Nothing makes the best of a long car trip or a boring hour on the treadmill like listening to an audio book. (We’ll save the question of whether it’s healthy to fill every moment with entertainment, never experiencing the solitude of one’s own mind, for another day.) From the standpoint of pure enjoyment of story, audio books absolutely count. I hear great things about Audible.com (which partially inspired this post), and I don’t deny that listening to The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, read by John Cleese, was every bit as awesome as you’re probably imagining it was.

However, what if you read for more than the pleasure of a tale well-told? If the wisdom and warnings here (courtesy of the wonderful quote archive at Goodreads.com) catch you right in the gut, read on …

“No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.” -Confucius

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” -Mark Twain

“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.” -William Faulkner

  “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” -Stephen King

Some years ago I had the privilege of participating in a small-group seminar by Harvard professor Howard Gardner, discussing his theory of multiple intelligences as a part of a fellowship that centered around a theme of making connections between disciplines. If you were to remark, “I haven’t got a lot of book smarts, but I can play any instrument you put in front of me,” then you would be intuitively acknowledging the theory of multiple intelligences. We observe and process data through various sensory experiences, and we all have our different talents. As for me, I wrote nice essays in school, but at the pep rallies I couldn’t clap on a beat if my life depended on it. No sense of rhythm at all.

The crux of the matter is this: I’m starting to think about my 2013 reading goal. I’ve already decided that instead of reading whatever happens to be in arm’s reach, I need to make a concerted effort toward both the currents and the classics. Since reading a book and listening to it are two different sensory experiences, my question — does listening to audio books count as reading? — matters to me not on an entertainment level, but on a personal and professional development level. For example, audio books may certainly allow me to seize time that wouldn’t otherwise be available for reading, but they won’t do a thing toward improving my spelling.

Other questions:

• Does listening to the spoken rhythm of sentences impart the nuances of sentence structure?
• In sciency terms, does auditory experience get processed by different parts of the brain than visual experience?
• Are readers more actively engaged with texts than listeners, and if so, might listening to books promote mental laziness?

I don’t know the answers to these questions or how much those answers matter. I do know that I remember information differently depending on whether I heard it or read it — and I’m much more likely to remember facts and phrases I read.

Again, nothing against audio books as entertainment! I simply wonder if auditory reading equals the experience of visual reading. Does it fight ignorance and give advantage in the same measure? Is it absorbed in the same way? Does it sharpen the same tools?

I’d love to know your opinion!