This year, I joined nearly 6.5 million other people and set a reading challenge via Goodreads. I love to read, but these days by evening — the time of day I’ve always allotted for reading — I’m falling asleep. Not only is this argument insufferable, made — and I’m just guessing — by insufferable people, it’s also the worst kind of ableism. Either way, listening and reading both engage audiences in the same act of absorbing a story. This idea that listening to books is cheating still circulates, especially when people share their reading lists and brag about their reading challenges — which is when “counting” takes on an even more literal meaning.

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