Do you hear the magic?

I started my first audiobook.
 

Actually when I was a kid my mother had bought to me and my sister some amazing fairy tales. But it wasn't only a book. It was a whole series of books and tapes so you could see the pictures and listen to the story at the same time! We were thrilled! So we would sit on the floor, play the tapes and inspect the drawings on the hardback before us. It was a dream. I still remember the tinkling sound that warned us to flip the page. 

Dink!
 

After that, there was only books, regular books not even with pictures because I had grown up! Well, you know what? Audio books are not only for little kids. So, here I am listening Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman.
 

Oh, how much I love his voice in my ears, the way he narrates his stories, the sound of the words as he pronounces them. 

I had the false impression that I wouldn't connect with a story that I didn't read. I thought that the narrator's voice would mess with my imagination, somehow stopping me from create my own pictures. My own version of the story.
 

Well, no. This is not the case at all. I was so wrong.
 

I lie in bed, close my eyes and let the story be told. It's easier for me to create images when a beautiful voice whispers the words and as the story moves on, it's like I'm watching a play, not listening a book.
There is a different magic in hearing a book and reading it, and it confuses me. I want to read it but I also want to hear it too. It's addictive.
 

What is good about the audiobooks is that you can hear it when you're tired, or so squeezed into the subway that you can't even move your hands. But wherever you are listening, you do connect to the story and when it is the writer who narrates his own book ... well, it is pure magic.

Do you hear audiobooks, do you like them? If you had to choose between a book and an audiobook, what would you choose? 

Have a great day!