Is listening to an audiobook as good as reading? was the question posed in an article in today's Graun. Must say, I'd have thought the answer was a bit of a no-brainer. Of course it is.
Slightly surprised the piece in question fails to mention the obvious fact that many 'readers' in past centuries were illiterate. How so, you ask. Well look at it like this. I reckon there's a good chance the majority of those enthralled by Dickens's great novels were spellbound by literate friends reading from the magazines in which they were first published, or were families gathered around the paterfamilias as he delivered the stories in the way I suspect their author deep down would have preferred to have them 'read'. (Assuming the father could do the police in different voices as per the wonderful Sloppy in Our Mutual Friend.)
In fact, listening to an audiobook could well provide the richer experience of a text. And definitely does in the case of plays that demand to be listened to rather than read on the page.
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