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I find this discussion(reading vs. listening to audio books) to be quite fascinating. Historically, in many cultures at different periods of time, written books were read aloud by servants or slaves to their masters. In some languages (Arabic for examples) the words for "reading" and "recitation" are the same. Even in Victorian times it was common for books to be read aloud. Dickens used to read excerpts (or in the case of "A Christmas Carol" the whole work) to rapt audiences. If every word of the original work is being impressed upon your consciousness such that you can discuss it intelligently, I think that that one claim to have read it. Mind you, as Muslim, I am heir to a culture in which transmission is both oral and literary but which privileges having "heard" a book from a qualified teacher, so I may be biased.
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