I found a blog entry where the author lists a bunch of books they would like to read – a great personalized summer reading list.
The funny part is that they come right out and says that they don’t read audiobooks. And it doesn’t look like a defensive statement, as in “I don’t swim”, or “I fall down when I drink too much”.
I’d prefer, “I don’t read audiobooks because they’re too expensive.” Or “I don’t read audiobooks because they’re too heavy to lift.” Just saying “I don’t read audiobooks” sounds dismissive and kind of ticks me off, as if there’s some sort of understanding that the reader would automatically appreciate whatever the reason is.
Of course, I’m an audiobook bigot myself, so who am I to say.
But this does serve to illustrate something I’ve suspected for a long time.
The more a person loves books, the less likely they are to love audiobooks. This is so counterintuitive as to be shocking. People who don’t like books don’t like audiobooks.
People who love books don’t like audiobooks (generally). The logic is something like, if you have all the time in the world to read prodigious quantities of paper books, then you don’t need one of the chief benefits of audiobooks – listening while doing other things.
Thank god there’s a huge middle ground of people who like books and wish they could read more.
Or they’re just plain bored in their cars and have the good sense to listen to a book on cd rather than yelling at the car in front of them, or talking on their cellphones (likely complaining about traffic).…