Jim Harris, a lifelong bookworm, cracked the covers of only four books last year. But he listened to 54, all unabridged. He listened to Harry Potter and Moby Dick, books by Don DeLillo and Stephen King. He listened in the car, while eating lunch, doing the dishes, sitting in doctors' offices and climbing the stairs at work.
"I haven't read this much since I was in college," said Harris, 53, a computer programmer in Memphis, Tennessee. And yes, he does consider it "reading."
"I dislike it when I meet people who feel listening is inferior," he said.
Fortunately for Harris, the ranks of the reading purists are dwindling. Fewer Americans are reading books than a decade ago, according to the National Endowment for the Arts, but almost a third more are listening to them on tapes, CDs and iPods.
For a growing group of devoted listeners, the popularity of audio books is redefining the notion of reading, which for centuries has been centered on the written word. Traditionally, it is also an activity that has required one's full attention.
But audio books, once seen as a kind of oral CliffsNotes for reading lightweights, have seduced members of a literate-but-busy crowd by allowing them to read while doing something else. Digital audio that can be zapped onto an MP3 player is also luring converts. The iPod Mini holds about 30 books; the newest ones include a setting that speeds up the narration without raising the pitch.
"I wish I had had this feature while listening to Crime and Punishment," said Lee Kyle, 41, a math teacher in Austin, Texas, who now listens in bed instead of reading. It's more relaxing, he said, and he doesn't have to bother his wife with the light.
Audio books, which still represent only about 3 percent of all books sold, do not exactly herald a return to the Homeric tradition. But their growing popularity has sparked debate among readers, writers and cultural critics about the best way to consume literature.
"I think every writer would rather have people read books, committed as we are to the word," said Frank McCourt, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his memoir, Angela's Ashes. "But I'd rather have them listen to it than not at all."
To make the audio version of his books more tolerable, McCourt said, he insists on narrating them himself. "Actors are always doing this phony breathing," McCourt said.
Among the questions facing audio book connoisseurs: Which is better suited to the format, fiction or nonfiction? Can a bad narrator ruin a great book? If you've listened to a book, have you really "read" it?
Rich Cohen, the author of Tough Jews, has found short stories are best while walking his dog on Manhattan's Upper West Side, because of the likelihood of distraction and the difficulty in rewinding.
"Sometimes your dog will attack another dog and you're pulled completely out of the book," explained Cohen, who has experimented with various genres since discovering he could purchase audio books from Apple's on-line music store.
A book about string theory by the physicist Brian Greene proved entirely unable to hold Cohen's auditory attention, as did Hamlet. With Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, however, he had the multitasking satisfaction of digesting a book he had always been curious about but did not want to devote time to actually reading.
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