My audiobook shame

What it means to read in the age of distraction

(Credit: Roman Eisele)

It was not a red letter day for my theory that listening to an audiobook counts as reading. At least I think I know what happened now. Sometime during the second act — after the inciting incident but before the midpoint shift — an errant body part or rogue item of clothing must have brushed the ‘next chapter’ icon on my phone. Because the next time I hit ‘play’, the protagonist — who was driving across the United States — had left the Midwest and was bathing on a Californian beach.

I suppose I could have skipped back a few minutes to check if I had missed some crucial — if slightly genre-bending — plot point involving the discovery of a wormhole or teleportation device. But I was all too aware that it could equally have been my mistake. Perhaps my mind had wandered off during the highly regrettable passage about a Walmart. It happens.

The book in question

I’d like to tell you that my predilection for audiobooks dates back to my Year 3 English teacher, Mr Henderson, who would read to us The Chronicles of Narnia for one hour, every Friday afternoon. When he spoke, the room leaned in. Each line was given its proper weight. I’m sure his fabulous moustache contributed to the acoustics — like Mark Spitz, who (jokingly) suggested his helped to deflect water from his mouth.

Instead, it is for the simple reason that my ability to read anything longer than a Janan Ganesh column has been shattered by years of skim reading journal articles or wading through data sets, looking for the killer quote or key statistic. Throw in even my limited consumption of short-form video content and it’s surprising I retain the capacity to read the ingredients list on the back of a shampoo bottle.

Fortunately, there has never been a better time to be an audio-first consumer. Audible, among other platforms, has hundreds of thousands of books for download. Meanwhile, even magazines are getting in on the act. The Economist¹ has for as long as I can remember produced a weekly audio edition read by a stable of professionals².

The Atlantic, meanwhile, has taken a different tack. Many of its articles are narrated by an AI voice. Historically, these have been dreadful. Think a small child who has just completed their fourth Biff, Chip and Kipper book, reading aloud a George Packer polemic on what the working class of America really wants. But it’s actually pretty good — and certainly more scaleable than hiring an army of human narrators.