Reading books never fails to be an interesting and enlightening experience. Taking in the words and playing around with the imagination to transform them into powerful and vivid scenes of delight is an experience that has never failed to snare many a reader over and over again within the pages of their favorite literary work. This, however, can prove cumbersome at times especially in today’s society where everyone is on the move and can hardly afford time to open a book at all.
Enter modern technology with its conveniences and benefits. Nowadays, people can actually enjoy reading a book without actually opening one! Unnatural as the thought sounds, this has been made possible thanks to the emergence of a type of book that does not require your eyes to read – audio books.
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Reading with your ears
Audio books simply translate the traditional way of reading books from one medium to another – from our eyes down to our ears. Indeed, many are quite accustomed to reading books in a sort of thought pattern identical to ‘listening’ at the words being spoken by the mind and letting imagination take over from there. Audio books leap right at the middle of this process, cutting off at the thought-translation part and directly reading its contents into your mind, thus allowing for an even more interesting and engaging reading experience. Apart from these mental benefits, here are also others that it confers should you choose to favor them:
- Usable anywhere, anytime – simply pop in a pair of earphones and have your audio books stored on your favorite mobile device and you’re already set to go! The main advantage that audio books offer is that it can allow you to read even while you are in transit or engaged in some other activity. No physical book or e-book can allow you to do that – multitasking while on the move. Being a listening activity, you can even blend in music while playing the audio book for a relaxing experience or have it playing on the background while on a VoIP call, for instance.
- Cost-effective – the cost-effectiveness of audio books can be measured from two points of view: that of the readers and that of the publishers. Readers obviously enjoy the reduced cost of acquiring audio books as they simply just pay for the royalty costs and manufacturing cost of the CD or DVD if they purchase a physical copy, while those who download a bought copy skip this expense. Publishers only need to pay for the voice talent that will be reading the books in your behalf and virtually have no publishing expenses at all!
- Longer lifespans – being digital files, audio books will last just as long as your mobile device’s storage medium, which can be for quite a very long time if preserved well. While physical books will last just about as long, your audio books will last without having an adverse effect on its quality, allowing you to listen to it over and over without it getting ruined. Plus, you can make a lot of copies of it for backup as well!
The next generation of reading
With the conveniences that audio books offer, it is no surprise that a lot of people nowadays have taken to incorporating them into their regular lifestyles – whether as a listening tool while doing chores or exercise or simply as another pastime before bed or during office breaks, listening audio books opens a new vista of experience that may well be the next big advance of humanity towards better appreciating literature!