Do Audiobooks Count Towards Your Reading Challenge?

This is a question I have seen circulating through book groups and the book community for ages. Every so often this comes up as a discussion and honestly it’s a pet peeve of mine. I inwardly groan everytime I see this question and it makes me want to scream “WHY WOULDN’T THEY?”

I am almost 100% certain that this comes from people claiming listening to Audiobooks isn’t ‘really’ reading. And it screams of close-mindedness to me. I never used to read Audiobooks really until around 2 years ago. I found a love of them throughout lockdown, but it always confused me why people would ever consider the fact that it’s not real reading. Reading is reading no matter what format you prefer. Whether it’s a paperback, an e-reader or an audiobook. One is not superior to the other.

If you’re listening to an unabridged audiobook then you are still ingesting the world in its entirety. It doesn’t matter that you’re listening to it rather than reading it with your own eyes. It still goes into your brain and memory regardless. Some people can’t focus on physically reading because of a number of reasons, some don’t have time to be able to sit for hours on end to read. Audiobooks are perfect for those people. I personally, read physically and listen to audiobooks while on the go. It doubles my reading time which is perfect for me as I put a lot of pressure on myself to read a certain amount.

So let me answer this question once and for all… YES!!!! IT COUNTS!! Let’s stop judging people based on what they read, or how they read and just be happy that people are reading. Any reading is amazing!

And to end off my little rant… here’s three of my all time favourite audiobooks: