What in the word?

In a guest essay in the Times (November 23, 2025), Brian Bannon, the chief librarian at the New York Public Library and its director of branch libraries and education, argues that audiobooks qualify as reading. Bannon thinks the stigma that has accompanied listening to audiobooks is misplaced and cites research showing that comprehension from “attentive listening” is comparable to comprehension from reading. He also cites a study from Berkeley that showed that the same areas of the brain lit up when someone was doing “focused listening” as when they were reading printed material. (More on this below.)

He notes that audiobook sales and circulation have soared, while sales of print and e-books have remained flat. So, at a time when our country needs the empathy and vocabulary building that reading helps develop, we should be encouraged, he argues, that audiobooks are providing a path toward increased literacy.

He concludes, “However we read — by eye, by ear or both — it all counts. What matters is that the words get in, the brain makes meaning and the identity of being a reader takes hold. We need more readers, however they get there.”

Hear, hear — or should I say, read, read!

Indeed, one of the main reasons I founded Planet Word was to help create the nation of readers that I believe our democracy needs to survive: the empathy we need to get along in our increasingly multicultural country, the broad vocabulary and background knowledge that we need to understand complex issues, and the critical-thinking skills that improve our ability to weigh and evaluate evidence. … all the attributes of informed, educated voters.

As Bannon, who has dyslexia, also notes, audiobooks can be a godsend — opening a world of literature and nonfiction to people with dyslexia who are struggling to read print. For people whose eyesight is failing, audiobooks can make them feel part of the reading community. And audiobooks can introduce us all to books we’d otherwise skip or cast aside in frustration. How wonderful to finally know why your friend or family member raved about a certain book, author, or character, or to be able to discuss nonfiction articles and books you’ve listened to.

I’ll never forget that when I suddenly became a novice 5^th-grade teacher, I looked forward to my daily commute when I could listen to books on tape (remember them?) to acquaint myself with grade-level books I hadn’t yet read.

Bannon’s article touched a chord for many Times readers, who wrote in to enthusiastically endorse audiobooks. They mentioned how entertaining well-read audiobooks are. They recalled having been read to as a child and attributed their lifelong love of literature to that family tradition. Several also argued that listening was simply the continuation of our centuries-old human tradition of oral storytelling. And, of course, listening is the premier way to enjoy poetry; poets want their readers to appreciate the rhythm or sound of the words they have chosen so carefully.

Other advantages of audiobooks? They save paper, space, and money. And practically no one needs to read how-to manuals anymore: Narration accompanied by video can walk us through the steps of doing almost anything, from changing a showerhead to refinishing a wood floor to clearing a clogged drain.

But (and you probably sensed there was going to be a “but”), I do believe that, to the extent possible, the vast majority of us still need to become proficient readers of text. About 95% of all learners, if taught by well-trained teachers, should be able to learn to read proficiently. I hope we never give a pass to ineffective reading instruction with the excuse that audio and video have replaced the need to learn to read.

And at the time the Berkeley study cited above was released, Planet Word advisor Naomi S. Baron, who tracks reading comprehension research, says it was widely noted that the study revealed that reading text and listening shared the same brain location but did not reveal anything about whether reading and listening led to equivalent comprehension.

In the same issue of the Times, author George Packer “admits” in the “By the Book” interview that he counts audiobooks as a “guilty pleasure,” saying “They’re a little like cheating, you miss things, but they’re good company on long drives and dog walks.” His observation aligns with Dr. Baron’s findings in her 2021 book, How We Read Now, that “genre matters.” As she noted to me, reading for academic purposes is a “very different kettle of fish than pleasure reading of narrative fiction or feature pieces or more informal essays or most news pieces.” Studies of comprehension from listening versus reading bear this out, she writes.

Given these findings, I think it’s of utmost importance that everyone who can, learns to read print — learns to connect the written symbols on a page to words. Being able to read proficiently opens the entire world of print to you, on demand, at sight, without the intersession of a device or a subscription. It’s technology you can carry with you and use for free. Not being able to read can even be dangerous — in an emergency, for example, we need to be able to instantaneously read road signs or labels on prescriptions or read directions for safely using tools and appliances.

Other benefits of reading print:

• Seeing books in the home — and watching people read them — is one of the best ways to ensure that children will become readers.
• Nonfiction’s text features — captions, maps, charts, chapter headings, and the like — supply helpful information to students and adult readers, but don’t easily translate to audio.
• Even poets still commit their verses to print and publication. They attend carefully to punctuation and line length and form — but that is not always evident from simply listening.
• A word’s spelling may give clues to its etymology and origins that sound alone cannot.
• Many innovative contemporary authors are incorporating emails and footnotes and unusual typographic flourishes that audio doesn’t always smoothly convey, if at all. (I’m thinking specifically of the chapter ornamentations in Hell of a Book, which helped readers know which character was telling each successive chapter, or the footnotes in the original print edition of A Gentleman in Moscow.)

And, generally, speaking for myself, I prefer to interpret a character’s nature, even looks, in my mind; to hear their voice in my head and imagine their mood or personality with no one mediating, with no voice actor doing the interpreting for me. I like to fold back pages and underline passages of text I love; I like to immerse myself in a world or an idea without interruption or intervention. Indulging in that undivided relationship with print and solitude are my guilty pleasures.

But regardless of these caveats, in the end, audiobooks or printed books, the bottom line is: Read!

—Ann Friedman, founder of Planet Word