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Recently in one of the podcasts I came across the phrase "Listening is the new reading". I can say from my book club experience that most of the participants prefer listening to books, and already in second place is reading in hard copy.
I didn't immediately embrace this format. I didn't like the mental distraction, skipping and having to listen again. It was mostly because of the monotonous voiceover. Then I realized I was just not listening correctly! Now I have 5 simple rules:
1. Listen to fiction. With a good voiceover, it's like a radio play. With nonfiction it is a bit more difficult, because there you still need to mark important thoughts and quotes, and in audio you need to interrupt for this, which is not very convenient.
2. The second point follows from this: before you buy an audiobook, listen to a few minutes of the trial version. You should like the voice and manner of the voice actor.
3. Increase the speed of listening. I'm so used to getting information quickly that at speed 1.0 I get distracted, fly away with my thoughts and get bored (to be honest, I even speed up interviews on Youtube). I usually listen to books at speed 1.5 at the beginning, and then, when I get used to the voice and get into the story, I increase it by 2. It's comfortable for me, I don't miss anything and I don't get distracted from listening. The length of each book is different: from 10 hours to 30. Accordingly, in accelerated mode you will listen faster.
4. Listening while doing housework or on a walk. Since I have a dog with whom I walk twice a day for an hour, I get to listen to quite a lot. I combine pleasant with useful (or useful with useful).
5. Listen in applications where audio and text are synchronized. I won't recommend anyone in particular, but the point is the same everywhere: you listen to a book, pause it - and in the printed digital version you automatically find yourself on the same piece of text. It's very convenient.
What are the benefits of audiobooks?
they definitely save time (listen in a car, on a walk and while doing the dishes)
no eye strain
If a person has ADHD or dyslexia – that is a solution to the problem.
audiobooks on good services are read by actors, professional speakers, sometimes even the authors themselves. The recordings resemble a real audio play.
Audiobooks I enjoyed:
"Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese
"Two Brothers" by Ben Elton.
"The Guest Book" by Sarah Blake.
"The Secret History" by Donna Tartt.
"Judas" by Amos Oz
"Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine" by Gail Honeyman.
"Stoner" by John Williams