Story Listening

The beauty of listening to tales

by

Carolyn Givens

I don’t remember when I first read the Narnia books. Same with the Little House on the Prairie books. Or Anne of Green Gables. I was steeped in these stories from infancy. With sisters nine and five years older than me, the family-favorite books (which category Narnia, Anne, and Little House fell into) were read to me multiple times before I picked them up myself.

Not one of those stories I listened to takes up less space in my memory than stories I read first with my eyes. They are equally as vital to the story-forming of my life as the books I picked up in physical print form once I could read.

From time to time in bookish groups I follow, the conversation about whether audiobooks count as “real” reading raises its head. In fact, I just started typing, “do audi” and Google auto-filled the question immediately: “do audiobooks count as reading.”

I suppose I can understand where the question is coming from. For many people raised in the American educational system, putting our eyes on pages was a primary form of learning. But for the vast majority of human history, stories were not read but heard. Most ancient cultures had rich oral storytelling traditions, and those traditions continued into more modern eras. Even a few generations ago, it was far more common for a family to gather around the fire for spoken stories (or gather around the radio to listen to stories) than for the individual members to sit and read alone.

I grew up with a mom who loved to read aloud to us and who did so well. In college, we would beg my friend Ben to read The Lord of the Rings aloud to us on sunny afternoons out in the woods because he did all the voices. Road trips of my youth were preceded by visits to the library and the checking out of big plastic boxes of first cassettes and later CDs of my favorite novels. The evolution of the audiobook with digital audio files is an absolute joy to me—I get to hear some of the best voices in the world read stories to me with no more than a tap on my phone.

Last year, I realized that I had transitioned the bulk of my car audio time to podcasts over books, and while I still love taking in information through podcast interviews and discussions, I missed long-form storytelling. I made a deliberate choice to reintroduce audiobooks into my diet and now I go back and forth between the formats. I’ve listened to three books in the past two weeks—I had a road trip—and I’m working my way through another right now.

Am I “really reading”? There are books that I read over and over growing up that, when I listened to the audio, held new surprises for me—lines and phrases that I’d missed in my teenage speeding through the pages. Each person’s mind works differently, of course, but for me, I actually read more quickly than audio plays and, therefore, have an opportunity to pay better attention when I am listening.

You can go ahead and Google all the scientific research about the value of audiobook listening (I’m pleased to say that the Google AI overlords agree with me that audiobooks count as “real” reading). I’m just here to tell you that it’s a worthwhile pastime and you can listen to stories because that’s what your ancestors did. On our to-do list for Bandersnatch over the next year is to get more audiobooks into production (we’ve got one so far, Rosefire—look for it wherever you find your audiobooks), and we can’t wait to share our stories with those who will listen.

November: Above, Not Up release (Preorders are OPEN!)
November: Holiday sales! More info to come.

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Author Millie Florence created a delightful celebration of The Balter of Ashton Harper’s first birthday with some commissioned fan art of a favorite scene. Check it out!

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“These pilgrims who come, they hear the stories from someone who heard the stories from someone who heard the stories from you...You tell the stories. That’s your part. How can they believe if they’ve never heard?”
–Edmund Makram

Carolyn Clare Givens, Rosefire