Reminders Of Fall & Audio Books

The past fews days have been unseasonally cold, wet & blustery - more like early November than late August. As I mentioned to a friend last night - we are either experiencing early onset of Fall or September will bring unusually warm nice weather. I'll hope for the latter since my bones have been screaming at me the last few days - more than usual!

The other thing I want to mention today is "talking" books. Audio books. Not too long ago I was someone who could not possible imagine why in the world anyone would want to 'listen' to a book rether than read one. I think I probably even swore that I would never be interested in that sort of drivel - ort maybe I just thought it and had not verbalized it! At any rate - it was another example of why one should "never say (or even think) never". I am thoroughly besotted with the phenomenon of talking books now - thanks in large part to Audible.com. I LOVE talking books. They are a great companion when doing sewing (hand or machine) that is relatively mindless, fun to listen to when cooking, cleaning or doing endless laundry ... and even when doing mindless filing at work (for those of you have may have that onerous duty).

I did some research on companies that provide this service - and settled upon Audible for several reasons. They seem to have the most titles, they have been around for more than 10 years & their "credit plans" were reasonable. I quickly found that one 'credit' a month was not enough & so I uped myself to the Gold or some other precious metal plan that allows 2 'credits' a month. Many, many books are only one credit but it seems like many of the history titles that I want are 2.... as are some of the longer novels. I had tried to read Edward Rutherford's books "The Princes of Ireland" & "The Rebels of Ireland" several times & never managed to get 'into' them. Listening to them however became a journey that I was sorry to have end. Much of a "talking" book's enjoyment is because of the 'talker'. I have already managed to develop a short list of narrators that I love; that bring books to life & carry you away to live the moment's in the book. There are also some narrators that I cannot bear to listen to - despite the fact that I may very much want to listen to the book. It's the 'nails on a black-board 'effect.

One draw back to the talking book industry is that they do not seem to have the latest titles - and, aside from the obvious logistics of getting a narrator lined up - I am not sure why this occurs. I want to listen to Barbara Walter's book "Audition" - and it is not available yet....though I sure hope it will be. I love non-fiction almost as much as fiction so I have a plethora of title options. I tried at first to follow my usual book buying plan of spending money primarily on non-fiction titles that I know I will want to read again. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I found that I enjoy listening to fiction so much that I am less penurious in buying audio books than I am with my permanent collection choices.

I use ITunes - and they now offer audio books too- they go through Audible. Downloading goes through ITunes (on my computer ) - so that the down loads are a breeze - and they go right into my IPod. Heaven!

If you have ever considered trying an audio book - don't hesitate to make like the Nike commercial and "just do it". Don't waste pleasurable time saying you wouldn't enjoy it - like I did - until you have tried it ! No affiliation etc etc ... just a very happy listener!