For me i believe that reading is always the best.  Why? Simply because In the end, no one reads a story for information. No one reads "Gone with the Wind" to gain information about the Civil War. No one reads "Hamlet" to find out how to get to Elsinore castle. You need a map or a train schedule for that.

The purpose of a story is to enrich your experience. A story doesn't POINT you there, it PUTS you there. In a sense, a story is a form of transportation. It lifts you from where you are reading and carries you to another time and another place. That time may be yesterday and the place the next village. Or the time may be 2,000 years ago and the place a stable in Bethlehem.

Stories are strange and complex vehicles of communication. Each one of us brings our own autobiography to the reading of a text. - Maxeff