Here the reader falls asleep in the middle of the talking book: "Is so embarrassing"

Talking books are produced with state support by the Swedish Agency for Accessible Media, MTM, and are legally available for children and adults with perception or reading difficulties.

The books should not be confused with audiobooks produced by the commercial publishers.

But many talking books are of poor quality, says Finn Hellman, a freelance journalist who is also involved in the Left Party in the city of Gothenburg.

Falling asleep in "Night in Caracas"

In the last six months, he has collected several examples of missing readings and compiled them in the mini-documentary The Agency for Napping and Noise.

There is a reader who sleeps soundly for several minutes in the middle of "Night in Caracas" by Karina Sainz Borgo.

Another reader said the US state of Wyoming was wrong seven times.

The book "21 Thoughts on the 21st Century" is disturbed by sharp scratching sounds.

There are also talking books where whole chapters are skipped or when one and the same sentence is read over and over again.

"It is embarrassing"

Finn Hellman thinks that the errors are a mockery of the people who are dependent on talking books and newspapers.

- It is so embarrassing that an authority that makes books available for tax money does not care about having a higher quality of its products.

The blame should not be placed on the readers, he says.

Finn Hellman questions why proofreading is not better and why stricter requirements are not placed on suppliers.

- How can they continue?

If they do not live up to their agreements, it must have consequences.

"Take it very seriously"

Eva-Lena Silwerfeldt, communications strategist at MTM, responds in an email to Kulturnyheterna.

“We take this very seriously and errors that affect the content or that make the content unavailable should of course not occur.

We have requested correction of the current titles and in some cases a completely new reading.

We now have a dialogue with all suppliers to ensure that all quality routines are followed as they should and that dialogue must be conducted before we can decide whether further consequences will be relevant. ”