Books On Tape

Ann Althouse has an interesting meditation on the difference between reading a book and listening to it on tape. (As an aside, btw, I recently met a guy who had just graduated from U. Wisconsin Law. He tells me that Althouse is brilliant but scary tough on her Con Law classes.)

Ann seems to shade more towards reading, but doesn't damn books on tape out of hand. Instead, she talks about some of the relative merits and problems of each and concludes that it really is in the power of the individual to either take or squander the advantages of one or the other.

I think I generally agree with Ann. I never listen to books on tape, but I don't have any particularly harsh prejudice against the practice so long as it's done well. On the other hand, I don't have any desire to try it out.

One thing Ann doesn't get into here is having a book read to one in person. This can have an interesting impact. When I was in fifth grade, I had a homeroom teacher named Mrs. Cook, a silver haired older woman. During the course of the year, she read Tom Sawyer aloud to the class. To this day, I still automatically envision her whenever I think of Aunt Polly.