Good Morning John,
I love audio books.
Like I love them a LOT.
And not in that like, “Oh, well I don’t
have that much time to read anymore, and so
I mostly just listen to audiobooks because that's
better than not reading at all" kind of way.
No, I love them on their own
as a medium. I find them wonderful!
I love book book reading as well! I love cascading
into this story, into this physical object
that has all these marks on a page
that turn into this story in my mind.
There's nothing in the world like that.
But there's also nothing in the world
like being told a story.
That’s the oldest thing there is.
That and like maybe music.
I think it's like what made us humans.
And maybe like music and stories
at the same time?
Is every song a story?
Think about it and get back to me.
There’s been a fair amount of talk about whether
listening to an audiobook counts as reading,
or if it's like "cheating."
These conversations to me seem to be based
in two different things.
One, like scientifically, psychologically
is it the same?
No! Like subjectively I can say
that it's not the same.
A narrator of an audiobook makes a bunch of decisions
for me before the information gets to my brain.
I might be making some of those decisions
differently, so I think the story
is in some ways slightly different
when it's being read to me.
And it seems like retention is measurably better
on average when read rather than when being read to.
But that's on average, and it's actually
different from person to person.
This to me doesn't seem like a judgment
of better or worse. It seems like
it's marginally different. Like not tremendously!
But somewhat different.
The second place that this conversation
comes from, though, is I think
from people who have a lot of pride
in their identity as a reader
or as a reader of a lot of books.
Some people love reading lots of books,
and they see that as part of what makes them
valuable and exceptional.
And I think those people are kind of just saying like,
"Part of why I'm proud of myself
is that I read a lot of books.
And the fact that like somebody got through
a lot of books in audio form
isn’t the same
as the thing that I’m proud of."
A lot of people push back against this as
like exclusionary, but like...
All forms of exceptionality are exclusionary.
We have a really hard time as humans
figuring out why we matter.
And there are much worse ways to find pride
than, like, the length of your book list.
But I’m never going to be one of those people
who reads a lot of books in a year.
I am very mildly dyslexic.
According to this staples.com reading test,
I read slower than the average eighth grader.
But that doesn’t mean that I don’t love reading.
I totally do.
And it doesn't mean that audiobooks
are a replacement for books for me.
I like audiobooks as a way
to enjoy a story.
To me, media is about like
enjoying being a human.
And loving having a good story
told to me by a good storyteller is
probably something that I have in common
with every single one of my human ancestors.
And that's... pretty cool.
And it's part of why I pushed pretty hard for our new year
of Life’s Library to have an audiobook option.
So now you can be a part of this community of readers
all consuming the same stuff and connecting about it.
And when you sign up, you can choose the audio
version with digital perks or with physical perks.
And every time we start a new book,
you’ll get a code emailed to you.
You click on that code, and into your libro.fm account
will arrive the new book.
I'm curating a month of this year's Life Library.
I chose a book that I have read
both in book form and audio form.
So I know it's good both ways.
We decided to do this with Libro.fm
because they are just great!
You don’t have to be a paying member of Libro.fm
to get your book, but you can be!
And if you are, you get to choose which bookstore
you would like to order your audiobooks from
so you can support bookstores in your community.
And of course, just like with regular books,
you get to keep your audiobook
even if you cancel your Life’s Library subscription.
So join Life’s Library! There's a link in the
description, or you can just click right there.
I had to put a video here because
YouTube doesn't let us link to anything
unless we also link to a video.
I don't know why!
I find it annoying.
John I’ll see you on Tuesday.
