I Know. I Know.
I know.
I KNOW.
This conversation has already been had.
Probably a thousand times.
There are articles about it. There are arguments about it. There are people on the internet who have very strong feelings about it. Somewhere, I’m sure, two people are currently arguing in a Facebook group about whether listening to a book while crocheting counts as reading.
And yet…
Here I am.
Putting my oar in anyway.
Because I have thoughts.
Audiobooks count as reading.
There. I’ve said it.
You may now clutch your pearls.
Hear Me Out
I love to read.
I love physical books. I love the covers. I love holding a book in my hands and knowing there are hundreds of pages waiting for me.
I love settling into my chair, getting comfortable, and disappearing into a story.
I love meeting characters and becoming invested in their lives like they are somehow going to send me a Christmas card.
I love wandering into a completely different world for a few hours.
And yes, sometimes I want to read every word myself.
But sometimes…
I want somebody else to read it to me.
And apparently, according to some people, this is where we have a problem.
Apparently, My Ears Don’t Count
I’m sorry, but I’m going to need someone to explain this one to me.
If I read the words with my eyes, I am reading.
If I hear the exact same words with my ears, suddenly I’m cheating?
What happened?
Did the book police show up?
“Ma’am, we’re going to have to confiscate your audiobook. You didn’t technically read this.”
Meanwhile, I’m sitting there crocheting a blanket, completely immersed in a story, and wondering who decided that my eyeballs are the official gatekeepers of literature.
Because as far as I’m concerned, the story is the point.
I Want the Story
That’s really what it comes down to for me.
Someone sat down and created something.
They imagined a world.
They created characters.
They wrote a love story, a mystery, an adventure, a friendship, or maybe an entirely different world I can escape into for a while.
And I get to experience it.
Sometimes that means reading the words myself.
Sometimes it means listening to someone tell me the story.
Either way, I’m enjoying somebody’s imagination.
And I want the story.
Give me the story.
I’ll take it in whatever form you want to hand it to me.
Well, within reason.
I’m still not interested in anything that doesn’t fit my values. But that’s a whole other conversation.
Sometimes I Want to Read It Myself
There is something wonderful about reading a physical book.
I love seeing the cover.
I love turning the pages.
I love hearing the words in my head as I read them.
I love imagining what the characters look like, what the house looks like, what the town looks like, and occasionally wondering why nobody in a mystery novel thinks to call the police sooner.
I love getting comfortable and losing track of time.
Those are the moments when reading feels like an escape.
Just me, my book, and several hundred pages of questionable decisions made by fictional people.
Perfect.
Sometimes I Want Someone Else to Tell Me the Story
And then there are audiobooks.
Oh, I love an audiobook.
Especially when the narrator is good.
A really good narrator can take a character I’ve created in my head and suddenly give that character a voice.
They can change their tone.
They can change their pacing.
They can give different characters different personalities.
They can make a scene funny, heartbreaking, suspenseful, or downright creepy.
Suddenly, these people who don’t actually exist are living rent-free in my head.
And I am perfectly happy about it.
Also, My Hands Are Busy
Here’s another reason I love audiobooks.
I can listen while I crochet.
I can listen while I embroider.
I can listen while I fold laundry.
I can listen while I’m doing things around the house.
This is especially important because apparently laundry refuses to fold itself.
So if I’m going to be folding seventeen towels that somehow appeared in my house overnight, you better believe I’m putting on an audiobook.
My hands get something to do.
My brain gets a story.
Everybody wins.
But Isn’t That Cheating?
No.
Next question.
I’m kidding.
Mostly.
But seriously, I don’t understand why we have decided that reading needs to be some sort of achievement badge.
Reading isn’t a competition.
I’m not trying to win the Reading Olympics.
Nobody is handing me a trophy because I read 74 books this year instead of 32.
And nobody gets to tell me that I didn’t “really read” a book because I listened to it while crocheting.
I experienced the story.
I followed the plot.
I met the characters.
I cared what happened.
I probably yelled at somebody who made a terrible decision.
That’s reading to me.
So Here’s Where I Stand
I will happily read the physical book.
I will read an ebook.
And I will absolutely listen to an audiobook.
Because whether I’m sitting in my chair with a book in my hands or crocheting while an actor brings the characters to life…
I’m enjoying a story.
And isn’t that the whole point?
We read because we want to go somewhere.
We want to feel something.
We want to meet people who don’t exist.
We want to experience someone else’s vision of love, friendship, adventure, mystery, hope, loss, or an entirely different world.
We want to escape for a little while.
And sometimes, we just want somebody to tell us a good story while we finish the blanket we’ve been working on for six months.
I don’t think that’s cheating.
I think that’s pretty darn wonderful.
So yes.
I know this conversation has already been had.
I know I’m late to the party.
I know the internet has already debated this approximately 9,847 times.
But I’m putting my oar in anyway.
Audiobooks count as reading.
And if you disagree, that’s okay.
You can go read a book about it.
I’ll be over here listening to mine.
While I crochet.
I’m planting my little bookish flag right here.
