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Comment by carlossouza | Hacker News Reader

> But that mistakes what a book is for. A book is a tool. It’s a machine for thinking.

Best quote in the article. Taking the time to read, absorb and apply a book changes us in a way no summary or audiobook could ever change.

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Absolutely. That's why people who use blinkist and stuff are doing it wrong. For a book to be useful it needs to work on you, you have to let yourself marinate in it. The time spent is in itself the biggest part of a book being useful. Just plucking the main ideas by themselves into bullet points do nothing.

Blinkist and skimming a book have their place for getting some of the key points, it's hard to find the time to read all useful books.

But I agree that to really get the most out of a book, reading cover to cover is likely most immersive, impactful, maybe followed by listening to the auduibook from start to finish.

I think this is another wrong idea. You can never read all useful books. The whole idea of "all" useful books is faulty. You should read a book you really like and immerse yourself in it. The only time I think it's close to what you are suggesting is if you're prepping for a test.

I disagree somewhat - a book can also be (or at least contain) a work of art; a consciousness-altering, mind-expanding, experience-inducing thing.

I wasn't expect a "audiobooks aren't real books" argument coming in.

What's your beef against "reading" in audio format ?

He's not saying they're not real books, he's saying they have a different effect.

I saw that as a point worth digging into.

If we push it to the deep end, reading a printout of an archived book or the version that has been past down in the family and is the last physical reminder of grandpa who we never saw alive won't have the same effect.

But we're not talking about content or ideas anymore.

While I'm certainly not making the argument that "audiobooks aren't real books" (and I think nobody did), it's naive to think that audiobooks are in every way the same or better than reading it yourself, in the end it's always about different trade offs.

Listening to audiobooks is reading the book in someone else's pace. Reading the book on your own, you are reading at your own pace.

You can look up from your book and reflect on what you read, think about how this new information explains things you observed in the past, think about how it could be used in the future. You didn't get something, you just read it again. You realized you didn't get things in the last two pages, you just go back two pages. A sentence is so deep, you need to walk around and think about things for ten minutes? You just stand up and do it.

(I know you can do the same with audiobooks but it's more inconvenient)

Listening to an audiobook and following someone else's pace also has its advantages (remember different tradeoffs), for example if you are easily distracted, the audiobook continuously playing can help you refocus and read through the book faster, not to mention being able to "read" while in motion, driving, cycling, working out.

> I know you can do the same with audiobooks but it's more inconvenient

I don't find it inconvenient. I also don't follow the logic about it being someone else's pace. I pick playback speed depending on both the content and the performance.

Perhaps it's a question of learning style, or listening style, but with a printed book I can change the pace in the middle of a sentence, heck, the middle of a word, based on how distracted I am, how much I understand the context, etc.

With an audiobook I'm constantly missing something because I'm thinking through what I've just heard.

Rewind to where you lost track. Several times if necessary.

> With an audiobook I'm constantly missing something because I'm thinking through what I've just heard.

This is me and physical books! I can get through several pages without realizing I haven't taken in a single thing, and not have any idea how far back to go. I get far enough that scanning the text to work out where I got lost isn't an advantage and often I just give up.

Maybe some context. When I'm listening to audiobooks, I'm not just sitting there with my phone in my hand: I'm working out, cleaning, walking, cooking, bathing, etc, I'm doing all the great things that audiobooks let me do in parallel to reading a book, and that's great.

However, this results in me having a harder time quickly pausing, rewinding, changing speed, which in turn makes me reflect less on the content I'm reading.

That's probably pretty common. I do it while driving and find it very easy to change speed or rewind on the fly.

I think the fact that I am driving and have some amount of my focus on that is a bigger differentiator vs a physical book for me.

I think it boils down to a matter of preference and personal covenience.

While I get you're more comfortable with books, that would be the same argument against them for people with poor vision or high eye strain, don't want a physical object nor stare at a screen etc.

It's sometimes interesting to be listening to a podcast for litteraly days worth of time, and then be offered that same content in an edited book form. I wouldn't believe someone telling me I need to read the book to have the deeper understanding of the subject.

IMHO books as a support aren't magical and ideas can be communicated in better ways depending on the recepient. I feel this gets lost in many "people should be reading" discussions.

Reading vs hearing is akin to tasting vs smelling. The signal reaches the brain but the path it takes is different.

I disagree somewhat. I really like audiobooks, but they actually bypass a huge amount of the creative effort that is required when reading a book. I'm still imagining scenes and settings, but no longer the voices.

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