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Best of books: The year I switched to audiobooks and why you should too

Now that it’s been established that audiobooks are, in fact, 'real' books, why not take advantage of the little gaps in your day to listen to one

Here are five reasons why you, yes YOU, should include audiobooks in your TBR (to be read) list (Source: Freepik)

How does a lifelong lover of reading books discover the myriad joys of listening to audiobooks? By no longer being able to find the time to crack open a spine — hardback or paperback — and sit down for an uninterrupted few hours, without the many distractions of work and life. After years of self-flagellation, this busy professional finally caved and subscribed to an audiobook service in the final month of 2023, only to find that, a year later, she had become not just a devotee, but an active proselytiser. Here are five reasons why you, yes YOU, should include audiobooks in your TBR (to be read) list:

Throwback to an ancient tradition: When it comes to stories, the compact between listener and teller is far older than the one between reader and writer. Audiobooks are often dismissed by textual purists as “inauthentic” but the fact is that humans have really only been reading books in the modern sense for a few hundred years, while the storytelling tradition is likely as old as humanity itself. Seen from this perspective, audiobooks are a connection to our collective past, when people made sense of the world through tales passed from ear to ear — a connection that seems especially stronger when listening to books, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (narrated by John Lee) that were themselves inspired by folktales and legends passed orally down the generations.

The literal authorial voice: Beyond plot and character, it is the “voice” of the author — witty or lyrical, charming or authoritative — that defines how much one has enjoyed a book. In the process of reading, one can almost hear the writer speaking into one’s ear — the most effective ones worm their way into your brain for years to come. Listening to audiobooks narrated by the writers themselves only enhances this experience. One of my best “reading” experiences this year was the audiobook for Jeannette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?, narrated by the author herself — her conversational tone, almost like she was recalling her life in a fireside chat, and Mancunian accent deepened not only the poignancy of this memoir, but also its warmth and humour.

Acting, but in a book: The best audiobooks, I found through several hits and misses, are not merely narrated — they’re performed. Polyphonic novels are especially well-served in this regard, as they involve several characters, each requiring a different accent, timbre and tone. Some, like The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, are brought to vivid life by a cast of performers. Others feature a bravura performance by a single narrator. Of these, I particularly enjoyed Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina as performed by actor Maggie Gyllenhaal. Her masterful grasp of the nuances of each character kept her narration from ever slipping into bizarreness or parody.

Immersive experience: The audiobook format has thrown up fascinating new ways to experience a book. Take, for example, the award-winning audiobook The Lost Sounds by wildlife recordist Chris Watson, artist Jackie Morris and writer Robert Macfarlane. Narrated by Macfarlane, the book is really a soundscape, featuring the sound of birds and animals, water flowing and waves crashing on a shore, taking the listener through a world of sighs, flaps, swishes and cries that get lost in the noise of daily living.

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Increasing your read count: Be honest — one of the many, many things you judge yourself for is not reading enough books. It happens, it’s understandable. But now that it’s been established that audiobooks are, in fact, “real” books, much like the printed ones, why not take advantage of the little gaps in your day — like when you’re commuting, doing your chores or waiting for someone — to listen to an audiobook and raise the height of your “read” pile. It will make you a little less prone to self-flagellation and — have I mentioned this already? — is a very, very enjoyable way to experience books.