The first audiobook that I listened to was in the mid-nineties in York, UK. Specky was there as a Commonwealth Scholar working for her DPhil in mathematics and I had all the time to explore the newly launched Windows 3.x in the University of York computer labs and we spent some evenings roaming the marketplace in search of something new… but it was the City Library of York from where we got our first audiobook in a cassette. It was the ‘The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 3 ¾’ by Sue Townsend. It was hilarious and Pushkin, Specky, and I loved listening to this story. A new love story was thus born and in barely three years we had managed to collect more than fifty titles that included both classics and contemporary fiction.
Things are different now in 2025. We have had the digital revolution and now have hundreds of audiobooks in a smartphone app… and I have listened to nearly two hundred audiobooks in the past three years. I find them fascinating though it is the strength of the narration that matters. We loved Martin Jarvis… and now we have hundreds of really readers including Meryl Streep and Stephen Fry.
Not everyone though is convinced about this format of a library in the smartphone. They find listening to an audiobook tedious and a task that demands attention. Yes, I agree. When one listens to a story, one’s eyes do not have the luxury of rapid surfing pages and announcing in a couple of hours: Ha! Ha! I have finally read ‘War and Peace’! In an audiobook it is going to take you more than 60 hours of listening… and this is far better than shelving this wonderful book aside after reading a few pages. Less than a month back I finished listening ‘Fountainhead’ by Ayn Rand and those twenty hours or so had spread nearly a month as there were chapters that I listened to more than once.
Audiobooks can be enjoyed while multitasking, such as during commutes, workouts, or household chores, making them more versatile in daily life. Hundreds of them in your phone make them extremely portable. They bring both information and entertainment even to those who are visually impaired or have some form of reading disability. If the narrator is good, the level of subliminal engagement is high. And yes, they are affordable because a monthly subscription makes them a cost-effective alternative.
It was in the early 20th century that books were recorded on phonographs for the visually impaired and the world’s first audiobook is often credited to the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), which produced recordings of books on vinyl records in the 1930s. One of the earliest recorded books was Helen Keller’s ‘Midstream: My Later Life,’ which was made available on these long-playing records. I am not sure if a LP vinyl record of ‘Sholay’ can be considered an audiobook, but if yes, then we had that one at home even in the seventies. The 1970s and the 1980s saw a transition to audio cassettes and then a decade later came the CDs and then the DVDs. I remember buying quite a few of these cassettes and CDs from Crosswords in South Extension in Delhi. That was the decade when a few Bollywood actors joined this revolution and became narrators for stories for children. India was fairly late in joining this audiobook movement and the going is still slow if we look at the statistics.
According to a report by Nielsen India, the Indian book market is estimated to be worth ?739 billion by 2025. This includes approximately 25% of the book sales contributed by academic books, and children’s books accounting for around 20% of the total book sales. The fiction category, including novels and short stories, represents about 18% of book sales and non-fiction books, which cover a wide range of subjects including self-help, biographies, and business, make up about 22% of the market. The digital book market, including e-books and audiobooks, is growing rapidly, with an annual growth rate of approximately 20%. The last part is what tells us that Indians with earbuds are probably not listening to anything but books! Compared to this, the audiobook industry globally is valued at approximately $3.5 billion in 2020. This figure is expected to grow to $15 billion by 2027. In the United States alone, around 60% of the population has listened to an audiobook, with annual sales reaching over $1.2 billion. The UK, Germany, and China are also significant markets for audiobooks, each contributing to the global rise in audiobook consumption.
The conclusion is simple enough… India needs to impress the young and old to listen to book when they aren’t reading one. All this is not to say that any format is superior to another. My personal library at home has nearly five thousand books. I cherish the feel of paper, the scent of the ink, and, of course, the visual pleasure of a well-organised bookshelf. There are times when I simply want to hold a paperback in my hands and have better control over the pace of reading as there are moments when turning back to a paragraph or chapter just reading is so much easier. I can always make my eyes pause at a word or a phrase or a new metaphor to give it time to ooze in.
Yes, there is absolutely no contest with print books. Despite my love for them I am irrevocably in love with audiobooks as well. And the feeling is swell.
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Arvind Passey
Written on 05 February 2025
