Audiobook publishing is booming. Last year publishers took in nearly a billion dollars, up 28 per cent from the previous one. The smartphone has made it easy to listen anywhere. But the accessibility of the audiobook accounts for only part of its dramatic growth. There’s a unique power in hearing a good book read well, one that, in my opinion, makes listening sometimes preferable to reading.
I’ve listened to audiobooks all my adult life. Hearing Robert Donat’s poetry recordings first hooked me. Before his early death in 1958 and despite chronic asthma, Donat recorded several discs of poetry that remain the gold standard of what can be called “the heard word”. Donat’s tender rendering of the Prayer of St Francis of Assisi was played at the actor’s funeral service.
