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Posted by Lale on 11/10/2001, 14:11:53
What do you think of audio books?
I have friends who think they are absolutely great. They say that they can listen to them in the car or at home while tending to mundane domestic tasks.
I have been very much against audio books for two reasons:
2. You have "listened" to the book. Then someone asks you if you have read the book, what would you say, yes or no?
I always thought that these were created for people who had eye problems and couldn't see well, or at all. Not for people who had good vision.
Last christmas we drove to Chamonix for a week. It is a 7-8 hour drive each way. I decided to give books on CDs a try. I thought it would be a pleasant passtime for all three of us in the car. I bought Moby Dick and Don Quixote, the two books I have never been able to get past the first 10 pages (just didn't "wrap" me as we would say in Turkish). Both were on 4 CD packs, slightly abridged and very expensive.
In the car we started with Moby Dick. After half an hour it was a unanimous decision that it wasn't working at all. we blamed the noise of the wind and the passing cars and promised to give it another try when at home, in peace and quiet.
Later on I tried the CDs again. Moby Dick, I completed the first CD. Don Quixote, I listened to the first 15 minutes twice and found my brain wandering away each time.
When I have the courage I might pick one of them up again. I feel ashamed of myself for not being able to sit through 6 hours (12 for both books) of narration. This whole business has caused me great stress. Even if I might be able to eventually listen to these CDs, I will never buy another one again.
I am very curious about your thoughts/experiences.
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Posted by Chris Green on 12/10/2001, 2:38:09, in reply to "Books on tape/CD"
My experience with unabridged books has been similar to Lale's. The things that make good books so wonderful - the wordplay, the subtle developments of characters - are almost entirely missing in audio. Like Lale, I once decided to give audio books the ole college try during a long trip. I got Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh (on of my alltime favorite books) because I thought that hearing a book I'd already read might help in the 'transition' to audio. It was a miserable failure, I think I figured out why; reading a book is an attentive committment, one that requires the reader to committ all of his/her senses to the material (think about it, when reading Dickens can't you just smell London?), and restricting the experience to just one sense nullifies the effects of good literature.
However, I have enjoyed a few abridged books while driving, which was a surprising result considering my avid-readerness and bad experiences with full-length recordings. I account for this differences as a divergence of expectations; I expected the unabridged books to be as wonderful as the texts themselves, while abridged versions were more enjoyable because I expected them to not be as good.
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Posted by Dave on 12/10/2001, 5:02:21, in reply to "Re: Books on tape/CD"
Interesting discussion by both Lale and Chris. I don't know why, but I have found that I absolutely cannot fathom how it is that people listen to fiction on tape. I just can't do it. And yet... I like listening to what you would call "talk-radio". Interviews and such. I listen to it ALL DAY at work. (specifically, the CBC, Canada's premiere Talk-Radio station). On that very radio station, a guy phoned in and told how that, as a long-haul truck driver he listens to fiction, and he was currently listening to War & Peace! Hello? I have read War & Peace and loved it as my second favorite book of all time... but do I want Tolstoy in the passenger seat? I don't think so. Once I bought a non-fiction tape narrated by one of my absolute favorite non-fiction authors (M. Scott Peck) and I was completely BORED SILLY. I just cannot focus. I have two different versions of The Holy Bible on tape, and somehow these are the only tapes I can tolerate listening to while I drive, I'm not even sure why. I don't really mind them at all.
But plain old fiction on tape? Forget it. I walk past the rows of it at the book store and I never cease to wonder? Who is buying this stuff? And I don't say that in derision, I simply mean... whose mind can stay focused on the purely verbal for that long? If yours can... I salute you! Chris, I totally agree with you.... I want to see the page... I too, smell London when I read Dickens.
There is only one thing even more detestable to me than the whole audio thing, and that is e-books... or books online. Who wants to stare at a computer screen for that long instead of being cozily curled on a comfy couch with a coffee and Camus?
Again, I don't want to offend anyone who just finished David Copperfield online... but, my goodness... what is the issue here? The COST of books? If so... balance the price of a paperback against your next trip to the optometrist my friend! Eegads!
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Posted by Dave Cymbalisty on 12/10/2001, 5:10:29, in reply to "Re: Books on tape/CD"
Oh yes, I forgot to mention another thing. In answer to your question #2 Lale... if I had only "listened" to a book on audio, I think it would be a breach of proper Biblio-etiquette to claim that I had READ the book. Even my Merriam-Webster defines the verb "read" as "to understand language by interpreting written symbols for speech sounds." WRITTEN symbols. Amen!
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Posted by Lale on 13/10/2001, 0:50:16, in reply to "Re: Books on tape/CD"
Some professions such as long-haul truck driving may not leave any time that is conducive to
reading. I think that truck driver was smart choosing audio books over listening to country-western music. Btw, I heard that there is also a music style called "trucking", music made just for the truckers. I have never heard a sample of it but I don't imagine it to be better than listening to books on tape.
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