Road Raves

Is Jan Nathan crazy?

There she was, not too long ago, stuck in a car, wedged among a stream of bumpers, inching along Sunset Boulevard and wishing for more traffic.

That’s right, wishing for more traffic.

During the lengthy commute from the South Bay to the Westside, Nathan listened, enthralled, to the unabridged audio version of “The New New Thing,” a biography of Netscape founder Jim Clark.

“[The audiobook] was fascinating,” recalled Nathan, executive director of the Audio Publishers Assn., or APA. “I wanted to keep listening. I thought, ‘Please give me more traffic.’ ”

Indeed, traffic can be good for the brain.

Southern California’s jammed freeways provide the perfect opportunity for building vocabulary, comprehending narratives, offering literary enlightenment and encouraging thousands of people to read books, a growing number of experts say.

Just pop in a book on tape or a compact disc--perhaps Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Angela’s Ashes” or a biography of Sidney Poitier, narrated by the Oscar-winning actor himself.

Without doing anything more than just listening, a person can “help to develop a literate mind,” said Laurie MacGillivray, an associate education professor at USC’s Rossier School of Education. “They entice listeners to pick up books. They have the potential to build vocabulary.”

They’re also increasingly popular. Last year, a survey for the association found that 21% of the nation’s households have listened to audiobooks in the last year, up from 12% in 1995.

The Manhattan Beach-based association, which has 250 corporate members, estimated that sales of audiobooks have reached $2 billion. Audiobooks can be purchased for $5.99 to $100, checked out from public libraries or rented from companies. Their popularity stems from today’s bustling high-tech society, say publishers, librarians and education professors.

The demand has prompted audio-publishers to churn out abridged and unabridged versions of classic and best-selling fiction, nonfiction and poetry. There’s even a 52-cassette recording of the King James version of the Bible.

Mind-Candy or Enrichment?

Some contend that audiobooks are mind-candy for the lazy, or may actually deceive a listener into believing he is engaged in a literary pursuit.

That’s the feeling of Willy Ackerman, an English teacher at Kennedy High School in Granada Hills. Although she may read a few passages of a book out loud to her students, Ackerman said the best way to master reading is to read.

“Difficult reading helps us to become better readers,” she said. “Easy reading helps us to become faster readers. That’s how you improve.

“You can say whatever you want, but listening to a book [on tape] is certainly not the same as reading it,” she said. “That’s like saying, ‘I have seen the movie, ergo I have read the book.’ ”

Yet others say audio versions of heavyweights such as “War and Peace” or Winston Churchill’s biography can introduce listeners to books they might have otherwise ignored.

It’s the same logic that parallels studies showing that children who are read to become more interested in reading itself, said Jeff McQuillan, an assistant education professor at Arizona State University who wrote “The Literacy Crisis: False Claims, Real Solutions.”

Reading out loud “gets kids interested in stories, motivates them to go out and find books on their own to read, and exposes them to vocabulary they would not otherwise encounter,” McQuillan said. “Audiobooks are merely electronic versions of the same principle.”

The survey found that almost half of all audiobooks are used in the car, when conventional reading is not only virtually impossible but downright dangerous.

“You can’t read in the car,” said USC’s MacGillivray.

Southern Californians have plenty of time to learn. Last year, the Texas Transportation Institute ranked Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties as the nation’s most congested area for the 14th year in a row. And the Southern California Assn. of Governments has predicted that it will get worse by 2010, with average rush-hour speeds declining from 35 mph to 15 mph.

Then there’s history, say tape proponents. Although they may strike some as a novelty, audiobooks are rooted in the primitive oral tradition of telling tales around the hearth. Or at least in the mid-20th century, when families gathered around the radio for stories.

The audio publishing industry began with records. Many cite Caedmon’s 1952 recording of Dylan Thomas reading his own “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” as the first such recording. Audio publishing has evolved into using cassette tapes and CDs.

In recent years, audiotapes have moved into the schools. Language tapes are a staple in teaching foreign languages. Several studies, including one published this year in the Journal of Educational Psychology, indicated that students for whom English is a second language were more motivated to read when they had tapes to use along with their books.

Listening along can enable such students at all ages--as well as those who speak English but struggle with reading--to hear how words are pronounced and what they mean, literacy experts say.

In a similar way, audiobooks also allow listeners to distinguish the writer’s personality and tone, especially when an author such as Maya Angelou is reading her own work. According to case studies in AudioFile, a 10,000-circulation magazine, tapes also help listeners understand dialect and detect literary nuances, such as foreshadowing and symbolism.

Nationwide, many high school English and history teachers use audiobooks to supplement class reading assignments. At Westbrook High School in Maine, an English teacher assigned her 11th-grade students to listen to audiobooks, write book reports, and give class presentations on them, according to AudioFile.

The classroom discussions touched on traits important in oral communication: dialogue, pace, character voice and involvement of the narrator. The teacher declared the experiment a success, with students enthusiastic about the unconventional approach to literature to the point they improved their listening and literacy skills, the magazine article reported.

Presence in School Libraries

In the 711,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District, schools have a small collection of audiobooks, with sizes varying from campus to campus, said Marilyn Robertson, an L.A. Unified librarian and California School Library Assn. president.

Although she and others recognized that books on tape can help literacy, Robertson said the district’s main priority is weeding out old library books to make room for the new.

“[Audiobooks] can be useful, but right now the focus is on books,” Robertson said. “Besides, some English teachers were not that keen on kids listening to books.”

But Alvin Armer, 41, of Newport Beach, said he never would have improved his literacy skills if he weren’t a fan of books on tape. As a sales representative of medical equipment and supplies, Armer estimated he drives 1,500 to 2,000 miles a month across Southern California.

About seven years ago, Armer listened to his first book on tape, John Grisham’s “The Firm.” Before audiobooks, Armer said, he read a book or two a year; now he reads at least six.

“I enjoy a good story,” Armer said. “It’s funny but [audiobooks] regained my interest in reading. When I’d come home, I didn’t want to listen to tapes but I still wanted to engage in a good story, so I started reading a lot.”