How do you read?

There have been some interesting articles and stats recently about the increased popularity of audiobooks as a medium to read. I have certainly noticed a lot of usage of the downloadable audiobooks through our free Libby and Borrowbox apps recently. It probably coincides with the current trend to multitask – so encouraging listening to an audiobook whilst walking, exercising, doing housework or driving etc.
 
A lot of us seem to have moved from listening to the radio or to music, to tuning into podcasts as well as audiobooks and I, for one, have found listening to be quite a different experience to reading a physical book. It suits me to listen when I am travelling, or driving on my own but I still like to listen to music if I have company -in a way it seems more inclusive to allow for a certain amount of conversation as well. I know that some families use audiobooks in the car to keep their children entertained while on long journeys  - maybe the children will change the cry of ‘are we there yet?’ to asking to travel further to hear the end of the story!
 
Podcasts can be entertaining and informative and tend to be much shorter than an audiobook – our own Bookcited! Podcast has been such fun to record giving us the opportunity to chat to authors and others informally about their own books as well as others too. I hope you have had a chance to listen to some of the episodes by now and been inspired to read some of the titles discussed – if not, just search for Bookcited! wherever you get your podcasts – or click here to listen to Bookcited!: A Libraries NI podcast for all things library | Libraries NI

Pete, Conor and I tend to listen to audiobooks as well as reading both ebooks and physical books – there are definitely some books which are better in alternative formats. For example, I recently switched from listening to a novel in translation to the physical book as I found the foreign names hard to distinguish through audio. Words on the printed page made more sense to me and I was able to finish the story that way.  But everyone is different and at the end of the day it is up to the individual how to read – the important thing is that they are reading!

Audiobooks I have enjoyed recently include :

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn on Libby

My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes (read by the author herself) on Borrowbox

Identity Unknown by Patricia Cornwell  (the most recent Kay Scarpetta story) on BorrowBox

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