The Benefits of Audiobooks

by Elisabeth Grass

All throughout 2022, I think I read a total of maybe twelve books—including those I needed to
read for school.

At the beginning of 2023, I decided I wanted to get back into reading. It was something I used to do all the time as a child, and I missed it. It didn’t matter how many movies or TV shows I
watched, or how much fanart I saw on Twitter or Instagram. There’s nothing quite like the
immersive experience of a good book, especially as a creative writer—reading creativity fuels
creativity, after all. So, I set my reading goal for the year to be 36 books. Three per month. That seemed manageable enough. I will admit, I was kind of expecting to be disappointed with myself—that I would start out reading books back to back, and then after a few weeks, fizzle out. The typical New Year’s resolution failure story. But flashing forward ten months later, I have finished 75 books.

That’s 208% of my original reading goal.

I’ve absorbed 75 wildly different stories over the course of the year, from romance to drama to mystery to thriller. I’ve fallen back into love with reading, and I’ve found a way to balance my crumbling attention span and impulse to multitask in everything I do through one simple solution: audiobooks.

There’s something about the idea of audiobooks that turns a lot of people off of them. Maybe it’s because there’s nothing tangible about them to hold onto, no satisfaction that comes with turning the page and, after a nice reading session, closing the book to take note of how far through you’ve gotten. And, sure. Fair enough. But for me, and for many others as well, it doesn’t matter how much you romanticize reading physical books; it takes so much motivation to actually go out of your way to pick one up and just read, sit still and quiet, when there are plenty of other entertaining things you could be doing. TV shows to binge, video games to play, albums to listen to, friends to hang out with—things most people just can’t do while reading. Audiobooks, however, can be accessed while cleaning, exercising, drawing, eating, crafting, walking to class, taking the subway, and doing plenty of other activities. They can immerse you into almost any narrative world in any location at any time, without you worrying about having to carry a book or forcing your eyes to read through purple prose. Or perhaps they can help you with just that; speaking from personal experience, having an audio aid to a physical copy of a book in your hands might help you better absorb, understand, and process what you’re reading, especially if it’s something you’ve been assigned rather than picked up for pleasure.

Listening to audiobooks also doesn’t mean you have to completely give up the act of reading physical books. If you’re like me and have fallen victim to a seemingly irreversible reading slump, audiobooks might be a good method to help you out and serve as a foundation for you to fall back on until you feel ready to go back to physical stories. Or perhaps not; maybe you’ll start listening to them and realize that you actually prefer audiobooks, and that’s okay too. Some people might be all for the idea of audiobooks, except for one setback: cost. What if you want to listen to a book you already own, but don’t want to buy an Audible subscription or give Amazon x amount of dollars for something you could technically just pick up and read? What if you want to experience a book but don’t want to pay money for something you probably won’t go back and listen to again? These are understandable concerns, but they can be easily remedied through your local public library.

The Boston Public Library, which is my go-to and is accessible to anyone who lives in Boston (including students from out of state who reside on campus for school), has an enormous collection of books in physical, digital, and audio formats. I’ve checked out almost every audiobook I’ve listened to through the BPL, which has not only saved me money, but also is an incredibly convenient experience. Simply sign up for a BPL card if you have not already, search up the story you hope to listen to, and voila. If the book has an official audio format, there’s a very good chance the BPL, or any public library that you might have access to, will have it. I’ve met some of my favorite book characters through audiobooks: Jude Duarte, Henry “Monty” Montague, Aziraphale, Crowley, and Addie LaRue, to name a few. In none of these cases did I feel less connected to the characters than I would have if I had decided to read about them via a physical book; in fact, I might argue that the audiobook narrators work incredibly hard to develop these characters through their voice, which only adds to the immersion.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide which narrative format is most suitable for you. But I hope I have opened your eyes to the many positive aspects of audiobooks if you were unaware of them beforehand, much like I was last year. Audiobooks are books, regardless of the fact that they are not made of paper and ink. You get a story all the same.