This year, I joined nearly 6.5 million other people and set a reading challenge via Goodreads. I gave myself a goal of 50 books to finish by the end of 2022 (Goodreads reports 49 was the average this year). To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could do it. I love to read, but these days by evening — the time of day I’ve always allotted for reading — I’m falling asleep.
To my surprise, I finished the challenge just before Thanksgiving — because I found a way to experience books during other stretches of my day, such as while running, gardening, driving, tidying up or sitting in bleachers.
Not only is this argument insufferable, made — and I’m just guessing — by insufferable people, it’s also the worst kind of ableism.
The secret to my success: audiobooks.
Except for some reason, there are people out there who think I haven’t succeeded at all, because audiobooks don’t “count.”
One of my friends reports that she continually argues with one of her parents who insists audiobooks are “shortcuts” and could possibly lead to a collective dumbing down of society. Another friend says that one of her immediate family members pointedly asks her whether she is “reading” or “listening” whenever she mentions a book — and clearly disapproves when she sees the audiobooks included in my friend’s “read” list on Goodreads.
I might think this was limited to family squabbles, except I see similar arguments happening online, such as Facebook commenters wringing their hands over whether their audiobooks count toward their reading challenge and Reddit posts claiming that it’s “like arguing that a toddler that gets read a book by his mother did indeed read it – which is absurd.”
The idea that audiobooks don’t “count” angers me — as a reader, writer and human being. The argument, as far as I can tell, is that listening to a book is cheating because it means passively consuming a book. Not only is this argument insufferable, made — and I’m just guessing — by insufferable people, it’s also the worst kind of ableism because it hides behind virtuousness and some pseudo-intellectual idea that listening isn’t “smart” enough.
Instead of nonsense, here are some facts. First, audiobooks are exploding. In its 2022 Consumer Survey, the Audio Publishers Association found that 45% of all Americans over age 18 have listened to an audiobook. Further, 61% of parents say their kids listen to them — up from 35% in 2020. Should…
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