Listen or read?

I haven’t really listened to any podcasts and very few audiobooks. Generally, I prefer to read – ordinary paper books, and tv series and movies. However, I think I could get into podcasts (or video podcasts), at least a little, if the subject was one that I’m very interested in. Audiobooks on the other hand, they’re probably not for me. Mom likes them and I’ve tried to listen to some of hers, but I never really got into them. One reason is that the translated ones are by necessity read by Swedish actors. They’re reading books that have been written in another language – these days almost exclusively English.

I never read the first book in the series about The Ladies’ Detective Agency, I listened to it on a cd player. The actress reading it could be said to be ideal in most ways – like Mma Ramotswe she’s ‘of traditional build’ and she’s very funny, or at least used to. However, when the topic of lady detectives came up, the British mystery writer Agatha Christie was mentioned and the actress pronounced that with the stress on the second syllable. That was it for me… Funnily enough, I think she got the African names about right. At least as far as I can tell.

The other memorable audiobook I tried was one about Jeeves and Wooster (I’ve forgotten the title). Again, the ‘cast’ – a group of famous comedy actors – should have been ideal, and maybe they would have been, if someone had adapted the entire book to a Swedish setting with Swedish names. As it was, naturally they hadn’t. One member of the ‘cast’ was able to correctly pronounce the UK county Worcestershire (I hope I spelled that right), the others couldn’t. No one could pronounce the more unusual personal names – like Bertie’s friend Barmy Fotheringay-something or other (?) which I think is to be pronounced Fungy- Phipps? In any case, they all botched the names. One of them, who is really famous, and a movie maker/director as well as an actor let one of his characters (he played two) use a southern Swedish accent. Never again, that’s all I can say.

Of course, that’s not really why I don’t like audiobooks, I just – well, don’t. For me, books are about reading, not listening. If I want to listen, I’ll turn on my iPod for some music, or I’ll watch tv/dvd.