I collect books the way other women collect shoes. Bookstores and libraries are my haven. Sniffing books sends a wave of euphoria through my brain. That’s why, when my dad wanted to get me a Kindle for Christmas one year, I threw the closest thing to a tantrum a 16-year-old could get away with.
I thought the digital world had taken so much away from society as it was. People prefer texting to calling their friends and family. They waste time watching weird videos on YouTube. Why did they have to take that away from books after a thousand years of being untouched?
However, since I’ve become a book blogger, authors have sent me their manuscripts to read through PDF files. And, since then, I have come to a grudging revelation that e-books have their merits. So do audiobooks, for that matter.
While I can read physical books like other people can breathe, e-books are quicker to get through. You can scroll faster than turning a page. If you are reading from a computer, the light from the machine does help some people read. Since moving back home, I have come to the painful revelation that physical books take up precious room on my bookshelves. E-books don’t take that much space anywhere, except on your device.
On the flip side, physical books don’t need to be charged regularly. If on a Kindle, you risk getting fingerprint smudges on your screen. And they don’t carry that amazing old book smell. I know I personally have a tendency to get a headache if I spend too much time with technology, like on my computer or my phone. The light from the computer screen can wear out my eyes as much as reading book pages by a lamp for too long.
Audiobooks are another thing I grapple with as a reader. In grade school, that’s how we read our books. Teachers would put in cassette tapes or CDs in radios, then the narrator would read aloud to use from the speakers. Some of those audiobooks actually took out the enjoyment of a book I could have potentially liked because the narrator’s voice ruined the experience for me.
Others have said they encountered a similar problem with audiobooks. Such as, the narrator’s tone of voice does not match the mood of the story or they read too slow or too fast for the listener to keep up. Some books, in general, are better off being read instead of listened to, or vice versa. Not only those, audiobooks are more expensive than physical books.
However, several of my good friends have learning disabilities and they say audiobooks help them a lot with reading. They say dyslexia makes it hard to read because their backstabbing brains keep moving around the words. Or they have ADHD, and it is difficult for them to sit still long enough to read a book.
In situations like these, I appreciate audiobooks as an educational tool. If it helps people to read more, then I am for it.
Whatever way you choose to read—physical books, e-books, or audiobooks—as long as you are reading, that is all that matters.