Craic On

I’m about half way through reading ‘My Brilliant Friend”. I say I’m reading it. I’m actually listening to it as an audio book. There are those that say this isn’t reading at all and that it’s a lesser activity. These people are predominantly people who can see to read a Penguin Classic, which, lets face it, not many of us can do when you consider the meanness of ink and paper involved. Even in the world of sight loss, there are those who share this purist view of reading. They favour the generosity of a braille manuscript, that you need a wheelbarrow to shift. I prefer the audio file. It’s all positional. I agree that the voice of a narrator is a very different experience from the translation of a printed page to a picture in your head, but the audio book, that had its origins in making books accessible to those of us who don’t read print, is in the ascendancy. You don’t have to be blind to appreciate its charms. Everyone is doing it. Back in the day, blind subscribers to the tape library were tre