Do formats change the soul of reading—or just the way we enter a story?

There was a time when books were far more than ink and paper. Bound in leather, their pages softened with age, they exhaled a musty perfume that felt like history itself. To gift a book was to gift a piece of your soul. To place them on shelves was to reveal your inner landscape, chapter by chapter, spine by spine.

Then publishing reinvented itself. Bright covers, bold typography, glossy finishes, foil embossing, and striking author portraits ushered in a new era: the coffee-table book. Stories became décor, conversation starters, status symbols. Books were no longer just read — they were displayed, admired, Instagrammed.

And then, quietly and efficiently, came the Kindle.

I resisted at first. As someone who savoured the rustle of turning pages and the earthy sweetness of paper, reading on a screen felt almost disloyal. But practicality has a seductive logic. A slim device that could hold hundreds of books — and still fit into a bag already overflowing with wipes, crayons, receipts, and a child’s abandoned toy — was hard to ignore.

Soon reading became weightless, portable, and gloriously clutter-free. You could sample chapters before buying, avoid overflowing bookshelves, save a few trees, and slip a personal library into your pocket. Despite a lingering nostalgia, the Kindle and I settled into a comfortable truce. I even found joy in naming my virtual “shelves.”

Just when that peace felt complete, another revolution arrived: audiobooks.

I dismissed them at first—surely they were for children, for commuters too distracted to “really read.” But suddenly everyone seemed to be listening. People strode through parks with Pride and Prejudice whispering through their earbuds. Instagram feeds casually switched from “Currently reading” to “Currently listening.”

Science seemed to validate the shift. A 2019 study revealed that listening and reading activate similar brain regions, with nearly comparable comprehension. And yet, emotionally, something felt different. Reading is an act of stillness — sitting with words, lingering on sentences, choosing your own rhythm. An audiobook hands that intimacy to a narrator, whose cadence might not match the voice you imagined.

There’s also the multitasking trap. Audiobooks accompany laundry folding, dinner planning, inbox clearing — until suddenly, whole chapters have vanished into distraction. The eyes stay busy elsewhere while the mind drifts. With a physical book or Kindle, your attention stays anchored to the page.

Still, audiobooks have expanded the universe of reading. They make literature more inclusive, more accessible, more adaptable to modern, multitasking lives. They fit into commutes, workouts, and the quiet minutes between responsibilities. In widening the door to stories, they’ve earned their place.

Perhaps, then, the question isn’t which format is better but what kind of reader you are.

Are you the kind who dog-ears favourite pages and scribbles in margins?

The kind who highlights furiously on a Kindle?

Or the multitasker who rewinds 15 seconds after realising your mind wandered?

In the end, what matters is showing up for the story — however you arrive.

Books, whatever shape they take, still lift us into other worlds. They still let us live a thousand lives. They still leave their mark.

And yet, between you and me…

there’s still nothing in the world quite like the warm, nostalgic scent of an old book.