Over summer, whilst travelling in India, I listened on my IPod, to the whole 40 or so hours of Dostoevsky’s War and Peace (a wonderful book btw). Audio books are great for travelling, as you don’t have to carry the whole book, but apart from this, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of advantages to listening to a book be read by someone else rather than actually reading it yourself. In some ways, I found listening to a book actually more difficult as it seemed to demand so much more of my concentration. When I read a book, I always stop and reflect, but listing was often a relentless journey; sometimes I realised that I have been listening for a hour or two, and hadn’t heard a damn thing.
A new chapter in the audio-book market is unfolding, as the ubiquitous iPod transforms the way Australians listen to spoken word books (link)
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