Get Your Audiobook On

When we’re young, being read to is a familiar story.

History professors call on students to narrate past events from text books. Bumbling through Shakespeare in front of all your classmates is practically a rite of passage. Grade school teachers read aloud from the classics. Parents spirit us to sleep on the wings of our favourite adventure.

With the advent of audiobooks, this once child-centered activity has grown up and become mainstream.

Described by forbes.com as “the publishing industry’s 2018 trend” based on a significant spike in the sale of downloadable audio via audio entertainment producer Audible, it’s clear that as life becomes increasingly digital, so has reading.

But is listening to a voice artist read the entirety of a tome actually reading?

The debate continues.

While book purists think of audiobooks as cheating, many bibliophiles consider the form a way to journey through their reading lists while commuting to work, washing the dishes, relaxing in the sun and even as a fascinating way to re-discover old favourites.

“Comparing audio books to cheating is like meeting a friend at Disneyland and saying ‘you took a bus here? I drove myself, you big cheater”, says University of Virginia psychologist Daniel Willingham, who quite often is posed the question of whether listening to audiobooks is cheating.

“The point is getting to and enjoying the destination. The point is not how you travelled.”

In terms of travel, as audiobooks become more popular, there are many ways to do so.

While some may enjoy an audiobook regardless of the voice reading it, to many, this can make or break the experience. In fact, an offshoot industry of the audiobook boom is the employment of great voices, mellifluous movie stars or the author themselves to record them.

Think Eddie Redmayne reading ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ or Charlton Heston reading Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’.

“I’m currently listening to ‘Becoming’ narrated by Michelle Obama,” says Christopher Farai Charamba, responding to an audiobook recommendation call-out on Facebook. “Also check out ‘The Order of Time’ by Carlo Rovelli narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch. All available on Audible.”

With a suggestion of ‘Born A Crime’ narrated by Trevor Noah issued by avid local reader Robyn Kleinhans and ‘God Is Not Great’ by Christopher Hitchens described as “glorious” by Windhoek-based audiobook fan Martin James Wilkinson, the trend towards listening to books has definitely hit the city, as have suggestions on where to get them.

“This has the virtues of being short and a freebie,” says Graham Hopwood linking to a New Yorker page featuring ‘My Purple Scented Novel’ authored and read by Ian McEwan.

Boasting the author’s voice artistry and free to read, Hopwood’s recommendation hits an audiobook sweet spot perhaps most likely to be replicated by LibriVox.

A site that allows you to browse by author, genre and subject, LibriVox presents a collection of free audiobooks from the public domain. The website also invites visitors to volunteer to read books, should recording endless hours of faultless audio be your thing.

Also offering free audiobooks is YouTube channel Greatest Audiobooks. Head here for your Shakespeare, Jane Austen, San Tzu, Bram Stoker, the Bible and HG Wells.

For newer offerings, bestsellers and modern literature, however, you’re probably going to have to pay sites or download apps such as Scribd or Audible.

Sign up for Audible’s free trial and receive one credit for one audiobook to see how you like them. The subscription thereafter is monthly, the selection is vast and audiobooks – in a word – addictive.

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