If you think I am going to confess my love of audiobooks right here on your screen, you're wrong. That would be too easy. What is more interesting to me--and likely to you--is why audiobooks are rapidly increasing in popularity. What is it about the experience of listening to someone's voice in your ear that has made it so compelling? Long day. Bad day. Sick day. Happy day. Annoying workout. Horrifying commute. I think the only thing as soothing is my dog, who also seems to enjoy them. More importantly, you'll like them. Here's why:
1. Commute time is up. The average commuter 9 full days each year commuting, according to a Washington Post article. For plane, train and bus travelers, books are space-hoggers. You've likely packed some sort of bag lately, so you've done the laptop vs. tablet vs. hardcover book math. All your shiny toys won't fit in there. Enter audiobooks. It's the only way to keep your sanity and your carry-on at a tote-able size.
2. Speaking of space, the need for head space has probably launched many an audiobook series binge. Even Spotify can't soothe the brutal effects of a crappy day at work like listening to a story. Finally, someone talking to you not AT you. It's a wonderful thing.
3. Our collective state of mind is also a factor. I think there's a combined need for escape and for community that has led us to audiobooks. Social media no doubt causes some seriously disordered thinking--we inflate what others are doing and research shows, in the process, deflate our own sense of self-worth. That time we spend plugged into fiction, mystery, memoir or romance? It's time we commune with someone else's story and we feel less alone.
4. It's spoken word 'porn' for women. Some of you will get your knickers in a twist over that last sentence. I'm sorry about that. But the fact is we don't always want people to know what we're listening to. Audiobooks are a secret pleasure, and I use those words for a reason--not guiltily or madly or in some deeply creepy way. Let me also clarify that by saying 'porn' I don't mean people 'going at it' in your ear. I mean that most women I know would choose listening to Amy Schumer describe her nether regions in The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo than go-budlless through Grand Central to a chorus of dinner orders: ''No. I said Three. Large. Pizzas. One with Very, Very Very Little Cheese. And yes, I'll pick it up."
5. Audiobooks are family and student friendly. For some intellectuals, audiobook listening seems like a 'step back'. It's not. Research shows that listening to books helps kids with learning disorders to learn. You'd probably agree that whether you have a toddler or a teen and you live in the suburbs, car time has become the new prime time. Finding the right book to listen to can make a squealing toddler forget her car seat is too tight and her purple pants are in the wash. It also does wonders for melting the protective 'snark' coating of a grunting teenager.
Full disclosure: I fell in love with audiobooks because of work, not because of my screenagers or my lackluster packing skills, although I do suffer from both issues. They weren't easy to love at first. There's the first watched-read-started everything in my Netflix queue kind of feeling, for starters. I couldn't seem to choose one. The number of audiobooks on the market is mind blowing. AudioFile Magazine boasts 40,000 reviews on their site and this month named 126 books to their 2016 Best Audiobooks List. Discovery of the 'just right book' was making me nuts--and the list of lists this time of year can be as much as blessing as curse. I like the Audiobooks list because in exchange for your email, you get sound clips and and exclusive narrator videos.
The audiobook business is undergoing one of many growth spurts--huge leaps in fact since the days of Books on Tape. The sound quality and the talent of so many great narrators and producers has brought great interest in audiobooks. Discovering a talented narrator was like getting an instant style update--just the fix I needed to make my choice. I went completely unconventional. I wanted to experience what my brain on sci-fi. So I chose The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin, which is read by narrator Scott Brick. I am far from a sci-fi fan. While I can suspend disbelief in the movies, I could never seem to start that engine via the printed page. But when I started listening I realized I had found an unbelievable gift: the narrator. Because I was so insistent that people need to experience this stuff to really 'get it', here's Audiofile's exclusive YouTube video of narrator Scott Brick talking about The City of Mirrors and Justin Cronin's trilogy.
I'm not feeling badly about the leaning tower of books in my bedroom, though. I'm still all for turning pages. But honestly, when I travel this holiday, why should the woman in seat 4E gabbing with the man in 6E about her luggage be the soundtrack to my winter? And when I settle into my couch, pick up book and snuggle into my new mermaid tail blanket my son has promised to get me as a gift, why should the drone of snow blowers stop me from enjoying a great book ? I've got headphones and five great reasons to start listening more. Plus, going dead-tree-book free, I have my hands to hold my hot chocolate--or my grumpy dog.