Question of the Week: Where Do You Listen To Audiobooks?
It’s time for Question of the Week, designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics.
This week’s question: if you listen to audiobooks, where do you listen to them? Like while cooking, or driving, or perhaps walking?
The inspiration for this question was that I was looking at some old sales spreadsheets from 2020, and I was sure the start of COVID was going to wipe out the audiobook market because a lot of commuting was temporarily going away. Except this turned out not to be the case, and audiobook sales overall actually went up during COVID, so clearly I was wrong about how most audiobook listening took place while commuting.
For myself, these days I usually listen to audiobooks when making long car trips by myself where I don’t need the GPS to navigate. That happens less than it did, so I generally listen to audiobooks less than I once did before COVID. That said, in 2023-2024 I listened to the new audiobooks Andy Serkis recorded for THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and was blown away by how good they were. Definitely recommended.
-JM
Mostly I’m at home prepping and eating a meal. Sometimes I’m in my vehicle enjoying a coffee while I drive somewhere. Sometimes when I go out to eat by myself I’ll listen on headphones. So it’s when my hands are otherwise busy and it beats listening to music or tv.
I pretty much only listen to audio books while driving. When home I prefer to read. I’ll listen to music when I’m at the gym.