Even though I am a very voracious and avid reader, I always find myself adding several books on my Goodreads to-read list. And then there’s the time I have to read in the first place. There’s also the fact that some books take longer to read than others. So how am I supposed to keep up with the demand that attention is needed to read and process a wide variety of books. Eventually, I found an easy answer for that dilemma to be audiobooks. Whenever I am need to get housework done or drive 30 minutes to my job, that gives me opportunities to listen to an audiobook. With the ability to listen to audiobooks, I have managed at least in theory to have read over 87 books last year. Most of those audiobooks were books that I had been meaning to read for years, and audiobooks helped me to finally discover what happens in those books. Another benefit audiobooks have are for blind-sighted people or other people that are mentally-handicapped. Thanks to the medium, people with said handicaps are able to enjoy something other people can enjoy and be part of conversations. But all that listening begs the question of whether or not counts as having actually *read* the book. Although I have come to see the value audiobooks have for readers, there are some books that don’t quite work as well when narrated. There are some books such asJames Joyce’s “Ulysses” where a big part of the appeal lies with how a book is written. Because of this, there are some books I still haven’t read because I get the sense that the presentations of its writing bring out what resonates within some books. On top of that, writers can’t use an audiobook to observe how the author writes in a way that grabs and holds the reader’s attention. At least, it would be easier to see why in printed form because even if listeners can observe an author’s storytelling method, they’d still have to constantly rewind and replay certain parts repeatedly. Details are also easier to miss when listening to an audiobook. If readers sense a detail has been missed, they can still flip back a few pages, but listeners will have to fuss with the audiobook to try and locate what important I information they might’ve missed. One last detail is that audiobook listeners have to rely on a narrator that has to convey the right tone of the book and, if listening to a fiction novel, emote characters in a way that is true to who they are. Nonetheless, I generally agree an audiobook still counts as reading but only in the sense that a listener still experiences the content a particular novel consists of. After all, I still know what happens in a book I listen to just as much as if I physically read it.

I understand your point, and I agree that listening to audiobooks can have many advantages, especially for busy professionals or for people who find traditional reading distracting, impossible, or tiring. However, letting aside what we consider 'traditional' reading, there are certain elements that comprise the reading experience (print books) that audiobooks can simply not offer. People should not consider audiobooks as kind of 'tricking' the whole reading experience, but it does not involve the whole reading experience per se. Associate professor Beth Rogowski confesses that she was always fond of audiobooks, but she considered them as 'cheating', which is why she conducted a study in 2016, where she tested reading effects on two groups; one group listened to the audio version of 'Unbroken', and the other group read the e-book. Rogowski concluded that there were no significant comprehension gaps between the two groups. However, according to Markham Heid, there is a difference between reading a physical book and an e-book, so if you compare print books and audiobooks there may be a difference. There is also a difference in really 'understanding' a book when it is printed and when it is an e-book. I believe the reading experience is indeed about getting the feeling of the body of the book and understanding the story through structure and the way the physical book is organised. Listening to a book can make you lose sense of all this and affect the way the story is ingrained in your mind. Also, there is the issue of narrative voice, which is a big issue when it comes to audiobooks. According to an article on Writer's Edit, your perception of a book may be influenced by the voice of the person who reads the audiobook to us. This considerably limits our freedom to make sense of the book by ourselves by adding narrative voices to the book. I think audiobooks can help us access stories we would otherwise not be able or not bother to read. However, I think that audiobooks limits to a certain extent the reading experience and is not considered 'reading' per se because of this. Therefore, because I consider reading a multi-layered journey towards understanding, I believe audiobooks are not exactly this. They offer other advantages, which nevertheless pertain to listening and not reading as it should be. For example, Daniel T. Willingham from The New York Times argues that 'although one core process of comprehension serves both listening and reading, difficult texts demand additional mental strategies. Print makes those strategies easier to use'. For this and many other reasons, I believe reading books is reading, or we can say that a combination of reading and audio can help enhance the reading experience in some cases. Works Cited Heid, Markham, 'Are Audiobooks As Good For You As Reading? Here’s What Experts Say' (20180 <https://time.com/5388681/audiobooks-reading-books/> [accessed 19 January 2021]. Willingham, Daniel T., 'Is Listening to a Book the Same Thing as Reading It?' (2018) <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/opinion/sunday/audiobooks-reading-cheating-listening.html> [accessed 19 January 2021]. 'Does Listening to an Audiobook Count As Reading?' <https://writersedit.com/fiction-writing/listening-audiobook-count-reading/> [accessed 19 January 2021].

Personally, I do not believe that audiobooks are reading. I think both reading books and listening to audiobooks are beneficial in different ways, they are still different. To me reading is the act of getting a physical book and putting eyes to paper, or fingers to paper in the form of braille. However, with audiobooks I purely consider that as listening, much like listening to a podcast. Once I have finished listening to a podcast I don't consider myself to have read the information on there. I think audiobooks are incredibly beneficial in terms of time, when you don't have the ability to bring a book with you or read a book e.g. the gym and for all the great points you have mentioned, but I myself just don't consider it as reading but more listening to the information.