Do you need complete silence to read books?

It might be auditory processing disorder. The second more than one person is talking (and books count) I begin to crave death.

How else would I hear the narrator in my head?
- Same I can’t belive there’s people who don’t hear thoughts like that. I couldn’t see myself reading nearly as much as I do if I couldn’t “hear” it when I’m reading
  
  i feel like i'm the opposite, if i'm still "hearing" the words after a few paragraphs then something is wrong, it's more like a movie, the words aren't even there
- Been reading Dan Simmons Drood. There are two characters who I can hear. They sound like the boss guard in Alien 3, also the sergeant from Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment. No idea which English accent that is, can't even imitate it IRL, but I can hear it.
  
  Any suggestions on best Pratchett novel to start with?

I don't need it, strictly speaking, but I definitely prefer it. White noise is okay if I need to drown other sound out.

I don't really need silence to read, but I much prefer it.
Getting really good noise cancelling headphones was one of my best qol improvement in the last years. I often wear them without even listing to anything.

No but I need complete silence when I fall asleep trying to read a book though.

I don’t need silence, I usually read to instrumental music. But if you throw in any lyrics or speak while I’m reading I’ll look at you angrily get up and move.

I need complete silence for stuff that require precision and concentration, working and reading are the main ones. I could read manga or something in a not so quiet environment but that's it.
- Same. Give me an anechoic chamber. I want venous hum.

Not at all.
I grew up in a big family, in a busy household. My kids laugh at me because when reading (and it really is only when I am reading) I tune out everything. They would be yelling "mom! MOM!" and I wouldn't notice.

No. I would read on the bus. I can read in the most crazy of spaces....
The Expanse was something I was absolutely absorbed with. Each new book was magic to my imagination.
I rode public transit and had to walk a lot to get to work, through downtown Seattle
I would read and walk, I knew the best/optimal path that would have the least traffic and still get me to work on time. My bosses boss found me one day reading and waiting for the crosswalk and then crossing in rush hour traffic and it blew her mind. I was listening to the world around me but I was in that book!
- The Expanse is some of the finest fiction (and TV!) I've ever experienced. Holding off on a 3rd read because there's so much more out there I've never touched.
  
  I was once again pitching the Expanse to my sister tonight. To anyone who hasn't dove in: if you're nerdy enough for the fediverse; you'll love it.

No, but it depends on the sounds. I can read in a park when there aren't people being loud. Nature tunes out. And I can read while listening to instrumental music. I can't tune out human voices.

Quite the opposite. I read best in the corner of a busy bar, or with music in the background. I guess that’s just the AuDHD talking though.
Similarly with audiobooks, I prefer them when doing menial tasks like driving. Something that I don’t need to actively think about, but which keeps my hands busy. If I’m just listening to the audiobook without doing anything else, I’ll find myself understimulated, and I’ll inevitably reach for my phone. And then at that point I’ll stop paying attention to the audiobook entirely, which defeats the purpose. I need tasks which hit that “Minecraft parkour brain rot” sweet spot to keep me busy but not distracted.

For me in a way, yes. When I used to read books on a regular basis, I found it more easier to digest if I had nobody or nothing around to make noise. I can deal with small noises like random cracks or a pop here and there. Long as it wasn't amplified or anything. When I listen to things such as music or take in sound in general, my mind goes everywhere and it can't focus on the pages of a book.
I always hated it when people try talking to me when louder noise is present and expect me to hear them perfectly. My mind is not focusing on your words, it's focusing on that obnoxious noise that's disrupting things.

I have tinnitus that makes concentrating on anything in complete silence absolutely aggravating. The tiniest bit of background noise makes it so I don't notice it anymore, so I generally have an instrumental playing when I need to focus on something like homework or reading.
- LOL, I kinda like the tinnitus. Mine is either on the low end, or it just doesn't bother my brain.
  Sometimes I'm reading in bed, twist my ear into the pillow just right, "eeeeeeee". I pause and think, "Neat! There it go!", and start reading again. Like I have a volume knob in my head to squelch it.
  Y'all talking about tinnitus got me thinking. Is that why I'm uncomfortable without the white noise of my little computer rack or bedroom fan? Or is 25-years of IT work telling me, "silence BAD!" Honestly don't know.

I have industrial deafness, that is an audio processing disorder that is associated with background noise. This also affects my reading.
If there is any form of background noise, I can't understand speech. Eg, if I turn the air conditioner on in the living room, then I can't understand what's said on the TV, even at reasonable volume levels. Turing the volume up can help, but not a lot.
If I'm standing next to the fridge and you walk up to talk to me, I can see your mouth moving, I can hear your words, but I can't understand anything, the small noise of the fridge compressor completely wipes out my comprehension.
If we are in a busy cafe with lots of people talking at once, I can't understand the staff when they ask to take my order, even if they are right in front of me, speaking clearly directly at me. It's like my brain can only concentrate on the background noise and it has no processing power left to interpret foreground words.
This is the same with reading and writing. I am a software engineer, so I spend all day writing code. Many of my colleagues like to listen to music while they work. I cannot. If I put on music, then I can no longer write. Nothing comes out. My mind is blank, concentrating on listening to the music. Even instrumental background music affects me.
So to answer your question, I can't read with background noise. Perhaps you could check if you have a form of industrial deafness too.
- You know what, this explains all of the issues I'm having with understanding speech. Thank you for informing me this exists.
  
  I have autism, and I always thought this was a symptom of my autism, but after researching it recently it seems that most others with autism are the opposite, they need background noise or music to concentrate.
- It sounds a bit like Auditory Processing Disorder - pretty sure I've got this. Something I really struggle with is are lyrics in songs, I can hear that there's words but I can't understand them unless I were to stop what I was doing and really focus. To me, the sounds and pitches of the voices are basically just another sound.

No, but I can tune out some noises better than others. There are some noisy situations in which I simply cannot get through even a single sentence.

Nope, my hearing is waaaaay too selective. I can get engrossed in a book even in loud environments.

This isn't quite what you've asked, but I've found two things over the years:
Familiarity matters. I remember that as a kid, I didn't listen to music when doing homework. I couldn't understand how people could manage. Later, I used music on headphones in a work environment to drown out noise that was more-distracting, and it wasn't an issue once I got used to it, could write software without problems with music. I remember reading that some people say that they can't concentrate when it's too quiet, if they're accustomed to being in a noisy environment, because the silence becomes a distraction.
The type of noise matters. I don't require white noise, but in terms of how-distracting something is, I'd say that my ranking is something like silence > white-noise-type stuff > "ambient" sounds like waves or wind > lyric-free music > music with lyrics > speech > half of a conversation. By "half of a conversation", I mean a conversation in the background where I can only hear one end. This usually comes up when someone is talking on a cell phone in a public place in the background. I think that what's going on here is something like that we've trained ourselves so that if someone says something and then there's no response, it means that they're talking to us, and so we'll say "huh?" and look up. It's good that that happens. Unfortunately, that's also the effect one gets when one can only hear one side of a cell phone conversation. Just a constant series of attention-grabbing events for me. I'd rather have two people talking to each other near me than one person on a phone, even though it's technically more speech. Generally, I prefer "lyric-free music or better" when doing something that requires concentration, but can live with music with lyrics.
- Good points. I actually prefer writing software with music, but not when reading books. It's weird.
  I can definitely relate to your last point. When I hear people talking, I often find myself subconciously trying to piece together what they’re saying, which distracts me from focusing on my reading. More speech where I can't comprehend what people are talking about seems to be less distracting than a few speaking.

I need not voices to read fiction.
But loud non-speaking noises don't interfere.
Oddly, articles, Wikipedia, and websites, I can read much more easily while people are talking.

I need silence to read, or at least consistent noise, like the sound of a vent. The same applies if I'm trying to sleep. My mind isn't very vivid, so I guess speech overrides it easily.
- My minds very vivid, yet I'm the same. OTOH, I'm going to bed to read right now and my wife is watching stupid true-crime TV. I've learned to drown it out when I read. If it annoys me, I use ear plugs.

I love listening to solo piano or ambient music while reading. Any other type of music is too much for my brain to handle.
It's an adjustment I had to make when everyone started working from home in 2020, and I find it works well on transit too. Might just be that I've trained my brain to go into focus mode when I hear that type of music.

it was easier to read outside before the portable Bluetooth speakers

I enjoy having music going. It can only be instrumental, so I prefer video game scores or classical pieces.
I can't read in public, though. There's too much going on and my ADHD is in overdrive lol

I need white noise or I need to listen to the audio book while I read along

I actually need some kind of unobtrusive noise. I usually pick some ambient scene off YouTube that has a fireplace and rain or rain with thunder.

Yes. And even then I struggle to concentrate. This is what modern life has done to us.

I have an album associated with nearly every book I have read. Music is a must while reading.

Actually, I can't even read a book unless I have an audio version to read it to me while I follow along. (Even then, I stuggle to pay attention, which is why I rarely read books. Thank internet 🙃)
But if you mean background noise, yea of course I can't deal with that (except like really nice calm instrumental music)

I'm okay with noise, but i can't really parse the thing i read if there's sound that draw my attention away, like song, or people talking.

Nope. But whatever is on in the background cannot have lyrics or voice.
Ambient chillout techno while reading sci fi makes me believe I'm in the future :)

Honestly, no. I actually prefer a bit of background noise.

I can read with noise, but I'm not absorbing anything I'm reading if that makes sense. I have to concentrate harder to mentally block the noise.

No, but I will ignore people who are trying to talk to me if I'm reading. It's involuntary and tends to annoy people.

Uh, really depends on the type of book, what kind of noise it is, and how concentrated I am. I don't think I can do it early in the morning or after a long day. I have some amount of tolerance when my brain is still well off. But there's certainly a limit. And it's different on each train. The people who commute to and from work are often considerate. But once I'm directly in between a group of people who talk to each other, I put away my book and switch to music, or doom-scrolling on my phone. But I've read quite some things at various places and on the train. So it can't be too hard for me.

Not complete, but fairly close. Any background talking makes it difficult.

It depends on the book. I think it works better with horror or books that are focused on music to have a playlist in the background.