The book you heard

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Strap: As lockdown made sure one doesn’t buy and exchange books, audio versions turned out to be a welcome choice

Roopinder Singh

All paper-book-in-hand purists found it quite challenging to get hold of new books during the lockdown. While there was always the option of borrowing from friends, something we’ve all traditionally done, what do you do when you are forbidden from stepping out of your home?

Many took refuge in the world of screens. They thus tried out e-books. However, a significant issue was that between smartphones, Kindles, iPads and television sets, there was too much of time being spent in front of various screens — no wonder eyes became watery, and headaches started. Thus, began the search for other options.

What if you could use your ears instead of your eyes? Talking books or audiobooks have a history that dates to the 1930s. For a long while, they were teaching aids, especially for blind and dyslexic students. Renderings of poetry and plays became popular later. Indeed, the Living Shakespeare series of long-playing records (LPs) with Richard Burton’s baritone indelibly and mellifluously etched the words of the Bard in the young minds of Senior Cambridge students like us. Many knew major parts ofHenry V by heart!

It was in the 1980s that the medium expanded. The convenient cassette tapes and interest in business, self-help books, as also medium format books, fuelled the demand and many publishing houses started producing such books.

Recently, with digital devices allowing for seamless downloading, audiobooks have shown a remarkable resurgence. Audio performer professionals have a good voice and diction, and the books are contemporary. You listen to these books while attending to various other chores, driving or exercising, etc., thus utilising your hands-free ability to its full extent.

While I have dallied with this medium for a while, it was during the lockdown that I was able to explore the audiobooks repertoire. Kindle had got difficult to read because of screen fatigue, and now the alternative, to hear books that I wanted to read, became much more attractive.

Becoming, Michael Obama’s inspirational biography, topped the chart of the Audible list that came up after I signed for the app, but I had already read and reviewed the book. Still, I downloaded sample audio and was impressed by how much more one got with the author reading it. She has a great voice and delivery, and the content is worth revisiting.

Listening to various books, I wondered why Shashi Tharoor allowed someone else to narrateAn Era of Darkness. The heft of William Dalrymple’sThe Anarchy became more manageable, however, the mispronunciations of Indian names and places by the narrator were irksome and one wondered, once again, why the author, whose is a great performer, was not the narrator.

On the other hand, Bill Bryson’sA Short History of Almost Everything is delightfully narrated and Yuval Noah Hari’s books are adequately done. Lest it seems that only serious stuff was sought out, a David Baldacci, which featured two narrators for male and female roles, was engaging enough.

Can audiobooks find the same resonance among the readers as traditional books? The jury is still out on this. Indeed, the mind does wander as one listens to a book, and unlike reading a text, there is no visual clue to help you navigate your way back from the detour that your mind takes.

The ease with which the mind absorbs the spoken word, the nuances that are added through the performance, the way things are pronounced, the cadence and the diction that comes with an audiobook, all make for a far richer experience.

There is some evidence that audiobooks are not retained as much as the written word is. Indeed there are studies that show that when reading a text, the reader often goes back and forth on the text subconsciously, and enforces what one reads, whereas when one is hearing, it becomes more of a linear experience with little possibility of going back and forth.

But then, we are not always reading everything like a textbook, like something that needs to be memorised. When you are reading for pleasure, you just want to go with the flow or where the words take you — into a world that you build up in your mind and for that experience, the audiobooks provide with more tools than just text can.

Indian publishers have been quick to put content on audiobooks, although some find the cost of production daunting. However, there is now a respectable list of authors and their works to be found.

Thousands of audiobooks are available for free downloads from various online resources. Of course, there are also paid services, including those of multiple publishers. It is a world that opens a new dimension for the bibliophile, and even the traditional paper-book-in-hand purists can be allured away, even if for a little while.

BOX: Find them here

Audible

The Amazon service with a subscription model. Lot to offer, at a cost.

LibriVox

Free classics, basically public domain audiobooks read by volunteers.

iTunes & Google Play

A la carte offerings for Apple and Android users, respectively.