According to media reports, in 2020, 31.6% of Chinese adults formed the habit of listening to books, an increase of 1.3 percentage points over the previous year; In 2020, the per capita reading volume of audio books was 6.3, an increase of 5.5% over the previous year. According to a relevant person from China Press and Publication Research Institute, at present, it has become normal for book publishing and audio books to be planned, produced and distributed simultaneously; The long audio field has become a new hot spot in the industry competition -- in 2020, the scale of China's long audio market was 27.24 billion yuan, with a growth rate of 54.9%. Although we are not sure whether the data of "6.3 audio books per capita" is reliable, it is a fact that more and more people listen to books. In recent years, among urban white-collar workers and college students, almost everyone has several people listening to books with headphones. From paper books to e-books, and then to today's audio books, the media of people's "reading" are changing, becoming increasingly rich and diverse, which has obvious benefits for the improvement of national reading level. It is a common practice to count the reading data of Chinese people on the reading day every year, and this data is often unsatisfactory. The statistical results of "less reading" always make people sad and lament that "the original Chinese don't read". Compared with some foreign countries with high reading rate, combined with the needs of China's rapid economic and social development, the reading volume of Chinese people is certainly insufficient. Nowadays, with audio books, people don't have to find time to read with this book. Theoretically, the reading rate of Chinese people will be improved accordingly. This is the reading bonus brought by audio books. Of course, audio books also have their limitations. From the popular categories of audio books, they are mainly some novels, inspirational books, biographies, historical popular science and other books. These types of books are shallow reading content and easy to understand. When people listen to these books, they are mainly listening to stories. However, if you want to read an academic work or a professional book, audio book is not necessarily a very appropriate choice. One may choose to listen to the romance of the Three Kingdoms online, but it is difficult to read the chronicles of the Three Kingdoms through audio books. There is no denying the meaning of audio books here. It is not to compare paper books with audio books, but to say that audio books have their specific scope of use. For some popular books that do not need to spend too much thought, audio books are a good choice, and even have more advantages than paper books. However, audio books can not cover everything. There are books in some fields, and paper books can better meet the needs of readers. In this pluralistic era, paper books and audio books can coexist. They each meet the needs of people with different reading needs. In fact, people who listen to books will certainly read paper books, and people who are used to reading paper books will also choose to listen to books under appropriate scenarios. As long as it can meet the individual's information intake needs, it is a good "book". For the popularity of audio books, we really don't have to worry about squeezing the paper book market and leading to the decline of reading quality. The reason why audio books can gradually occupy a certain market proves that they have their own "niche" in the reading market. In the whole huge reading territory, paper books are still the mainstream, and the Millennium tradition will not be lost so easily. Just as the popularity of e-books in previous years still failed to shake the absolute dominance of paper books. No matter what kind of book media appears, we should maintain a tolerant and welcoming attitude. In terms of the current audio reading market, there are still many deficiencies. For example, some books are only read by machine, the rhythm is not natural enough, and can not accurately convey the author's emotion and the hidden meaning of words. There are also some audio books with rough production, noisy background, and even random advertising, which greatly destroys the listening experience. As an emerging market with a large influx of capital, this industry still has many rules and standards to be established. Only standardized growth can make the industry evergreen. Chen Jiru of the Ming Dynasty said that "reading is a pure land everywhere, and closing the door is a deep mountain". Audio books add a new footnote to this sentence. Whether this emerging "reading industry" can go on depends on the results of market test. (Xinhua News Agency)