Let’s Talk Bookish | Audio-books

Good morning and welcome to another Let’s Talk Bookish post! Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, created and hosted by me, where we discuss chosen topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts.

Today’s topic is: Audio-books: Reading or Not? (Aria @ Book Nook Bits)

Many thanks to Aria for suggesting this topic! Audio-books and whether they count as reading has been a huge debate through-out the reader community for a long time, and I’m curious to see what everyone thinks about this one.

In a word: yes. Audio-books do count as reading.

Now for the long version.

When I say reading, I don’t mean the actual physical act of using your eyes to read a book. I mean the general way that you absorb/understand the information from the book, be it in audio-format, an e-book, braille, etc.

Obviously, in it’s literal definition, audio-books don’t count as reading, because you are listening to the words, rather than reading them with your eyes.

But that doesn’t make audio-books any less of a way to read and enjoy a book.

For many people, that’s the only way for them to even read a book.

Just because the way you get the information is different, doesn’t mean it’s not reading or that it’s less than it. If someone was blind, or had poor eyesight, and audio-books were the only way for them to read a book, would you tell them that they aren’t a reader? That, by listening to audio-books, they aren’t really reading?

It all really depends on how you view the word “read”. I think of it to mean any way to understand, or know what the words are saying. Of course it also has a literal definition, of using your eyes to read the words, but I think it’s used a lot more figuratively to mean any way of, well, reading the words. There’s really no other word to use.

This Week’s Participants:

Ashlee @ Books Are 42 | Jane @ Blogger Books | Dani @ Literary Lion | Aria @ Book Nook Bits | Evelyn @ Evelyn Reads

This post was rather short, but there isn’t much for me to say. I think that listening to audio-books counts as reading, just as much as reading a physical book does. What do you think? Do you listen to audio-books? Is listening to audio-books the same as reading a physical one? Chat with me in the comments below!