Audio+Books

"Reading" audio books is one of my favorite things to do! This page has some tips in case you'd like to pick up the habit yourself.

For a list of books I've read, please check out my Reading Log, it has some neat features that are fun to play with.

This page is far from complete so if you have any particular questions, I would love to help you out with your setup.

  • Sources - Where to find audio books
  • Hardware - Tools I use to listen to audio books
  • Capacity - As an mp3, and audio book can be recorded as low as 24kbps and still sound acceptable. This puts the file size around 10Mb/hour; only a fraction (< 1/10th) of the space required to faithfully reproduce music.
  • Length - I'm still working out some kind of correlation between number of pages and length of the spoken version.

Sources: [![][4]][2]

Finding audio versions of books you would like to read can be hard, but here are some places to look.

  • Librivox - an effort to convert public domain books into free audiobooks. All books are read by volunteers!
  • Podcasts - this is the idea of setting up an RSS feed so that you can subscribe to your favorite radio show. I haven't experimented with it a whole lot, but I'm going to endorse it all the same.
  • Quirks and Quarks - us/those crazy Canadians are all about sharing some fascinating science once a week.
  • Half Price Books - a beautiful, beautiful store, the name says it all!
  • Outlet Malls - Apparently these outlet malls have book stores that have a decent collection of audio books for cheap.
  • Public Library - pretty reliable, decent collection. I go to the Phoenix Public Library and the Scottsdale Library System
  • Audible.com - the largest source of audio books, and they even feature a subscription service
  • Simply Audiobooks - NetFlix for audio books.
  • Project Gutenberg - this place produces computer generated audio books...use only in case of emergency
  • DVDAudiobooks - free books at 8kbps - and pretty reasonable prices for higher quality books.
  • Naturally, Amazon and Barnes and Noble have decent collections as well.
  • Oyez - Supreme Court cases from the past...
  • Old Time Radio - name says it all
  • Talking Book World - yet another audiobook subscription service (Y.A.A.S.S.) i think this one is much more flexible...
  • Digital Audio Initiative - It's slowly growing collection of courses offered by the University of Minnesota.

Hardware and Formats: [![][4]][3]

The biggest issues I've found about listening to audio books is how much of the book I can carry around, i.e. capacity of my player, and bookmarking, i.e. resuming playback where I left off.

  • Smart Phone - Currently I'm using the Treo650 which is a PalmOS phone. Audible provides a good bookmarking-player but it only works with their media. Pocket Tunes Deluxe has an auto-bookmarking feature as well. As of yet (9/2005), there is no free player that bookmarks well.
  • MP3 Player - The Rio line of mp3 players have a tremendous bookmarking feature. It's not just a 'resume' feature. The bookmarks stay in place even if you switch to listening to music for a while. Personally, I was using the Rio Cali. With a 10-15 hour battery life on a single rechargeable AAA, 1.1Gb capacity and an FM Tuner, I find it to be the only player that does everything I want it to.

  • iPod - Bookmarking on the iPod is pretty slick too. If you import your mp3 audio book into iTunes using the AAC encoder, it will output an .m4a file. if you change that extension to .m4b, the iPod wil automatically bookmark it whereever you leave off.
  • MP3 CD player - High capacity but doesn't have the best seeking function, best if used for audiobooks that have many little tracks. Works well when you've ripped the tracks directly from a set of CD's
  • Pocket PC - Medium capacity, but is great for long audiobooks. If you've downloaded an audio book as a giant mp3, you can split it up into 60min mp3's and then easily seek through them using the interactive screen. Depending on the mp3 software you use, you might even be able to seek well through an entire 15 hour audiobook. However, the downside here is that the pocketpc is prone to crash and has poor battery life.
  • Audio CD Player - Low capacity, but but not useless. If you've picked up an audio book from the library it's most likely a set of audio cd's. Listening from a regular cd player means you'll be changing discs often, but at least they split up the book into many little tracks. This will make finding your place a little easier.
  • Cassette Tapes - Surprisingly, good old tapes have the most robust bookmarking feature :-P When you take the tape out, no matter where you pop it in next, it's going to be in the right place. Just amazing! Of course carrying around a bunch of rattling cassettes is not exactly convenient.

    [4]:

Posted: November 19, 2007 | | comments