'Great to drive or fall asleep to': the growing allure of audiobooks

In 2007, the release of Amazon’s Kindle e-reader appeared to threaten this tradition, and there were many dire predictions about the death of print books. And yet, 12 years on, bookshops still exist and physical books continue to be read and enjoyed around the world. Instead of dominating the market, as many predicted, UK consumer ebook sales fell by 2% in 2018 to £251m, while physical book sales went down by 5% to £2.9 billion, according to the Publishers Association Yearbook.

And there’s a new kid on the block, namely audiobooks, which have defied the book industry’s mostly downward trend, soaring by 43% to annual sales of £69m. That’s still well behind ebooks and print books, but when you consider that in 2013 audiobook download sales were at £12m, that’s a significant increase. The growth of the audiobook market has been led in large part by Audible, which was founded in 1995 and bought by Amazon in 2008 for around $300m. There are, of course, many other audiobook platforms around, some of which are completely free, but Audible has been aggressively defending its supremacy over the market, for instance through a humorous advertising campaign which poked fun at Donald Trump’s denial of climate change, telling him: "Leave the fiction to us".

In some ways, audiobooks are not new at all. For as long as there have been CDs and cassette tapes, audiobooks have been around, and even before then listeners tuned in to BBC Radio 4’s dramas. It’s important to distinguish, therefore, between physical and digital audiobooks. A physical audiobook, such as a CD, can still be covered in wrapping paper and placed under the Christmas tree, if you so please, just like a print book or indeed an e-reader. But what about a digital audiobook to be listened to on your phone or iPod? How do you give it as a present?

Sure, Audible allows you to ‘give the gift of great reading’ by purchasing for a loved one a time-dependent membership, but where’s the magic in that, without the tearing open of gift wrap and the smelling of fresh pages? To be sure, gifting someone a physical book doesn’t always go smoothly: perhaps they already own a copy, for instance. But that’s part of the fun of it all. What’s more, you can’t ask your favourite author to sign a copy of your digital audiobook. That is why, even as audiobooks continue to increase in popularity, I’m confident there will always be a place for physical books, especially under the Christmas tree.

It’s worth pausing to consider, however, why the appetite for audiobooks has exploded in the last few years. Is it because, as Stephen Lotinga, CEO of the Publishers Association posits, audiobooks allow us to “enjoy books in a way that suits new technologies and keeps pace with our busy lives”? There’s certainly some truth in this. Audiobooks are convenient because they can be listened to while doing the dishes, driving or even falling asleep (just don't combine the two, obviously). As a postgraduate student, I don’t get a lot of time for reading for fun, so I find audiobooks an excellent way to unwind when I’m on my way to the library, for example. I don’t take in as much as I would if I had the physical book in front of me, but I’d rather listen to a book than not read it at all.

I’m not the first to ponder the respective merits of readings versus listening. Last year, in an opinion piece in the New York Times, psychologist Daniel T Willingham sought to answer the following question: is listening to a book the same as reading it? The answer, unsurprisingly, is both yes and no. Willingham notes the utility of audiobooks for dyslexic people, and the same is true for blind people. Audiobooks are not only a convenient way to pass the time: They can open up the doors of literature to a wider audience, which is something surely no one would begrudge.

Nor is there anything unnatural about listening to a book rather than reading it. Stories have likely been around for a lot longer than books and even writing itself. Many great works of literature, including Homer’s Odyssey, were intended for oral performance, so listening to an audiobook of it (ideally in ancient Greek!) would actually be closer to what Homer intended than simply reading it.

With this in mind, it might be worth treating a loved one – or yourself – to an audiobook this Christmas. If you’d rather not fork out £7.99 a month for a subscription, have no fear, BorrowBox is just one of many websites and apps allowing you to download audiobooks for free. And yet, with so many titles on offer, from antiquity to the present day, it can be hard knowing where to start.

Here, therefore, are some of my recommended listens to help get through the cold winter nights:

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh: Immortalised in film by Danny Boyle in 1996 and recently turned into a highly successful Fringe show, this astonishing debut novel was first published in 1993 and acclaimed by legendary 90s publisher Rebel Inc. as "the best book ever written by man or woman". Although it didn’t "sell more copies than the Bible", as Rebel Inc. hoped, it was a smash-hit. It failed to make it onto the shortlist for the Booker Prize, however, as it offended the sensibilities of two judges. It’s not hard to see why: Trainspotting is as rich in moments of raw disgust as it is in lyrical Scots prose. This combination is evident in the famous opening line: "The sweat wis lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling." Who better to narrate this classic of modern Scottish literature than Tam Dean Burn, who was born in the same year (1958) and place (Leith, Edinburgh) as Welsh.

Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin: Many of Fifer Rankin's acclaimed crime novels – starring Detective Inspector John Rebus – are available as audiobooks, read by James MacPherson (Michael Jardine in Taggart). Any of the Rebus novels make for the perfect listen when wandering through the streets of Edinburgh – and when you’re finished, why not pop into the Oxford Bar, Rebus' favourite haunt? There’s a chance you might even encounter Rankin himself there.

All Out War: For those interested in finding out what really caused Brexit, there’s no better starting place than Tim Shipman’s All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain’s Political Class. Shipman, political editor of the Sunday Times, Shipman all the behind-the-scenes drama as Vote Leave bulldozered the hapless Remain campaign. Narrated by Rupert Farley, All Out War was a crucial influence on James Graham’s entertaining TV film Brexit: The Uncivil War, which starred Benedict Cumberbatch. At 32 hours, you’ll get your money’s worth, if you can stomach that much Brexit.

Me by Elton John: If you're sick of politics, why not escape with Sir Elton in his gossipy, amusing and at times brutally candid autobiography, narrated by Taron Egerton, who played Reginald Dwight in last year's hugely successful film, Rocketman.