My First Audiobook
May 16th, 2012As part of my recovery from LASIK surgery, I had to avoid reading, watching TV and the computer for the better part of 36-48 hours. Aside from sleeping, it’s hard to entertain one’s self with those parameters in the year 2012. Yes, there was music, but I was worried that music would only make me a bit restless and want to go out and run or do something I haven’t been cleared to do.
Someone gave me the idea to download an audiobook. I had mixed feelings, as I had a gigantic pile of physical Guttenberg-style books and magazines that I haven’t had time to get through and here I am finally with time to kill and I can’t read them? But I realized that there was no better time than now to give them a shot.
There were a few that sounded intriguing and would be interesting over a few genres. I figured I would be best off to select an audiobook that wouldn’t be too intellectually challenging or complicated as I didn’t know what my attention span would be like during the recovery, but interesting enough to me that I’d be glued to it. I ultimately decided on Hank Haney’s “The Big Miss”. Haney was Tiger Woods’ former coach and he sounds off on what it was like to coach him, some of the challenges he faced and describes some of the successes and failures of working with him. Best of all, it has been an interesting look into Woods’ psyche and I have a greater appreciation for Haney’s patience and understanding. I haven’t even reached the point where he examines the sex scandal, so I imagine the best is yet to come.
I’m enjoying how I hear Haney’s voice narrate the book. He’s from Texas by way of Illinois, and his accent is more Southern than Northwestern. I’m particularly enjoying his pronunciation of “golf” (sounds like ‘gawf’). I think it would be hard to listen to an audiobook that wasn’t narrated by the author, and there are a few that aren’t.

What I find interesting is that there is no longer a stigma for people who choose audiobooks over actually sitting down by a lamp with a physical copy. In past decades there have been books on tape, which were perceived for people without the mental focus and capacity to read; for dummies and simpletons. George Costanza resorted to a book on tape in an episode of Seinfeld.
But what’s changed? The technology for one. It took me about a minute to download my audiobook and before I knew it, it was on my iPhone ready to be listened to; It’s a lot more convenient to obtain a book in audio form. Secondly, as a society, we’re probably busier than we’ve ever been. As such, perhaps the ability to listen to a book on the go, while on the bus, on the treadmill, etc allows for people to consume more than they would normally; Personally, that component appeals a great deal to me.
From a spatial standpoint, audiobooks trump physical versions. For example, I’m about to go on vacation. I’m very economic about the way I pack, but I always bring books with me. However, I have two 700 page books that I haven’t completed (ESPN: Those Guys Have All The Fun and the Steve Jobs biography). I’m sacrificing space in my bags by bringing these books with me. The only space you need to worry about with audiobooks is available memory on our mobile device; A problem that’s easily solvable if push comes to shove.
However, amidst all of the changes and sexiness of being able to get an audiobook on your phone through iTunes with the press of a few buttons, the common denomenator with “books on tape” is the act of listening to the book vs reading it. Does this say something about our intellect, or lack thereof, if we prefer to listen to a book instead of reading it? As someone who grew up reading a lot, I feel guilty about enjoying audiobooks. It kinda feels like cheating and cutting corners. The stigma still sticks with me.
Then again, there’s something to be said for understanding the text, even if you’re not reading it, from a pedagogical standpoint. Maybe students in school could stand to benefit from audiobooks to understand a complex issue, story, etc. presented to them in an animated voice, as opposed to feeling the pressure to focus on the plain text and block out all of the incessant, accessible distractions at their fingertips; Facebook on their phones, Angry Birds and the like.
We continue to hear the narrative that “print media is dying”, which might be true for some newspapers. I don’t have data to back this up, but it just seems to me that bookstores haven’t suffered financial hardships to the degree that newspapers, video stores and CD outlets have. There continue to be used bookstores that thrive, I don’t know how well they’re doing but I certainly see more Chapters’ these days than I do Blockbusters. Also, I don’t think we can’t ignore the vanity that comes with owning and collecting books. With collecting the physical books, as some sort of artifact that we can show to others how well-read and erudite we fancy ourselves to be. There are lots of people who want to be perceived as smart and interesting; nobody has looked at someone else’s stocked bookshelf and thought that the person in question didn’t exude those qualities. One more thing, because the technology, in its current streamlined form, is relatively new, there are a lot of good books out there that could be available in audio form that aren’t.
I don’t think “The Big Miss” is going to be the last audiobook I buy and listen to. Also, I don’t think the Steve Jobs biography is going to be the last physical book I read. I think audiobooks will continue to be popular. And I think even if people opt to stick with physical books for fear of being labelled as a “dummy”, they will have been interested in the written word; The end will justify the medium.
If you would like to enjoy the blog in audio form, I recorded it for you:

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