Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…
• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!
As book bloggers, we overanalyze a lot of things compared to the non-book-blogger or the non-reader. We think long and hard about what books to read, what books to buy, and how to judge them fairly. We debate about bookmarks vs dog-earing pages and the benefits of the kindle – from on vacation to in a proposed “bookless library”. We discuss prolifically bookish news, from J.K. Rowling’s unexpected new book to the kindle price-setting scandal. Lately, my topic to over-think has been my choice of audiobooks…
As you can probably tell from the fact that this is my third post (!) on audiobooks, I really am over-thinking this a bit. However, as a reader and a book blogger, it’s very important to me that I not miss out on the full experience I get reading a book because I decided to listen to it instead. What has me thinking this time is the feeling that I just have less to say about books I’ve listened to. I generally end up with a few notes on the narration and a few things I particularly enjoyed or disliked about the book. Part of this is actually a self-fulfilling prophecy because I’ve been avoiding listening to anything really new for fear I won’t get the full experience. Listening to books that are just like all the other books in a series is bound to lead to bland reviews! But I’m worried that I also notice writing and plot quality less when I’m listening to an audiobook. I’m also quite sure I take poorer notes (ie none until I’m done driving!).
Do those of you who listen to audiobooks feel as though you can analyze them as deeply as you do a book you read? Do you have a strategy for taking notes while things are still fresh?
Doing Dewey 
I don’t listen to audiobooks, so can’t quite help. I can definitely understand your issue though. I do feel sometimes that when I read reviews for audiobooks the focus is often on narrator, and not the other basic elements of a story that most reviews cover. So it does seem to change how one does their review. I’m curious to see what others have to say about it!
It’s true and that’s exactly what I want to avoid doing! I think it’s important to comment on the narrator, but I want to make sure I can talk about plot, writing style, and character development too 🙂
What you can’t do when listening to books is go back and reread a phrase or paragraph that strikes you. Which is a pity, I think.
I agree completely. I’ll rewind if I miss something, but I prefer not to and am unlikely to go back just to savor a sentence the way I might when reading.
I must confess I never listened to any audiobook yet – here in Portugal, where I live, audiobooks are almost unknown.
Here’s my Musing if you’d like to check it out.
Interesting! I always love learning more about other countries and I hadn’t thought much about how access to audiobooks or cultural preferences about them might influence peoples reading habits 🙂
I can’t listen to audiobooks at all. I’ve tried and I find I can’t focus on the story.
Sonia Lal
That’s too bad! I love them for the drive into work. They just make it go so much faster 🙂
I’ve got a one-touch voice recorder in the car that I use to quickly note those things I really want to remember. It seems to do the trick well enough for me, but you’re right to point out that it’s incredibly difficult to go back and savour a section or even pull a quote. Considering how much they improve the quality of my commute, though, I’m willing to make that sacrifice… 🙂
Now that’s using technology! I think if I at least made sure to take notes whenever I got out of the car, I might be able to make better critiques, but I would love to have a setup like yours 🙂
I don’t listen to audiobooks because I can get pretty easily distracted, same goes for graphic novels and comics .. I don’t read them because the pictures can be distracting. I like reading the good ol’ books which only has words 🙂 my mm is up: http://wp.me/p3v5T1-9k
I can definitely understand that! I’m not big on comics either, but I’ve found that I only need to rewind audiobooks occasionally most days and if I’m zoning out a lot, I’ll just come back to it later 🙂
I tend not to listen to audio books that often, mainly as I find it hard to concentrate on that. Reading is one of the few things I do that can hold my attention for a long period of time. However, I think the only thing you miss by hearing rather than reading is probably grammar and punctuation rather than anything significant about the story.
With good narrators who inject emotion into their voice, I feel like the punctuation comes through well, but it can definitely be a problem with some narrators. I like to listen to them when I’m driving and there’s nothing else I could be doing anyway 🙂
I still can’t seem to even get into audio books. Maybe some day, but right now, they don’t seem to work for me!
I hadn’t even tried them until I started having a long drive to work. Now I couldn’t live without them!
To date, I have listened to and reviewed one audio book. That one only came about as a review request. After I finished the review, I received an offer to review others but to date I haven’t followed up on the request. It took me double the amount of time to listen than if I had just read it.
One unexpected positive from the whole experience though is I found it easier to take notes while listening to audio than while reading print. Here’s a post I wrote about my experience: http://allisonsbookbag.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/the-pros-and-cons-of-audio-books/
Audiobooks do take a long time to get through! That’s the main reason I never tried them before I had a long commute. Sadly, the fact that I’m driving makes it impossible to take notes while listening, but I can see that it might be easier if you were just sitting somewhere while you listened. Thanks for the interesting perspective!
I mainly listen to audiobooks when I’m running or driving, which means I can’t write anything down or mark a section in any way. I’m also aware that I’m not always concentrating 100%, so I do miss parts of the story. I’ve never done an audiobook review before and I’ve been thinking about how to review the one I’m listening to now. I almost wish I had a copy of the book so I could flip through it real quick and go back over certain sections.
I think not being able to take notes is one of the things that’s making it so hard for me to be happy with the listening experience. I like your idea of having a physical copy to go through later; I think that could help a lot! I’m also trying to take notes right after I get out of the car and I think that helps too.
I don’t take notes while reading a physical book, so it’s never been an issue for me with audiobooks – which I love. There have been audiobooks where I loved the narrator, but hated the book; loved the book, but hated the narration; books where I felt listening to the audiobooks was better than reading the physical copy; or where I felt it would have been better if I had read it … etc. My point is that – it’s not worth overthinking it. If it’s not your thing, then it’s not – but the audiobook reviews I’ve seen have been just as thorough as reviews of print books.
I’m glad to hear it! Hopefully that means I can get to where I’m as happy with my audiobook reviews as I am with my reviews of physical books. I actually do think I’m getting better with practice and taking notes as soon as I get out of the car, so I’m optimistic that it will work out well 🙂