I don’t subscribe to the idea that audio books somehow ‘don’t count’ as reading, or that using them as a way to enjoy literature somehow makes you lesser. I am an avid reader and I will never stop recommending books and reading as a form of entertainment, it’s one of the few left that doesn’t involve a screen and it is proven to benefit your mental health, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation.

That being said, I don’t think that physically reading the book is the only way you can get all those benefits. I also recognise that most of us don’t have the time to sit down and read, or we’ve lost the joy of reading sometime during school and it’s now a laborious task to ‘get through’, something you ‘should do’. Plus, there are many other things that might make reading inaccessible or harder- such as learning difficulties or disabilities.

So, if you want to get back into books but think reading isn’t for you, go get the audio book! You can listen during boring chores, your commute, when you’re relaxing or even at the gym- if you don’t need music to hype you up. Personally, I find them useful to help me get to sleep.

Plus, for selfish reasons, I really want people to know what happens in the books, so I can stop annoying people with the phrase ‘this isn’t how it happens in the book’ or ‘the book was better’ when we’re watching the movie version. There’s just so much more depth to it than in the film, or even the t.v. series and I would love for people to experience it too! It would make me so happy if I could share this amazing thing with more people, so I don’t care how you do access books- just start doing it in some way!

I use Audible because, frankly, I’m too lazy to shop around and find an alternative or cheaper subscription service. It’s £7.99 a month, with that you get one ‘credit’ that can be used to purchase any audio book, unless it’s a new release or by a big name author, that £7.99 can get you one book per month of ANY value. You’d be surprised to know that the audio books actually cost more than a physical copy, or a kindle copy- so that price is actually a bargain. Besides that, you have access to all their audible original content and podcasts, which are either free or super cheap. You can get the app across every device, phone, tablet etc and you are also able to play them from your browser. I like it because it’s easy to use, appears in my library instantly after purchase and the whole thing is linked to my amazon account, which makes things neater in my head and means there’s not an extra bloody password to remember.*

* this is not an ad by the way, I’m literally just informing you about what I use!

So, there you have it from a book nerd, get reading, even if it means you get listening.