Is Listening to a Book the Same Thing as Reading It?

I would say that I am mostly unhappy with audiobooks that discuss more technical subjects and happier with novels. In addition I find foreign language texts easier to read than to listen to. That probably supports the author's claim that the additional strategies available in reading are useful as complexity increases.

As regards audiobooks as works of art in themselves:

- Some readers are atrocious: there is nothing more jarring than hearing a word mispronounced, a change of rhythm or volume, an over-exaggeration of pitch, or even worse a deadpan, flat stilted delivery.

- Some readers are just not appropriate for the subject matter: USians reading works set in the UK and vice versa.

- If you like the Patrick O'Briain Aubrey/Maturin stories (set around the Napoleonic wars as conducted at sea) I would like to make a strong recommendation that you get hold of the readings by Patrick Tull. He has the most fantastically appropriate delivery, range and pronounciation for this series: https://www.audible.com/search?searchNarrator=Patrick+Tull

- Not all audiobooks are controlled by the Audible monopoly. And out of the alternatives Librivox had a (IMO) star reader in the human form of Andy Minter (RIP) who is on cracking form with this rendition of a Ruritanian escapade: https://librivox.org/the-prisoner-of-zenda-by-anthony-hope/