Do you move your ears when you read?

No, of course you don't. But what I'm getting at, albeit circuitously, is that I always thought of reading as an activity one performs with one's eyes. I've since learned that doesn't have to be the case. Plenty of us get as much or more pleasure out of a book by reading it with our ears.

I, alas, am not geared that way. I absorb verbal information far more effectively through my eyes than my ears. When I try to listen to an audiobook, my attention flags and my mind wanders. If I'm driving, it's a distraction. If I'm safe at home, it's a nuisance.

And yet I'm a huge fan of audiobooks as a medium. I know people who never found reading enjoyable until they discovered audio; it opened the entire world of fiction to them. And I know others, lifelong readers, who've found that listening to the narration of a fine vocal artist adds a whole new dimension to a novel.

So I'm all for it. I want my books to be read. I don't care if they reach you through your eyes or your ears or the soles of your feet. If they're a source of pleasure for you, I'm delighted.

Over the years I've narrated a number of my own books. I welcomed the opportunity, and enjoyed the work, but much of it was back in the bad old days of abridged audio. That's what my publishers—Penguin, Harper Audio—wanted to publish. I always felt abridgements were an abomination, and there came a time when I insisted on a clause in my book contracts enjoining the publisher from bringing out or licensing an abridgement.

It hasn't taken long, I'm happy to say, for unabridged audiobooks to become the industry's standard. A remarkable number of my books have been given voice by some of the most accomplished narrators in the game, and three of the medium's leading audio publishers—Recorded Books, AudioGo, and Dreamscape—have kept things moving. If you want to own a physical copy of an audiobook, in cassette or CD form, you can check the publishers' websites, where audiobook rental is often an alternative to outright purchase.

Increasingly, however, the audiobook market seems to be moving to downloads; rather than pay for a physical book, you can simply download an MP3 file for play on the device of your choice. Audible is the leader in this area, and the links that follow are all to the Audible website, where all of the following titles are presently available. They have various special promotions, including this one, which gives you a free audiobook and a free trial membership.

Here are the Audible links. The 10-book Bernie Rhodenbarr series is complete, but you'll notice several gaps in the Matthew Scudder saga, and both Keller and Chip Harrison are missing a book each. Tell you what—if you make it all the way to the end of the list, I'll tell you the story about the recording session that soured me on abridged audio forever.

(Oh, sure, you could scroll down and skip the list and go straight to the Extremely Amusing Anecdote. But when you look in the mirror, is that the kind of person you want looking back at you? The kind that would skip the list? No, I didn't think so...)

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