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I'm startled by the people quoted in the article who actually changed their behavior because others scorned their choice for reasons these gate-keepers were never asked to articulate. As a (sometimes too) fast reader, I find that I retain more details if I listen to a book, since that's a word by word experience. I don't always listen to books that I'm going to teach (I'm an English professor), but only because I expect I'll need those page numbers and because I'm not sure I would get on the Nordic Track if I wasn't listening for fun rather than profit.

I'm a female reader, and I have no desire to be in a book club, for a lot of reasons. My reading is eclectic and solitary, and when I want to find out what others think about a book, I look for reviews after I've read it. Even online discussions tend to be very superficial, although on ChildLit they get more intensive -- but I'm rarely reading what"s current! You don't find too many folks at once discussing Melvin Burgess's "Lady: My Life as a Bitch or Jamie O'neill's "At Swim, Two Boys," a number of years after they came out! Let alone William Dean Howells, one of my pleasures!
On the subject, though, of audiobooks -- to me, while I love to read for myself, I also love listening to books well read, especially on long trips, and I think the experience of listening to a book is every bit as "valid" or worthwhile as reading silently. Listening requires sustained attention to plot and character development and can even enhance one's appreciation of the language. (Certainly, people need to be able to read and to read critically, but that's the business of schooling, not of book groups. ) That's my rant. Thank you, Roger, for your always-worth-reading blog.

I listened to POSSESSION (by A.S. Byatt) over the course of a series of cross-country drives, and then, I bought and devoured the printed book.

Then I listened to the entire audio version again over the following month.

The two types of experience were quite different but mutually reinforcing. (The MOVIE however was terribly disappointing)

There is an interesting article in Booklist Online by Mary Burkey, Sounds Good to Me: Listening to Audiobooks with a Critical Ear.

The woman aghast at a librarian who listened to a book will probably be disturbed to learn:

"Booklist recently recognized the audiobook format by sponsoring the American Library Association’s Odyssey Award for Audiobook Excellence. The award committee, comprising ALSC and YALSA members, is in the process of evaluating titles and will announce the first Odyssey Award winner at the 2008 Midwinter Meeting." (Burkey, M., Booklist)

I'm generally not into audiobooks, but I loved listening to the full-cast recording of His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. That said, I don't begrudge anyone else listening to them, and think that yeah, it "counts" that they read the books if they listened to them. Would they be able to write literary essays based on audiobooks alone? Probably not, but I suspect that's not the point anyway.

I wish I had found access to audiobooks when I was a child going on long car trips with my family. I would get queasy if I read in the car, and so I would impatiently wait for the next rest stop so I could take out my book for 10 minutes.

Funny--I can only listen to books I have already read. It's not that I think listening is inferior to reading or anything like that; I simply zone out or even fall asleep when I listen to reading.

Having admitted that, I love to listen once I know the story. Currently I am listening to the newest Joey Pigza (read by the author) and am loving it. I think I have listened to Me Talk Pretty One Day three or four times and it never gets old. Oh, and I love The Trolls on audio.


Audio books, usually repeat performances of The Trumpet of the Swan and Charlotte's Web, Shiloh, and other books that Everyone in the Car liked, were the theme sounds of our yearly trips from Nashville to New England every summer.

I agree with "jane" in that I don't care to join a book club either. My reading, too, is eclectic and solitary, and I also have found book reviews great for getting other points of view. Book clubs, however, seem (at least, in my experiences) to have been formed by certain readers in order to champion their particular points of view at the expense of being open to what other members might have to say. It's too bad, because we could learn a lot from one another if we would be as willing to listen as we are to talk!

I think the only book I attempted to listen to on tape was "Cosette," the horrible unauthorized sequel to Hugo's "Les Miserables."

My utter shame at having associated my library record with that monstrosity has kept me silent on the issue until now. Thank you, Roger.

The Jane Austen Book Club is a novel length description of the kaffeeklatsch nature of a book club. Ironically, the audio version is not to be borne. Go to audible.com and listen to the Jane sample -- aakk! However, likening audiobooks to Cliff Notes is a bit High Church for my taste -- seems the fussbudgets in the NYT article favor form over substance. --m

Listening to stories came before reading!


Furthermore, there was a time when printed books were scorned, as opposed to hand writtens ones. Imagine being hassled in your book club back in the day because your book came from a press vs from a scriptorium.

anon4

I actually was the co-founder of a book club a couple of decades ago. For the first few years, it didn't matter what we read, the discussion always ended up being about religion and sex.

Things went downhill from there. Yes, after a brief and superficial discussion of the book at hand (which some people never finished reading--listening to an entire audio book would have been far preferable to that), the discussion almost always turned to what was going on in the members' lives--mainly their kids. And it would go on for another hour to an hour and a half.

The group met at a library and was open to the public. Needless to say, new people (especially men) rarely came to more than one meeting.

I quit about nine years ago. I've been part of far more interesting discussion groups on-line.

Book clubs! BORING! Because yuu can only listen and talk and eat. Now, at quilt guild meetings, we get to listen, talk, eat, and sew and be goofy any time we want to in the meeting...and likely, we discuss books just about as much as anyone does in a book club....yes, yes, yes, the President has to "yell" at us from outer space now and again approve something...or other...just makes it more fun.

Audio or print--what's the difference? It's the same exact words. And you still use your imagination to create the pictures. If someone NEVER read a book and only listened to audiobooks, I might worry they were missing out, but as far as any one particular book, who cares? Those book club people sound like the worst kind of snobs--the kind who are snobby over absolutely nothing.

I suspect that people who speak out against audio books might find reading a bit of a challenge. For them reading an entire book is an Accomplishment, and so listening to one is cheating (as it would be if a third grader did the required reading that way). To people who read books all the time, this makes no sense at all, because listening and reading take the same amount of effort.
Of course, the single best way to make reading easy is to READ, so maybe in a few years these naysayers too will be doing half their reading on tape during the commute.

That's brilliant, Sara! I think you nailed it. For me, actually, listening is a little harder.

Oops. I mean SaraH. Sorry.

The Merrimack Valley Library Consortium in MA has what they call book club kits. When I worked at a library in the consortium I created one for Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. They're great for both patrons and libraries - I loved them!

We have a Book Group collection that is a similar concept, just executed differently. It is a collection of books requested by the various book groups around town and we buy multiple copies of the book (anywhere from 5 to 10, depending on the size of the group requesting).

Each book group in town is kept in an Excel file and they can fill out a form alerting our Readers Services Librarian of their upcoming books and we buy copies to fill that need as best we can.

What is really cool about the book group collection is that anyone can browse it and it is one of our most popular collections. It is a great place to find a good read and to see what everyone else in town is reading.

We do this at the Cherry Hill Public Library and the response has been amazing! We call it “Book Clubs to Go” and we currently have a total of 17 titles (or bags) in circulation. Each bag includes 10-12 books and a brief biography of the author with a list of discussion questions.

In a few months we are going to launch “Junior Book Clubs to Go” which will be bag with books geared toward grades 4-8.