Audiobooks are a Sensory and Sentimental Experience
My newest book, "My Dearest Miss Fairfax," has just been released this week as an audiobook. My wonderful vocal talent, Stevie Zimmerman, was a guest on a JASNA Zoom meeting, and I instantly loved her voice, and was thrilled to be able to engage her talents.
When you are the author and have to "proof-listen" to your book multiple times, you would think that the process would get old. But it doesn't, and it has nothing to do with vanity.
Well, maybe a little vanity. There were a couple of times I actually did say, "Wow, I wrote that?"
When you read a book, there is a pleasure in cuddling up on the couch with a cup of tea, under a good reading lamp, feeling the paper in your hands as you turn the pages, while your eyes take in each word and your mind leaves your body for foreign places and times.
When you listen to a book, it's like being a child again. There is a warm pleasure in being read to. On road trips, my husband and I would take turns driving and reading out loud. It wasn't just a way to make the hours pass by pleasantly. It was also quality time together. The driver received the gift of being read to.
Many people listen to audiobooks while driving or working, but it's also a pleasure to be able to close your eyes and just listen. It's that childhood thing again. You don't even need the lights on. You are in a dark, warm, safe place where you are completely immersed in the speaker's voice while the story takes you to bright, cold, dangerous places.
The downside of an audiobook instead of someone next to you, reading, is that it's a lot harder to stop at any point in the narrative to talk about it. Ask questions. Discuss the beauty of a well-written phrase. Speculate about what might happen next with another person who might have an opinion on the topic. You aren't SHARING the story. You are the recipient.
Which can be enough.
When you are the author and have to "proof-listen" to your book multiple times, you would think that the process would get old. But it doesn't, and it has nothing to do with vanity.
Well, maybe a little vanity. There were a couple of times I actually did say, "Wow, I wrote that?"
When you read a book, there is a pleasure in cuddling up on the couch with a cup of tea, under a good reading lamp, feeling the paper in your hands as you turn the pages, while your eyes take in each word and your mind leaves your body for foreign places and times.
When you listen to a book, it's like being a child again. There is a warm pleasure in being read to. On road trips, my husband and I would take turns driving and reading out loud. It wasn't just a way to make the hours pass by pleasantly. It was also quality time together. The driver received the gift of being read to.
Many people listen to audiobooks while driving or working, but it's also a pleasure to be able to close your eyes and just listen. It's that childhood thing again. You don't even need the lights on. You are in a dark, warm, safe place where you are completely immersed in the speaker's voice while the story takes you to bright, cold, dangerous places.
The downside of an audiobook instead of someone next to you, reading, is that it's a lot harder to stop at any point in the narrative to talk about it. Ask questions. Discuss the beauty of a well-written phrase. Speculate about what might happen next with another person who might have an opinion on the topic. You aren't SHARING the story. You are the recipient.
Which can be enough.
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