For this Book Series Wednesday I’m going to talk about why I enjoy audiobooks so much.
The Length: For myself I read much faster than the average person, I’m able to read a 1,000 page book in a day if I put the effort into it. However some people aren’t nearly as fast as me, or even the average reader, and lose out on good stories and expanding their knowledge. An audiobook allows everyone to enjoy a story no matter how fast or slow they personally read. Myself personally I’m able on average to enjoy an audiobook for at least three times as long as I would be able to enjoy it if I read it in a physical or digital format. For me this is a great thing, but others can shorten their time if they are slow readers.
The Reader: Often they get amazingly talented people to read the books, some of my favorites are Scott Brick, Michael Kramer, Kate Reading and James Marsters (The person who played Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer). When I think of their voices I can imagine them as the characters I loved listening to. Sometimes they even get celebrities to read books. A more comical version of this is the Go The F*@$ To Sleep reading by Samuel L. Jackson, which you can find on Youtube very easily.
Consistency: Often authors will use specific readers for their series, for example Michael Kramer and Kate Reading are the people who read the Wheel of Time and The Stormlight Archives series. Michael Kramer also did an excellent job with the Mistborn series.
The Extreme Version: Recently a company, Graphic Audio, has released versions of audiobooks that are above and beyond the standard audiobook. Graphic Audio’s tagline is “A movie in your mind.” and they add sound effects, and multiple voice actors to their works. Granted that these versions are more expensive, and may be split into multiple parts if they are really long.
The Cost: Audiobooks are more expensive than their physical and digital counterparts. However in recent years public libraries have started to lend out digital versions of audiobooks via their website, or a secondary website. You can also find the CD versions of the audiobooks at libraries and borrow them as well and copy them to your MP3 player.
That is it for this week’s Book Series Wednesday!