It was not an “e-book” … it was an “audio book”. I’m quite sure I couldn’t do it,
but everyone is different.
To underscore the idea that “everyone is different”, there is a story that Feynman relates
in this context. It’s told as part of https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/607/2/Feynman.pdf . Specifically on page 6 of the pdf (numbered as page 16 of the article), there is a story about
how “reading interferes with counting” for one person (Tukey) while “talking interferes with counting” for someone else (Feynman).
I could not listen to a book while doing a game because … it turns out I’m very poor in terms
of audio processing content — I almost always process audio by using my “visual processing” abilities (I’m a mathematician who specialized in topology/geometry/algebra and I translate
everything into visual actions/objects). Basically I must visualize something to be able to process it (e.g. I can’t remember a name that someone says until I write it down or, in my mind, visualize that I’m writing it and spell it out). I know that others don’t have that problem and
can process audio directly.