Audio Books (for iPods)

[chick]

Gots a new toy, so I was thinking about trying out some audio books.

Listening to someone reading would give a different tone and feel to the story, especially with fiction, so having a good voice would be important, I think.

Non-fiction books might be more interesting and more suited for audio books, since it might sound more documentary style?

Just some initial thoughts.
Anyone else have suggestions or have favorite audio books they'd like to share?

[Steven Edwards]

Public domain audio books:

http://librivox.org/

Stephen Colbert's I Am America and So Can You is available as an audiobook. :)

[orangejello]

with fiction, so having a good voice would be important, I think.

Non-fiction books might be more interesting and more suited for audio books, since it might sound more documentary style?


I have had mixed results with audio books. I find I have a hard time listening to fiction. My mind wanders and I end up missing lots. And yes the voice makes all the difference. I recently tried listening to one of my all time favorite books (Life of Pi by Yann Martel) on audio book. The main character is from India and the book was read with an overly exaggerated Indian accent. It was very distracting and I eventually gave up.

When I do listen to audio books its almost always non-fiction. I fully agree that non-fiction is more interesting to listen to and better suited to the format. Unlike most fiction, I can actually make it through non-fiction books listening to them. But I really like podcasts from places like NPR. A non-fiction book is like a really long podcast I find.

Right now I am listening to Collapse by Jared Diamond. It's a gloomy, doomsday book that looks at different societies through history that ended up collapsing economically, socially, and/or environmentally, such as the Maya and the Greenland Norse. I had tried reading the book in the past and while very interesting, I found it a very slow slog. But I am enjoying listening to it.

You didn't hear this from me but tons of audio books, both fiction and non, can be found on bit torrent. You have to dig a bit through the junk but lots of good books available that way.

[SCI-Nurse]

I love listening to audiobooks on my iPod...in fact I use it more for that than music. I listen when I am doing housework or gardening, and in the car (I have a jack to plug my iPod into my cassette player there).

I bought a package deal at www.audible.com which works well for me as it lets me download a certain number of books each year, and I can pick and choose from their whole catalog. They have books, both fiction and non-fiction, as well as podcasts and even magazines available. Most of the books are unabridged too (which is what I prefer).

Also check out audiobooks on CD that you can get at your local library for free. You can download these to your computer and onto your iPod at no cost.


(KLD)

[AlexAgain]

I really like audio books and listen to them on my computer but I have trouble when I try to listen on my MP3 player because it will play the chapters out of order
after chapter 1, it will play chapter 10, 11 etc and then go to chapter 2. I can't figure out how to change it - any suggestions?
I like to listen to detective mysteries like James Patterson, Patricia Cornwell etc.

[Steven Edwards]

I really like audio books and listen to them on my computer but I have trouble when I try to listen on my MP3 player because it will play the chapters out of order
after chapter 1, it will play chapter 10, 11 etc and then go to chapter 2. I can't figure out how to change it - any suggestions?
I like to listen to detective mysteries like James Patterson, Patricia Cornwell etc. Rename the single digit chapters to "Chapter 01, Chapter 02, Chapter 03, ... Chapter 09."

That'll fix it.

[orangejello]

I really like audio books and listen to them on my computer but I have trouble when I try to listen on my MP3 player because it will play the chapters out of order
after chapter 1, it will play chapter 10, 11 etc and then go to chapter 2. I can't figure out how to change it - any suggestions?
I like to listen to detective mysteries like James Patterson, Patricia Cornwell etc.

Two things you can do

Rename the files 01, 02, etc then they will play in order

Also depending on the type of player you have, you can create a custom play list and that will play them in order. You can do that with players like the iPod and Zune. But its not possible on players that just have a "drop and drag" method of loading music onto the player

Oops sorry Steven. I was writing this as you posted :)

[AlexAgain]

Thanks - my MP3 player is a Sanyo and is just drag and drop. Even if I put them in the right order on my computer it changes it on the MP3.
I will try renaming them or maybe it is time to upgrade to a better MP3 player.

[cypresss]

I really like audio books and listen to them on my computer but I have trouble when I try to listen on my MP3 player because it will play the chapters out of order
after chapter 1, it will play chapter 10, 11 etc and then go to chapter 2. I can't figure out how to change it - any suggestions?
I like to listen to detective mysteries like James Patterson, Patricia Cornwell etc.

If your player doesn't have random/continous function, you can try to load the file one by one in your favorite order

[cypresss]

Anyone else have suggestions or have favorite audio books they'd like to share?

You can find some sites which host the link to others ebooks using bittorrent protocol. In some countries this protocol is used only for shareware/freeware content.

try mininova.org but ideally is to find a private torrents site which is without publicity, moderate with good content and clean. Best e-learning torrent site I know is bitme.org. If you ever get an invitation there add me also.

"BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) communications protocol and a method of distributing large amounts of data widely without the original distributor incurring the entire costs of hardware, hosting and bandwidth resources. Instead, when data is distributed using the BitTorrent protocol, each recipient supplies pieces of the data to newer recipients, reducing the cost and burden on any given individual source, providing redundancy against system problems, and reducing dependence on the original distributor" from wikipedia.

[Scorpion]

Anyone have any more recommendations?

I just started using audible.com and I'll be checking out audiobooks from the library soon (as per KLD's suggestion). So far I've listened to a really enjoyed Steve Martin's autobiography Born Standing Up and his novel The Pleasure of My Company. He narrates as well. I'm close to finishing Lightning by Dean Koontz, and I like it too, but I like most of Koontz's books I've read.