Tried audiobooks vs physical books for our club debate

Our book club had a huge fight about how to read the monthly pick. Half of us swore by physical copies, half used audiobooks. I tested both for last month's 350-page mystery. The audiobook took me 8 hours total while commuting and doing dishes. The physical book took 6 days of sitting down and focusing. But here's the thing - I caught way more clues and character names in the audiobook version. Has anyone else compared the two formats and found one gives you better discussion points?

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quinnbailey2mo ago

Ran my own little test on this for a thriller last month. Caught way more foreshadowing in the audiobook because the narrator paused at the right spots, but I kept zoning out during slower parts. Physical book let me flip back and check stuff, which helped for the discussion, but I forgot half the character names by the time we met. Best thing I did was listen to the first half on my commute then read the second half on paper over the weekend.

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simon3782mo ago

Ha, that commute then weekend switch is genius, @quinnbailey. I did the same thing with a long fantasy series last year, but the other way around: read the first two books physically to keep all the side characters straight, then switched to audio for the final one during a week of long drives. The narrator's voices actually made the big battle scenes less of a slog, which was huge for me. But yeah, I also missed a bunch of setup from the earlier books because I couldn't flip back, so I got spoiled on a twist that was totally hinted at. It's like you gotta pick your cheat code, paper for clues or audio for momentum.

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