I love this so much, I had to pull it out of my latest ‘Interesting’ list.

John says a lot here that I’ve wanted to say myself, so I appreciate his authority (as an accomplished author and thoughtful reader and researcher) in giving more weight and reach to the subject.

My stance on audiobooks has changed a lot in the last 20 years. I now think that they’re not only definitely reading, for many people, they’re the best kind of reading I mean the point of reading is to ingest someone’s words and ideas in the most transparent way possible. You want to spend minimal time decoding what the words are and what they mean, and maximum time living in the world those words create, or else understanding the ideas those words are trying to share…

YES! Exactly: “the point of reading is to ingest someone’s words and ideas in the most transparent way possible”. The idea that listening to a book – or any other written content – is in somehow lesser is an opinion born from arrogance and elitism.

The whole point of writing is to share your ideas in hope that others will share them. Allow others – No! – HELP others to do this by making your ideas as accessible and transparent as possible.

For someone like me who decodes the written word quite easily, eye reading works great, because I don’t have to spend much time turning the scratches on a page into words and ideas that exist in my mind. But many people aren’t like me.

YES! The phrasing of “turning the scratches on a page into words and ideas that exist in my mind” is such a brilliant way to illuminate the absurdity of what’s happening with writing and reading. It’s crazy that some people get het up about it being some kind of natural and absolutely pure method of communication. We all just want ideas in our minds, by whatever means necessary.

In fact a lot of research indicates that most people aren’t like me. Most people retain information better from audiobooks than they do from printed books. And so for many people audiobooks are the ideal way to read, because that’s how the words become most transparent.

I’ve seen reporting of this research, and want to gather more to support my own beliefs and experiences, but the idea that humans are better at retaining information audibly, shouldn’t really be a surprise. For 99%+ of our biological history, we evolved and perfected the audible transmission of communication. Then, the written word comes around and in the blink of a watchmakers eye, there’s the conceit that it’s somehow better, or best. For some, that may well be the case, which is great. But please, stop foisting the preferences of that group on the entirety of the world.

I actually think the argument over whether audiobooks count as reading misses the fundamental joy of reading, which is that it’s different for everyone. If 10,000 people read the same book, on some level that’s 10,000 books, because the reader is such a co-creator of the book with the author. And now that there are so many more audiobooks available, it’s great news. It makes information and storytelling so much more accessible.

But I will say we still have a long way to go on that front. The whole idea that you’re somehow a better or Superior reader if you read via your eyes instead of via your ears seems to me a legacy of a narrow way of understanding how we acquire knowledge and tell stories. Like I said, most people retain more information from audiobooks than from print books and if the job of a book is, as Horace said so long ago, to ‘delight and instruct’, then audiobooks do that job.

YES! More fuel to the fight against those acting superior. And this touches on what I was getting at when I wrote Is there a word for how a book lives in our brain? It gets to the reality of the matter, that whether you’ve read or listened to a book, you end up with your own unique understanding of it.

Reading ‘scratches on a page’ of a book doesn’t somehow guarantee that the reader is implanted with am exact and ideal copy of what the author intended. Instead, we end up with our own smudgy, cherry picked concepts and memories of what we’ve taken in. Visually or aurally. So, YES! It’s great that there are now so many audiobooks. This is only a good thing for book reading. For instruction and delight.

Here’s one irrefutable way in which I know that audiobook reading is reading: These days I often go back and forth between audio and print, depending on where I’m at. Like, I don’t want to read a print book while I’m washing the dishes because they’re not waterproof. On the other hand, I don’t want to read an audiobook while I’m going to bed at night because reading with my eyes relaxes me more. And they’re both reading! I can tell that they’re both reading because in both cases I understand what’s happening in the book! 

YES! And not only do I not want a wet book while trying to do dishes, for me, I take information in better when my hands are busy or I’m engaged in some physical flow of activity. Audiobooks and dishwashing are my sweet spot. Think if that what you like, but I guarantee I’ll be taking in more, and far more quickly and enjoyably, than if the only option was forcing my hyper/dyslexic brain into decoding the written word.

I can still appreciate the joke that reading a book while felling trees, or not really getting into one due to Bluetooth connection issues doesn’t support the argument for audiobooks, but it still boils down to what effectively suits each individuals needs and abilities.

There is no one best way that all humans should ‘read’. Or one best or correct way for any information to be shared. This includes arguments for long-form over summaries and chunking, or hyperfocus over hyperactive, or whatever other comparison or argument you might come up with for your cognitively preferred method of idea ingestion (I really do like the idea of ingesting ideas).

Both ways of reading reach into the way down deep, and help me feel less alone in the dark difficult abstract stuff that sometimes without books I wouldn’t even have language for. THAT’S reading. 

YES! Let’s think more about the outcomes of what we read, listen to, or watch. It doesn’t really matter how the information gets into us. Just that we all have access to it, in ways that resonate with our brains, and that don’t make us feel lesser or wrong.