Tara Volpe, 28, a pharmaceutical sales representative, is an enthusiast. Because she spends a lot of time in her car, she listens while driving to far-flung appointments — even when the books are the assignment for the book group she runs in Sayville, N.Y., made up of women in their 20s and 30s.

Yet her listening pleasure is tinged with guilt. “I know it only matters that I got the content of the book and its ideas,” she said. “But I still feel like I’m trying to cover up an affair.”

Book groups are by all estimates on the rise, thanks in no small part to Oprah Winfrey, whose 11-year-old Oprah’s Book Club not only spurs sales of her selections but inspires viewers to form gaggles to discuss them. About 20 million Americans are members of book groups, double the number just eight years ago, said Diana Loevy, the author of The Book Club Companion.

Question is: do you really get as much out of a book if you listen instead of read?
“If the goal is to appreciate the aesthetic of the writing and understand the story,” said Daniel T. Willingham, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Virginia, then there won’t be much difference between listening and reading. “The basic architecture of how we understand language is much more similar between reading and listening than it is different.”

Zella Ondrey is open about her listening experiences. She recently listened to an abridgement of Ahab’s Wife: Or, the Star-Gazer and admitted as much to her group. Ms. Ondrey said that others in the group seemed to consider themselves more virtuous for having waded through it the old-fashioned way. “I was frowned upon because I didn’t go through the same machinations,” she said.

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