyone reads, or remembers written works the same assumed way is toxic and revolting.

I'm glad you guys are fighting the good fight, and considering the context of silly studies that seem to prescribe correllation as if it were causation.

I listen to lots of podcasts and youtube at 1.5, but my base for audiobooks is usually 1.25. It helps me focus, and forces my brain to pay attention to what's actually being discussed. (Which isn't to say I wont turn it up to 1.5 or even 2, if the narration or pacing is slow or the content is unenguaging.)

When I don't turn up the speed everything is slow, and I struggle to focus.

Its not that you guys are slow, it's that my brain gets bored and VERY distracted when it has to slow down.

[LeonC]

To me it depends on what book I'm reading. If it is a regular thriller, I'm ok with the audiobook. If it's a book where you have a lot of information where you need to pay attention to details, I would choose an ebook/physical copy. The only exception for me was the First Law Trilogy, where I did both at the same time. I adjusted the narration speed to match my reading speed.

[Lycan]

Read book while listening to the audio book 😎🍺

[kathrynhaworth]

Unfortunately, I struggle with space, and so I like to ge ebooks and audiobooks, especially for the bigger books.

[bkpickell]

I have the Austin problem. For instance. I'm on book 4 of DCC. I read 1 and 3, but listened to book 2. I quite literally can't tell you what happened in book 2. Nothing, other than they got through the level. Whereas 1 and 3 I have good recall on it.

[kathrynhaworth]

I lie in my bed listening in the evening. Sometimes, I sit and do a game at the same time.

[Hfazilatpour]

My opinion might be bit wild. I tend to listen to fantasy bcz it tends to be far more shallow in my experiance and benefit the most compared to literary fiction or surrealist fiction. When I read horror I feel it more deep as well. It is not a one rule fits all, I would listen to all sort of books when I see fit. I listened to Hernan diaz's Trust in audiobook and it was amazing. Kramer and reading are goats for me. Just read, listen or what ever suits you, swallow book whatever way you see fit is the best advice.

[ocean]

lol not me getting called out "listening" to this while folding laundry

[forrestparker]

I think there’s a lot of unnecessary nuance around this general question when there shouldn’t be. It all counts as reading.
Now, I think the proper question is, do audiobooks count towards reading under hyper-consumerism? Probably not, but that requires a very nuanced conversation around the purpose of reading that much versus does that count toward my reading goal

[samuelbird]

This is how I'm consuming stormlight archive I think the fact the voice actors sound like ai is the reason I'm not really enjoying it but I'm reading the first law trilogy and then, Dungeon Crwler Carl book 2 and the prince of nothing so stormlight might need to wait lol

[myselfnoone]

I don't know dose reading the Odyssey or Illiad count? How about reading the Vinland Saga? Beowolf? Hell, you could make the argument that Lord Of The Rings is more authentic if you listen to it. All of these stories were passed down verbally through the ages before eventually being written down, or in LoTR's case written to be like that. So if you've read Lord Of The Rings you have you're awnser.