When Shilajit Mitra, an avid reader who is fond of his hardcovers and Kindle, first discovered audiobooks, he found the experience was “like listening to an audio play or to a sitcom.” The narrator’s voice was engaging, the background sound effects had dramatic impact, and the episodic transitions between different parts of the book and characters in the story were seamless. “It helped me finish heavy books, including some that I had procrastinated on reading since my college days,” he shares. Among them was Bertrand Russell’s 900-and-something-pages-long ‘A History of Western Philosophy’. 

“Though listening to fiction is easier than non-fiction, one can easily listen to conceptual books chapter wise. Audiobooks give us that sense of time,” adds Mitra, who is a journalist by profession.