Now hear this, it’s not reading

No. It is not.

Of the many things in my life that I will ultimately be proven wrong by reality, circumstances, or science, on this one I will refuse to budge.

Listening is not the same as reading.

Someone reading, for example, “Grapes of Wrath to me is not the same as my reading the book.

This picayune principle feels particularly relevant this time of year as a myriad of summer reading lists and challenges are offered as aspirational pastimes to be pursued now through Labor Day.

Libraries in Chula Vista and National City recently kicked off their summer reading programs as did the county at its Bonita branch library.

Some are even offering prizes. But if any of the participants—or readers in general—claim they read a book when they actually listened to it,

I will wish upon them curses.

May all their audiofiles be corrupted. May the books they listen to be spoken in a mix of Old Norse and Latin. May all the narrators sound like Fran Drescher’s “The Nanny.” May the listening device you are “reading on” be irreversibly muted when it’s time for the denouement.

I don’t care how many book influencers, book club members, play-date parents, critics, authors or even librarians tell me listening to an audiobook is the same as reading. In a poll I conducted at the exclusive and elite one-member book club I founded the vote was unanimous: No, it is not.

I recognize even science is against me on this quibble. Sort of. Neuroscientists out of U.C. Berkely and Harvard in separate studies point out that the same parts of the brain are engaged whether a person is reading or listening to an audiobook.

Science schmience!

When was the last time you went to a concert and called it reading, even though you were listening to someone recite words to you albeit in lyrical form? When you listen to your best friend yap about the latest office gossip, are you reading? When a work colleague drones on during a meeting that could have been an email, are they in fact reading to you? Of course they are not.

Ultimately we are conveying and consuming information and that’s what these summer activities are celebrating. Just don’t call it reading if you’re using your ears.