How Do You Choose Your Audiobooks? Audiobook week discussion

Audiobook Week is an annual event hosted by Jen at Devourer of Books. If you love audiobooks or are looking for audiobook recommendations make sure to follow along! There are daily discussion topics all this week devoted to all things audiobook.Audiobook week button

Today’s prompt:

How do you choose your audiobooks?

How do you decide what you’ll listen to? Do you mostly listen, or split time between listening and reading? Particularly if you split time, how do you decide what you’ll consume in audio and what in print?

This topic makes me say hmmm. Sometimes I think my audiobooks choose me based on what is available at the library, what new release is out, or if a favorite narrator has a new book out. Or sometimes I’ll feel like re-reading a favorite book and choose to listen to it instead for a new experience. Reading audiobook reviews from my favorite blogs also plays into my decision-making.

My audiobook to print book ratio is about 40/60. Due to the flexibility of audiobooks, I generally choose to listen rather than read all things being equal. When I commit to an audiobook, I usually just listen, though sometimes I have the book on hand so I can trade off listening and reading. It is beneficial to have a print copy to refer to when taking notes for reviews.

I’ll choose to read a print copy of some books if I listen to an audio sample and don’t think it’s a good fit for me. Audio makes certain genres more appealing to me, such as historical fiction, memoirs, and literary fiction. For longer books I prefer audio as well. YA is the genre I usually read in print the most, though I listen to my share of YA audiobooks too.

I am mainly a mood reader, so I can’t plan out what I’m going to listen to in advance. Because something else will invariably distract me from my original plans. I think what I mainly do is rotate by genre. If I’ve listened to a lot of romance lately, then I’ll shake it up and pick up a YA, historical fiction, or memoir so I don’t get burned out on any one category.

How do you choose your audiobooks?

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18 thoughts on “How Do You Choose Your Audiobooks? Audiobook week discussion

  1. Book Blather says:

    It has to be a book I would want to read anyway and I have to like the voice of the narrator (I usually listen to the previews on itunes).

  2. I have gotten to where if I really like a narrator then I will try a book outside my preferred genres. Sometimes I don’t stick with it but I have been pleasantly surprised a few times 🙂 Otherwise, I will try any book in audio form in my preferred genres —I just have more time for them. I also though love whyspersync–I am all over that! Listen at work, read a home 🙂 combo heaven!

  3. Laurie C says:

    I’m a mood reader, too! I usually have a backlog of recommended audiobooks to choose from based on what I’m in the mood for at the moment.

  4. Brittany says:

    Haha yep, my audiobooks choose me! It usually depends what’s available at the library because I’m too stingy for Audible so I heavily rely on the library 🙂

  5. BermudaOnion says:

    I look at what’s in my pile of audios and pick what looks the most appealing at the time.

  6. Brooke says:

    I’m fairly new to the audio world, so I try to stick with what bloggers recommend or award winning audios. Sometimes I just choose based on popular narrators. Recentlty, I purchased Stardust narrated by Gaiman himself and look forward to that experience!

    1. Stardust is a fantastic audio. Enjoy!

  7. The want chooses the wizard, Harry. 😉

    I like this post. Sometimes it’s really hard to figure out what exactly we are doing when we pick our books. We just do.

  8. Mindy says:

    I am a mood reader/listener also. Most often I choose what is most recently acquired although with more listening lately i have been able to get to some of my back log.

  9. I have to shake it up too or I get bored, nitpicky or I burn out and don’t want to read/listen to anything at all. I also choose the newest audio’s at my library and am a slave to what they order. Not that I’m complaining. I love my library!.

  10. k2reader says:

    I tend to get all my audios from the library as well, so I am stuck with what’s available when I’m looking. If I’m looking for a specific title or author, I sometimes use to online library system to put it on reserve. It seems to work for me!

    Thanks for stopping by my blog!
    ~Kristin @ Always With a Book

  11. Carol says:

    I think I need to try listening to some different genres on audio. I think of myself as a mood reader, but that’s probably not true, or my mood just doesn’t change often.

  12. Trish says:

    I agree with the mood listening–sometimes an audio just isn’t right for a particular time (just like a print book). I tend to stick to lighter or more factual books on audio, though. I don’t read a lot of YA titles but I have enjoyed them on audio in the past. Non-fiction also works better for me on audio than print but literary fiction requires too much of my attention.

  13. Kelley says:

    Great discussion. I also prefer longer books on audio, because then I’m thinking less about how much of the book I still have to read, and I’m able to just relax and enjoy the story more. I also love rereading books on audio! I’ve read all the Harry Potter books on paper, but they’re also some of my favorite books to listen to on audio. Plus, when listening to an audiobook, it doesn’t feel like it’s cutting into my “actual book reading” time, so I’m much more likely to reread via audio than physical books.

  14. I like your idea of genre rotation

  15. I’m a mood listener (and reader), too, and agree that memoirs make great listening.

  16. I’m the same. Audios have helped me experience some genres I probably wouldn’t have listened to in print.

  17. Sunny says:

    Great post and thoughts! I haven’t dived into audiobooks that much, but I think I’ll stick with books that I’ve read at first so I can get used to them. But mainly any type of reading depends on mood for me 🙂

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