Thomas Block likes to ride his horse across his sprawling Samsula farm while a World War II drama streams through his ears, the intensity of the battle progressing with each clop of his horse’s feet. With the push of a button, Block has found a way to transform his seemingly routine horseback ride into a pulse-pounding World War II battlefield.

Block, an audiobook narrator and customer, is at the center of a movement that's changing the way we consume books.

“We are in the multitasking period of evolution here,” said Block, who often listens to audiobooks while mowing his lawn or riding his horse. “There are so many instances where an audiobook can keep you company.”

With a growth rate of 30 percent, downloaded audio was the fastest-growing book format over the first three quarters of 2016, according to the Association of American Publishers. Paperbacks followed at 7.5 percent growth.

In a smartphone-driven culture where multitasking is king, even eBooks seem to be losing steam, with the first three quarters of sale figures in 2016 declining 19 percent compared to the same three quarters of 2015.

Closer to home, Volusia County libraries have seen constant growth in the format, said Brook White, the library system's collection development and acquisitions manager. Since the library acquired Hoopla in 2014, one of the library’s audiobook services, White and his team have seen consistent positive growth.

“We have constantly bucked the national average, always," White said, referring to audiobook check-outs. "For us, audiobooks have been around 50 percent and the national average is around 37 percent.”

Volusia County readers, or more accurately, listeners, may be on to something.

“A lot of people appreciate what e-audio is good for,” said White, who suspects many of the Volusia library patrons are devouring audiobooks on their commutes. “Even if it’s just half an hour, I’d rather listen to an audiobook than the radio.”

With audiobook popularity on the rise, the unique niche of audiobook narration is growing. It’s a career that requires a peculiar assortment of skills — the chops of an actor, the technical skills of a millennial, but most of all, a love of the written word.

Block, it turns out, has this unusual combination of skills. At an age most would be happily retired — 72 — he has narrated more than 50 audiobooks, with no intention of slowing down.

Block, it seems, has never been content to slow down. In addition to being a pilot for US Airways for more than 36 years, he used his experience in the sky to pen over seven blood-pumping aviation novels, with titles such as “Skyfall,” “Forced Landing” and “Mayday,” which he co-authored and saw become a television movie in 2005.

After retiring from the airline industry, Block had the time — and the curiosity — to dabble in audiobook narration, a task that turned out to be harder than he anticipated.

“My first audiobooks I produced were horrible, and they were my own books,” said Block. “I didn’t know how to articulate correctly, so my performance skills were weak.”

Block quickly learned that producing audiobooks isn’t as simple as switching on a microphone and settling in with a good book. Technical issues such as sound quality, white noise and volume require a meticulous amount of technical detail, while mastering several distinctly different character voices demands skill and practice.

After a few amateur years of trial and error, Block decided to go professional and invested over $10,000 on a professional sound booth and a few more thousand on a professional microphone, the same type Rush Limbaugh uses.

“I’ve always believed you’re only as good as your equipment,” said Block, a statement that rings true whether flying planes or narrating novels.

With the professional equipment, Block turned his fascination of audiobooks from a hobby to a full-blown career.

These days, in the hours between feeding and caring for the horses on his farm, Block ducks into the dark cave of his audio booth in his home office and narrates for three hours each day, about as much as you can muster with enthusiasm, he said.

During this time, Block alternates between narrating and editing, narrating for about ten minutes and then using several programs to edit out minor inconsistencies such as an exaggerated pronunciation or a slightly long breath between words – details often so minor that the untrained ear might not hear, though Block knows what his audience wants.

“You don’t want big peaks and valleys," he explained. "Audiobook people don’t want to be reaching for the volume.”

All of this editing condenses his narration down into thirty minutes of finished audio, which he uploads to the Audible Creative Exchange website where the author can listen. Knowing he can complete thirty minutes of finished audio per day, Block has his schedule booked out months in advance, the calendar in his sound booth pegged with deadlines for upcoming books.

His investment in audiobook narration has paid off, as Block said he has made his initial investment back and more. Making such an investment so early in a career might have seemed risky to some, but Block had a feeling that he was investing in something with potential.

“I really believed in the format. I think audiobooks are today what eBooks were 15 years ago.”