Recently I’ve been thinking about what books are most suitable for audiobooks.
First, a bit of context for why audiobooks. A few steps of logical deduction:
- There are times during the day at which my limbs are occupied but my brain isn’t. Examples are while driving, working out, boiling noodles, etc.
- My time is precious and I’d like to spend it on effective output or input. At most times above, output is difficult, so information input makes more sense.
- I have a few options for input, aka learning: news, knowledge podcasts, and (audio)books.
- News, except for extremely targeted and high-quality sources, has evolved to become more of a dopamine boost than an actual learning experience, and can actually lead to less understanding of reality. Ellenberg’s How Not to Be Wrong explains this phenomenon.
- Good podcasts are great. However, I’m dissatisfied with the discovery process of good podcasts, and as a result find myself listening to a few podcasts of consistent quality. The problem with that, then, is that my learning curve plateaus quickly for the same podcasts (except a few outstanding ones like Tyler Cowen’s). In order to keep my podcast time high-quality, I end up needing to spend time handpicking podcasts.
- The only option left is then audiobooks. For the same reason I like about paper books, audiobooks provide enough room for the author to give full context and depth over the issue he/she wishes to discuss. Thanks to their length, I also don’t need to spend nearly as much time on discovery, and the accuracy is often quite high thanks to platforms like Goodreads.
Now, audiobooks don’t come without a cost. For one, they’re very long. A typical 200-page book would be 8 hours in an audiobook which, assuming I listen for 30 minutes per day, takes a week. The bigger problem is that the format discourages me from cross-referring sections, skipping, and taking notes. I enjoy these activites while reading paper books because they allow me to extract the crux of a book and engage in a dialogue with the author rather than being carried away by less relevant details and lengthy narrations. A third problem is that the audiobook format is more lossy compared to paper book due to noise, lack of neurons in auditory system compared to visual, and likely interruption from real life while listening. Without proper focus, I could easily miss important details that build up the thesis of a book.
The question arises: What books should I dedicate to audiobooks? Are there characteristics of books which make them more suitable for audiobooks than others? My hypothesis is yes, and here are a few traits I’ve summarized based on a bit of first principle observation:
- Easy logic. No Adam Smith, Plato, or any of the sort which requires intense focus and logical reasoning.
- Easy language. I almost certainly fell asleep (for 1 second) while listening to the Ramayana on Route 66. I came back and finished the paper book — it’s just not for the road.
- Engaging content. Stories are a great example, especially those without complex fictional setup.
- Not graphics-based. I tried to listen to Flatland while riding on my scooter, and realized that imagining geometric shapes takes too much brain resources and may threaten my safety.
- Clear notion of progression. A biography or a historical account are good examples. Progression allows me to realize whether I’ve missed something important and rewind to earlier chapters if needed.
- Succintness. If a book is so succinct in style that it’s unlikely for me to need to skip major chapters, then it’s more fit for listening. Note that this is orthogonal from being long.
In particular, two books which I’ve enjoyed a lot as audiobooks are The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, both historical accounts. I will also try listening to biographies. Given how many books of each genre are on my to-read list, I will stick to epsilon-greedy algorithm here and mostly listen to these two genres from now on.
Let me know if you have better suggestions.