It’s not reading. Consuming is a better way to put it. Just like how the radio is not a newspaper and twitch streams aren’t gaming.

You get a very different experience with text compared to audio and it changes how the book is written. You can tell the author was trying to make an audio book. Like how TV TV and Netflix TV are very different because they have to conform to their format. The best written books are often ones where I find myself slowing down, rereading, or doing research in the middle and none of this is possible if my hands are occupied.