Is listening to a book the same as reading it?

According to a New York Times article, some book clubs consider it cheating to listen to a book instead of reading it. Many years ago, when I was doing my undergraduate thesis, I first ran across the story that Augustine tells about Ambrose:

When [Ambrose] read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still. Anyone could approach him freely and guests were not commonly announced, so that often, when we came to visit him, we found him reading like this in silence, for he never read aloud.

I was waiting for this story to quote that anecdote, but seeing as it appears in the Fashion section instead of the Arts section, maybe I was expecting too much.

But I have to say that I’m mystified why people think that listening to a book is somehow inferior to reading. There are some books that are made to be read aloud.

Memoirs of a Geisha: I always think that I must have read it because some of the scenes are so vivid in my mind. This is when I discovered that historical romances in particular lend themselves well to being heard rather than read.

In the Company of the Courtesan: I had read (really read) Sarah Dunant’s Birth of Venus, so I was reasonably sure that this book would lend itself well to being heard. I think that as we get older, and as we become more and more like Ambrose, we forget the pleasure of being told a story. This is a story for grownups, but it will still give you that dreamy feeling you got when your mother or teacher read to you. Unfortunately, Amazon seems to carry only the abridged version of the CD.

Don’t bother with the abridged version of a book if you can help it. You get no points for reading… er, hearing a third of the story in half the time. Just as you don’t want to wake up too soon from a pleasant dream, there’s no reason to cheat yourself of hearing the full story.