Friday 26 November 2010

Audio books

As it approaches Christmas I have been wondering about giving some of my presents as Audio books. I actually have quite a few now on my various bits of equipment but I'm pretty sure that Apple will have made certain that trying to pass them along is not easy as it might look. The old days of passing a paper back along to the queue waiting for it has I'm afraid gone if all you buy is audio. To my astonishment I find that that is all I've been buying in the way of both Novels and History books lately.
This has its draw backs if you need to consult a work of reference as theres no point in trying to find it in several hours of recordings so some books are needed. BUT my book cases are full, the spare room is full of books as is my office, my husband's office and the kitchen though I have now a cookery app for the iPad which I can prop up in the kitchen and watch the video on how to cook as I go!
Buying audio books is not a wicked way of cheating authors...they still get their royalties but that does not seem to stop them from complaining and I would be interested to know if there is any real problem for them.
The best thing about the A books is that when my OH wants the light out to go to sleep I can stay reading for a long time in the dark, no annoyance to anyone..The fact that I often fall asleep myself and lose my page, if you'll pardon the outdated expression is a nuisance but for those of us brought up on The Childrens Hour (note capitols as befits its Godlike status ) its a minor problem easily solved by starting the chapter again the next day and lying curled up in the dark listening to a wonderful story written by inventive people is probably the nearest to perfection I have come to since I left the womb.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have solved my bookshelf problem by buying e-Books. I have a Nook from Barnes & Nobles, and I know they have an app for the i-Pad and i-Phone so you can get the e-books that way. My Nook will read to me, if I want it to, so it can function as an audio book, too. I like that I'm not "killing trees" by having all that paper. And e-books are usually $9.99 each with some being less than that. That's for new titles. There are lots of older titles for as little as $.99. And another great thing about my Nook is that I can "lend" my titles to other Nook users for up to 2 weeks at a time for them to read. I don't know about the "lending" on the i-Pad, but I would guess it would work the same way.

DISCLAIMER: I have no connection with Barnes and Noble other than being a satisfied customer. They have no idea who I am, except I am a member of their "Preferred Reader" club which costs me $25 a year to belong to.

UKViewer said...

I think giving ebooks is a great idea, if people have a reader for them. Sadly, I don't, but would love to have one.

I am overwhelmed by books, mainly being used for study, DDO directed, or just for other courses. I must be Amazon's best customer (I go through a charity portal, so i-church gets a cut).

Somehow, reading a real book is satisfying, I can annotate it, highlight it, write notes in the margins - in fact, personalise it. I can't see my doing that on a reader. Perhaps an i-pad, but that is an aspiration.