Month: April 2020

How to Annoy an Audiobook Listener

Posted on by Oceanic

I just polished off How to Win Friends and Influence People, a title I downloaded for free from AudiobooksLoft more than 2 months ago, on the day they launched the download service.

Obviously I was interested in listening to it, at least in an academic way (figuring a book that’s been around for 70 years must have traction).

The skinny on this self-help classic: Are all self-help audiobooks so self-evident?

Andrew MacMillan keeps his narration well-paced, if a little old-fashioned, which suits the down-home advice of the text. At 8 1/2 hours (Unabridged), the title runs a bit long–the second half feels padded with sales pitches for their personal development programs (which cost considerably more than the audiobook).

Overall production values are high, and it’s a useful reminder of the basics of good behavior–but be ready to skip ahead when tracks get a little self-indulgent.

annnoySuggestions, like avoiding criticism and giving a person a reputation to live up to, are useful reminders of basic principles (the one about avoiding criticism at all costs really resonated for me– which I’m not too proud of), but really these are things we should have learned in grade school.

Isn’t this largely the curriculum for your average kindergarten class?

Learning to cooperate, garner consensus and build goodwill are all basic building blocks of dealing with other people.

By about halfway through the book, the pointed reminders of what works to “win friends and influence people” start to wear a little thin.

The real-life examples from famous figures like Abraham Lincoln and Charles Schwab (yes, there was a Charles Schwab, once) are replaced more often with “Joseph H., who took our course in San Diego, California” or “Suzanne Y., who teaches our program in Boston, Massachusetts” — significantly less compelling figures, though I’m sure they were super-jazzed when he successfully renegotiated his lease and she convinced her husband to go to the Grand Canyon for their annual holiday.

Seriously, is this what self-help is all about?

Is it remedial lessons on how to play nice? And if so, why aren’t people getting more civil as self-help audiobooks rocket to the top of best-seller lists?…

Listen or Read?

Posted on by Oceanic

This is a perennial source of angst in the audiobook community.

Here I work for an audiobook company, and still, I flinch a bit when I tell someone at a cocktail party that I just read ‘Seven Habits’.

I worry that because they know my background, they’ll respond with, “Did you actually READ it? Or listen to it?” I should be more worried that they ask, “Then why are you such an inefficient schmuck?”

I honestly believe that the manner in which one consumes a book is irrelevant. One of my first audiobooks, “First Among Equals” by Geoffrey Archer, I read while driving around New England with my wife. We later divorced, but I’m almost certain it had nothing to do with my listening to the book instead of reading it.

Anyway, several years later, I couldn’t immediately remember if I’d read the paperback or listened to the audiobook.

That, I think, is the real test. As long as you remember the content, then it doesn’t make any difference. So to all you out there that believe you can only use the verb “read” to mean holding an actual tome in one’s lap, hands, or clenched trembling fingers… try to defend yourself without using the word ‘purity’.

By the way, if you still flinch at cocktail parties, you might want to take a look at the Chautauqua series of famous lecturers. They’re lectures, so it’s only natural to say you listened to them. Then all you have to worry about is people asking if you actually went to Chautauqua. If you can’t remember if you went to Chautauqua – well, read this book.…