The audiobooks they have their space in bookstores. Small, but they have it. Perhaps with the most classic titles almost always, but there are also many new features. However, what demand is there for the regular reader without visual or reading difficulties? ¿Save maybe a tiempo in that reading that visually takes us more? ¿Capture all our attention? Do we "get" both into the story and when we follow it with our eyes? We'll see reasons to give them a try or try them, at least.

A few days ago I remembered the Stories by Juan José Plans. Those dramatized recordings of classics of horror literature kept us with all our attention and imagination going. And in the wee hours of the morning.

Well, an audiobook is nothing more than that. A book on a regular physical CD with the sound recording of a written story, also dramatized by actors, with music and sound effects. Many readers remember fondly the cassettes of tales that we heard in our childhood.

And, saving the distances, the concept is that. Only the format and the playback media have changed. But from a children's story like Blue Beard, which perhaps lasted 15 minutes, now we can get with War and peace or The guide of Tormes, for example. The question that may be able to put us back is the quality of that recording. And above all, the attention span. But they don't have to. Also, you buy them for Internet or whatever and you have them easily available in your tablet or .

Let's see some reasons to pay a little more attention to them.

You can hear them like the radio

When you go to work, on the subway, on the bus… Although we must be careful with what we choose so as not to fall back into the rich dream we had left behind.

You can also listen to them by doing the house chores. Maybe one washes the dishes better with The buscón of Quevedo. Or the boring treadmill in the gym pick up a rhythm with the Extraordinary stories by Poe. Why just music or political morning gatherings?

Those minutes of rest

Just when you come home after work and want disconnect. That time after dinner, with the impossible TV programming. Yes, you run the risk of completely disconnecting. But with a book in your hands there is more danger that you will crush your nose when you drop it. With the audiobook, you may run out of battery, batteries, the chapter or the entire book. But your nose will stay in place.

Very light travel companions

That flight to Fiji or London. The Orient Express or the Transcantábrico. That cruise through the Baltics or the Volga. With your mobile and headphones. And that's it. Hit the play and evokes the most Russian soul with The captain's daughter by Alexander Pushkin.

There are so many books on my list and so little time ...

However maybe to listen to them there is. There are people who can listen to music and read - for me it is something inexplicable - but everyone is everyone. You just have to change that music for attention and abandonment in the sounds of the rough sea sailing on Captain Aubrey's Surprise.

Ideal for learning, improving or practicing another language

For example, for the language of Shakespeare, but they are the same for that of Molière, Goethe or Dante. Or whatever. Those terrible exercises listening that could never be practiced in the academy, the career, the course ... No problem. Audios from FCE, CAE, TOEIC, TOELF. OR The Crow by Poe voiced by Christopher Lee.

So why not?

One more way of approaching literature, because you have to keep it close at all times and whatever it is. Not only for those who have some kind of visual impairment, but for the laziest who do not even look at a physical or digital book.