Written by: Nandini Nair4 min readNov 4, 2026 03:18 PM IST First published on: Nov 4, 2026 at 03:18 PM ISTI’ve always read a book with a pen in hand. I highlight; I take notes. Kindle allowed me to search, annotate, and see popular highlights. But of late, I have found myself tuning into audiobooks. And found it to be a new form of reading.I was listening to Emma Cline’s Booker Prize longlisted novel Switzy when The New York Times ran an article, “How an Audiobook Gets Made”, using Switzy as the example. Cline, the article reveals, had no interest in reading the audiobook herself, choosing instead to rely on a professional voice artiste and producer. “I think about it like having your book translated into languages you will never be able to read,” she said, adding, “There are choices made in translation where the control you have as an author no longer exists. In the same way, an audiobook feels like another interpretation of the work. I don’t feel precious about their choices…”AdvertisementTo all those who tut-tut at audiobooks, stop being so precious. At a time when reading is on the decline, the purist’s position surprises. Snobs decree that reading is not reading, unless it is a physical book. But such positions can only be met with a roll of the eyes. The audiobook is simply another translation of the book. It affords a new experience of the original. When we don’t (or shouldn’t) discriminate between reading a book in the original language versus one in translation, why be dismissive of audiobooks?Over the last year, I’ve often been stuck in autos, airports and airplanes. In this liminal space, the audiobook pacifies. I am less fretful if I can listen to a book over the potholes, through the rain, at traffic lights, besides a flower seller. It not only fills time, it is a use of time. Audiobooks transform chores into opportunities. Doing the dishes now affords a chance to read by listening. You take a book to bed, and an audiobook to the car, and kitchen.Also Read | Democrats win House and Senate: Why Donald Trump failed the midterm testAn audiobook, like a translation, is an entity unto itself. While listening to a book, I am sure there are words, sentences, perhaps, even paragraphs, where my attention off-roads. These lapses are not optimum. But it allows looking up and looking out, which a conventional book does not. Your immediate surroundings and the setting of the book melt into each other. Now when I go under flyovers or across bridges, I remember snippets of books I’ve heard while crossing those. The book no longer lives only in its pages, it now animates locations.AdvertisementAudiobooks also make us more aware of “voice” than a conventional book, because when we read, we only read in our own voice. Some authors are skillful readers as they best know the rhythm, the emphasis, the pauses, the crescendos of their books. I would highly recommend London Falling, written and narrated by Patrick Radden Keefe and Shattered Lands, written and narrated by Sam Dalrymple. Fiction audiobooks are perhaps best staged by professionals — the actors, and poets. Black Bag, written and narrated by Luke Kennard, is masterful. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett feels like Meryl Streep is whispering a movie into your ear.you may likeThe audiobook of the International Booker-winning Taiwan Travelogue, written by Yang Shuang-Zi, is a double act of translation. One is the translation from Mandarin Chinese to English and then the narration by Sarah Mariè Skaer. I wouldn’t have completed the physical book, given the pages and pages stewed in food and cooking.With the audiobook, I didn’t have to twist my tongue around unfamiliar dishes, bah-so (braised minced pork), tang-kue-te (winter melon tea), tau-mi (potato noodle soup). I could just listen. And while listening on Bengaluru roads, I travelled to Taiwan.The writer is associate director, New India Foundation