I want to address the 'listening isn't really reading' argument one more time, because I keep encountering it in reading communities and I think it's worth engaging seriously.

The argument usually goes: reading requires the conversion of visual symbols to meaning, and listening bypasses this conversion, therefore they're different cognitive activities. This is empirically true — fMRI studies show different activation patterns. But different doesn't mean lesser. Oral tradition predates literacy. Humans are exquisitely adapted to process meaning from spoken language.

The more interesting question is: does the medium change what you get from a text? And I think the answer is sometimes yes, in ways worth acknowledging. Dense lyric prose reads differently than it listens. Poetry almost certainly needs to be both heard and seen. But a plot-driven novel, a memoir, a linear argument — these translate to audio with almost no loss. The medium matters, but not in the absolute way the gatekeeping crowd suggests.