Something about this article in the New York Times made me sad.

But the latest schism in the living room lit-fests is not over whom they read, but if they read.

Is it acceptable, they debate within and among themselves, to listen to that month’s book rather than read it? Or is that cheating, like watching the movie instead of reading the book?

Because audio enthusiasts generally listen aloud in a private space like their cars or with headphones, they are spared having to publicly defend the format. When they join reading groups, however, they enter what can be enemy territory, where dyed-in-the-wool bibliophiles want to hear nothing of a book but the crack of its spine.

Really?  Is this an actual issue for book groups or is it another NYT “three of my friends told me this, so it must be a national trend” story?

In school, when plays were assigned, we were always encouraged to augment our reading with performances, as plays were better seen and heard than read. No one ever suggested that the reverse was true, that “real” literature could only be taken in via print. Incidentally, the article compares audio books to seeing the movie rather than reading the book or using Cliff’s Notes. Movies usually change so much of the plotline, that it strikes me as a false comparison- you can’t write a paper or discuss a book well if you’ve only seen the movie. Which is not to say that screen adaptations of books aren’t worthwhile, just that it’s an apples and oranges situation. Cliff’s Notes are a different animal altogether. Once again, I’ll draw on the attitude of my educational institutions: Cliff’s Notes could get students expelled. Audiobooks were never mentioned in the student handbook.

First of all, not everyone takes in information in the same way. Some people really need to hear things to absorb them. Are these “dyed-in-the-wool bibliophiles” suggesting that aural learners are inferior? The story opens with a group of teachers who judge their librarian harshly for listening to their club selections. I shudder for their students. Hopefully, none of them have ever had a student who learns differently from them. Sadly, this is probably not the case.

Secondly, my heart sinks at the thought that true bibliophiles are those who take no pleasure from their reading. The use of the word “cheating” to describe listening to a book implies that reading is a chore or test. I can’t imagine why anyone would care how the rest of their book group consumed that month’s selection. If reading a book is so much work that you begrudge someone else their unabridged audiobook, then perhaps Nancy Pearl’s fifty page rule ought to be applied?

Really, we should all have so much time on our hands that we can squander it worrying about other people’s reading habits!