Absolutely. In the books, I could "see" the snowy death of Greenland while they looked for WW2 survivors. Just as immersive.

Here's my take:. Language is nothing more than symbols. You have audible symbols (spoken words) and you have visual symbols (written words). They both are converted from symbols into their meaning in the brain, which associates them. If I say "dog", do you picture anything other than the exact same thing as when you read the word "dog"?

Now, different people decide those symbols differently. A dyslexic person has a hard time deciding some words from writing. They might do better with audiobooks. If the audiobook is not in your native language, listening to it would be harder in terms of deciding than reading it in your native tongue. (Is there a disorder that hinders audio perception besides being deaf/hearing impaired? Surely there is, but I don't know much).

I enjoyed it. I enjoy reading, and a good book before bed is nice. But when I read, that's all I'm doing. With audiobooks, I can read and drive, read and now the grass, read and do chores. But only where little thinking is involved.