1. For sheer pleasure. There’s something wonderfully enriching about hearing a superb narrator bringing a great story to life, or reading a fascinating non-fiction work to you. It’s like having Derek Jacobi in your living room with some of the greatest works in literature, or having Alex Jennings making you sigh with pleasure at Shakespeare’s sonnets… or having Stephen Fry call by to entertain you, or Martin Jarvis pop in to give you his “Just William” rendition. Comedy, tragedy, popular best-sellers, blood-curdling thrillers, they all gain an extra dimension when narrated or dramatised by the greatest voice actors in the world today.

2. To make a car or plane journey whizz by without boredom for you or the kids. There is nothing to beat the effect of audiobooks in the car for keeping children occupied and happy, leaving you to relax and concentrate on the journey. Or take your mind off the long miles by slipping in the audiocassette or audio CD version of a riveting story. Rather than be at the mercy of radio stations playing things you don’t want to hear, you make the choice… it’s a change from music, and it will keep your interest during the entire journey.

3. To give the benefit of reading to those who are ill or recovering. Rather than worry about turning pages or bearing the weight of a book, the listener can just lie back and luxuriate in the bliss of being read to by some of the world’s greatest actors.

4. To help with studying a book. Some students gain much more information by listening than by physically reading. With so many books available in complete and unabridged format, many students are taking advantage of the listening experience to improve their comprehension of the text. For a student whose visual reading skills don’t provide the best way of comprehending information, it can make so much more sense of the plot and character motiviations to listen to an audiobook narrated by a superb reader.

5. To turn ironing, jogging, tidying up, cooking, fixing the radiator, or any tedious job into a great listening experience! Put the audiobook into your discman, CD player, mp3 player, iPod, or cassette player, and there you are, in another world, while you get on with the necessary tasks. You can keep up to date with the classics you never read, with business audiobooks you don’t have time to read, with humour to make you laugh, or whatever you fancy.

6. To give reluctant readers, those with dyslexia, or those who are visually impaired, the same chance to enjoy books that everyone should have. If print books are difficult or impossible to read, that doesn’t mean books are a literally closed book to you. You can plunge into the world of literature by hearing it – there’s an enormous range to suit every taste.

7. To encourage literacy in children (and even adults). It has been shown that audiobooks are a good tool for this purpose. Children can listen to a story while following it in the print book, or simply listen to gain vocabulary and sentence structure information. By awakening the listener’s imagination, too, the child or adult is encouraged to pursue books and to use their minds to visualise, think, and extend the boundaries of their knowledge. Ability to communicate effectively is an important aspect of our society – good communication skills add to individuals’ qualifications and also their ability to learn.

There are so many reasons to enjoy audiobooks – plunge into the world of audiobooks today!

Please feel free to contact us with any questions.