Listening to Books: Some Basics
I have mentioned before that I absolutely do consider oral storytelling to be a legitimate reading form, and include many audiobooks in my monthly and annual reading records, available on my Goodreads and Storygraph accounts, and on the the My Bookshelf 2026 pages. I think it is a real shame that some people are not able to include this form of reading as a valid book format, either for themselves or for their children, in their minds.
As children, memories of stories read to us in the evening by our parents, for many of us, comprise our earliest form of full-story reading, and as parents, we pass many stories, fiction and non-fiction, written and overheard, to our children in this form. It is a far more communal method of storytelling than the written word. Many early stories, or stories curated by peoples who had or have no written word, are were passed vocally. There are studies showing that as a society, gossip even plays a function in satisfying our communal needs. There has been a modern revival of oral storytelling, and as a university student in Sheffield in the early 2000s, I spent some time attending oral storytelling meets in the city centre pubs and clubs. Many student gatherings were purposefully arranged at these meets. I therefore believe it is an ancient, but very much at-risk, art form.
When I was first diagnosed and then later assessed as a disabled student, one of the first things you were given was Dragon software for your PC or laptop. This is audio software that essentially translates text (even PDFs) to audio (and sometimes even vice versa), which you then use disability-friendly headphones to listen to. The idea was that you even have letters sent digitally, and they were read allowed to you. It could be a slow and exhausting process. It was gradually overtaken by Read&Write, a disability software aimed primarily at dyslexia, which became an optional Chrome browser extension over time. While speech/text translation software was never truly great, Microsoft and Google eventually managed to streamline methods significantly, though not necessarily with a disabled clientele in mind. Microsoft focused on speech to text accuracy, while Google excelled in sheer free accessibility for all to these kinds of tools, via their embedding in platforms such as Google docs. The advantage here was that the tools were simplified; originally training documents and sessions were needed for all accessibility software. It simply was not intuitive in its original form.
Bluetooth improvements changed the landscape even more, making it possible to securely connect audio software such as specialist headphones, bone conduction audio, and hearing aids directly to some of these platforms, or directly to hardware. Microsoft OneNote is now embedded on smartphones, and takes very decent, if not excellent, notes on your phone as you speak. Depending on volume, it can also take notes from media.
The rise of audiobooks and podcasts produced the habit of listening to books on the daily commute, or at other quiet moments such as at the gym and while completing housework, and was probably a normalising factor for non-disabled people to absorb information through audio. More changes, faster, are often possible when there is a larger audience; especially when this is a paying audience, hence accelerating accessibility improvements. At the same time, it began to really come to light how many people were struggling with disability and inaccessibility; this discovery could only support improvement efforts in the name of disability access.
Over time, I began to struggle to read for long periods due to chronic hemiplegic migraines, eventually being told not to read the written word for more than 30 minutes at a time. Still studying, I became a huge supporter of an audio method of information absorption, particularly as a wealth of academic texts became available on audio platforms. At the time, Audible was easily the most accessible platform with (by far) the greatest selection of academic audiobooks, especially in emerging and cutting edge fields of study. The rise of huge online stores and options unfortunately and inadvertently led to the mass closure of independent and High Street options, and institutions such as libraries.
As an example of one of the amazing things that humanity is capable of, the international call amongst readers to support purchasing from independent retailers (whether physical or online), to fight against ridiculous pricing of academic books to students, and to borrow library audiobooks through platforms that are newly established and spreading, is right up there as a tiny revolution in the Western world, if not beyond. Ridiculously, the price of academic text and audio can affect what young people learn in schools and colleges; books must be affordable to make it into common use. This is not the fault of education establishments, which pour a significant proportion of budgets into learning resources, or authors, who need to make a living, but the pricing structure is broken, and should be improved.
While Audible still easily had the biggest book numbers on its platform, other audiobook suppliers became established, such as Libro and Bookbeat, and had other advantages. For example, Libro offers à la carte purchasing allowing you to buy a single audiobook at a time with no subscription and allows you to support the independent bookstore of your choice, while Bookbeat supports non-English book purchases. Independent eBook and audiobook purchase is further supported by applications such as Calibre and Libation, which act as storage library and conversion software for purchased books. This helps the purchaser play the audiobook on any media player, or convert the eBook into the correct format for any eReader, effectively recreating libraries into cross-platform options. They also guard against the loss of books when these, for example, move out of print and off your purchasing platform, which happens to a very small percentage of purchases.
Library lends are supported by Libby (by OverDrive) and BorrowBox here in the UK, and are considered very good where available, although coverage from your nearest library can be insufficient or even non-existent in some areas. It is also very difficult to work out which libraries near you are covered at all on BorrowBox. Coverage is certainly bound to improve with use though, and I see library lending options for audiobooks being shared regularly on online forums such as Reddit.
As my disability progressed, my hearing impairment became too advanced to manage at home, and I was prescribed rechargeable Bluetooth hearing aids. These can link them directly to many sound platforms, which helps me to control the clarity, input and pace of the audio I am directly hearing. Smart televisions can even be connected at need, although I find I still use the subtitles as a matter of course anyway. Contrary to popular belief, hearing aids do not fully recover hearing, they simply alleviate symptoms and make it easier to hear. Their most significant contribution to me has been the regained ability to listen to something and also hear the people around me. This can make listening to audiobooks much less isolating, as they play only for me in my hearing aids through my phone rather than my having to block all else out in order to hear.
If audio versions of books is something that you are considering, I hope this helps you towards a decision on this format. For myself, the form I read a book in depends on a number of factors. Whether it is part of a read or listened to series. If I like the narrator. What format is it available in - some are only available either as text or audio. And when will I be reading the book - mornings I prefer audio, so I can listen while completing other tasks. It can be worth briefly considering these factors when deciding on a book to try.
