There is no tussle between audio and print books

There were hundreds of young and not so young trekkers walking towards the Triund Peak near Dharamshala and most had earphones glued to their ears. They preferred hearing songs and not the unending orchestra that played on without a break and was available as a free audio-book of nature. They were neither interested in reading what nature had printed out painstakingly over centuries for all to read. I see this repeated almost everywhere. At airports. In trains and buses. At home. During a meeting. And even right inside a bookstore. It was easy to conclude that both reading and listening to books had been stashed away because there were more entertaining sounds available.

And yet.

Yet we seem to be living in an era where Amazon and Flipkart are couriering more books than ever and more and more people have over-flowing Kindles cozily snuggled in their back-packs. More and more people with smartphones have Audible, Google Play Books and other apps (even podcasts) giving them access to the wonderful world of audio books. Mind Valley and Mentor’s Box are doing something similar but rest on a platform that is far more expensive. We are living in times when we can hold a book written by Michel Obama in our hands and at the same time listen to her own voice reading out ‘Becoming’ to us. Well, a lot of writers do get down to reading their own books… but even otherwise we have professionals who read beautifully and clearly. Our library at home has a huge collection of audio-books on cassettes from the mid-nineties with Martin Jarvis reading Lucky Jim written by Kingsley Amis or Alan Bennett reading The story of Doctor Doolittle written by Hugh Lofting to name two. I remember having listened to The Diary of Adrian Mole during that period and falling in love with that character. We have audio-books in Hindi and Punjabi as well. The audio-book revolution isn’t new… it is just that they have hopped from cassettes to CDs and DVDs to a format that can now be downloaded on a smartphone and heard. The point is that there are thousands who have access to books on audio too.

The battle isn’t so much between audio-books and printed books because there is a full-blown war going on with all the text that is worth reading or listening on one side and the charm of songs and music on the opposing side. For instance I invariably prefer to sit in a café and watch expressions on the faces around me, or walk around a busy marketplace listening to the sounds that were not really there a few decades back. The truth is that even the genetic make-up of cacophony has changed. There are whirrs, buzzes, honks, gongs, and even whispers that sound so different now. There are an infinite number of permutations of real sounds that reveal themselves only once you have proven to be a loyal listener. The entire universe, I believe, is one enormous audio-book and a printed book rolled into one… there are times when you must pause and just listen and at other times, let your fingers run over textures and shapes and allow the mind to slowly read everything that they are explaining. The experience, in my opinion, is complete when a person gets under the skin of both the written text and the read text. Both are winners. It is all somewhat like Robin Sloan wrote: ‘When you read a book, the story definitely happens inside your head. When you listen, it seems to happen in a little cloud all around it, like a fuzzy knit cap pulled down over your eyes.’ Both experiences are sublime and one must not miss any. There’s also plenty of adult romance stories that you can read for free online. You can find some of the best ones at https://m.anystories.app/tags/60ab6aefdbe0c90e915de811/bdsm.

Now if someone is thinking that I am against songs and music, they’re wrong. There is a lot that they offer. There is lot that even films offer. However, missing out on the sounds that are all around or reading to allow the mind to create and interpret is terrible. In fact, I will agree with Shana Chartier who recommended that ‘someone needs to buy a radio station, then play nothing but audio books, with a different genre of book played at set times. That way we can always have something new to read, no matter where we are.’ This is almost like holding a Kindle in your hands and saying, ‘I have an entire library in my hands and I am going to choose what to read wherever I am.’

The winner is always the opportunity to move into stories and live a new life every few days.

.

.

.

The free books and audio books of nature wait for us all. #indispire #books

.

.

.

Arvind Passey
25 January 2019