Sunday 18 October 2009

Books and Audiobooks

As I checked the postings I had been doing I glanced at the slideshow scrolling at the bottom of my page which shows the books that I have enjoyed reading and it got me wondering about audiobooks.

Now a friend of mine swears by audiobooks and likes the idea of downloading an audiobook onto her ipod and taking that on holiday with her as it saves having to carry heavy books with her. I can see the reasoning behind it.

But for me there is nothing quite like a book. I love them, have always loved them and if I had the space then I'd love my own little library! I hate it when, because of a shortage of space, you have to get rid of books.

I guess it's a tactile thing. You can touch a book, you can look at the picture on the cover and you can lose yourself within your own mind as you read the book. Your own imagination creates the images of what the author is writing and to me it is better than watching a film. Likewise within the storyline you create in your own mind the sound of the voices of the people you are reading about. If you listen to an audiobook then you only hear the voice of the person reading it.

Plus I just like to see them sitting on a bookshelf - ready to dip into whenever you wish.

I don't get so much time to read nowadays and also my eyesight is not as good as it used to be but, for me, a real physical book wins hands down to a digital download that you can only listen too but not see...

1 comment:

Bigastroandbeyond said...

You are right. Many of my friends share your love of books.

When we moved to Spain we had to get rid of a lot of our books. Many were passed on to friends which left us with an assortment that I had to take to the tip.

Just as I started putting them into the skip, a man pulled up and rescued the lot without even considering the titles.

That made me feel an awful lot better.