Last year, I started listening to books on my smartphone via Audible.com. I spend so much daily time looking at a computer screen that my eyes are tired at night, making it hard to read. And listening to books gives me greater flexibility. I can be absorbed in Ruth Ozaki’s For the Time Being while I’m housecleaning, walking the dog, or working out at the gym. But there are other, deeper pleasures.

For one thing, as a writer, I learn my craft by listening to another writer’s cadence – the way a sentence strikes my ear, the nifty turn of phrase or dialogue, the artful (or clumsy) unspooling of the narrative.

On another level, listening to stories is an exercise in childlike nostalgia – I remember how soothing and nurturing it was to have my mother read to me.

When the human race was at a more child-like level, stories were told aloud. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were structured so they could be memorized and recited in rhythmic incantations. In my mind’s eyes, I see those ancient audiences, sated by wine, warmed by fire, listening in trance-like pleasure as the poet recounted tales of their mythical gods and heroes.

Nowadays, my metaphorical campfire is digital (plugged into earbuds and smartphone), but the powerful spell of a well-told story is the same.

However: there are cons to listening versus reading. For instance, I live in the Seattle area on a traffic-heavy street and it’s suicidal to run while listening, AND running with a dog.

Also, listening means the narrative is in your head, not written on a page. So if I want to go back and reexamine a certain part in the story, it takes much longer to find that place. Audible has “bookmarks,” but that feature doesn’t allow for a reader’s “backward reflection.” I can’t always tell at the moment of hearing that I want to bookmark something. It’s tedious to replay a digital download, especially since Audible’s breakdown of chapters is so ridiculously different from the written book’s delineation. Much quicker to leaf through a book to find that special scene or bit of beautiful writing.

So far, I can’t determine if I remember audible books differently than real books. Maybe there’s a special neural pathway connection between our eyes, our brain, and the written word that can’t be duplicated with aural words. If anyone knows of research done in this area, let me know.

Regardless of whether I “hear” or “read” a book, what sticks in my memory about a book is character. The narrator Ruth in Ozaki’s For the Time Being. Eli the patriarch in Philipp Meyer’s The Son. Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel’s historic novels. Gatsby and Nick Carraway.

What do you remember from books? Character? The plot? Theme?