Audio Books 101

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Audio Books - The Advantages

Audio Books are now becoming an other viable method to 'read' books. It's sometimes simply not possible to read, even though you feel like it and your mind is only used to a fraction by a manual chore you're doing.

In a car audio books can not be beat! Instead of hating my daily commute, I'm now looking forward to it, because I can listen in peace to a great narration of a book and the trip from home to work seems to take only a few minutes now!

Have you tried an audio book yet? If not, here's the site that offers you a free audio with no strings attached:

Buy Audio Books at Discounted Prices.
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Some Other Great Audiobooks Lenses 

Why Audio Books are so Convenient 

Audio is a great format for books!

Audio Books are very convenient, because you can listen to them in places where it would not be possible to read.

You don't need you hands to 'read' audio books, and you don't need your eyes to read audiobooks! The only sense you need are your ears to listen to audio books.

That means you can listen to a audiobook in the dark and you can listen to audiobooks when you have your hands literally in the dough, or in the dirt or when you have oily, smeary hands. Nobody in his right mind would even attempt to touch the paper pages of a printed book under these conditions, but with an audio book this is not even remotely a problem!

Audio Books about many different Subjects 

Download Audio Books on just about any topic

Just about any subject you can find audio books. Especially popular are audio books about self help themes, like, language learning, self development and any subject that might help you become a better person.

Sure, there are also great audio books with biographies of famous people, or about history, current and past. Then there are the literary classics, which, when narrated by great actors, can become even more impressive than wehn you read them in printed form. Take for instance Shakespeare, the most important writer in the English language. Some of his works have been narrated by Britsh actors, and the result is breathtaking! This is also an added plus an audio book has over a printed version: If the narrator is good, then the story can become more vividly alife than you ever could imagine.

Downloadable Audio Books 

Free downloadable audio books - Audio books free download

Download Audio Books : Arts & Drama on Audio
Arts & Drama on Audio Listen to these audio books and discover the world and thoughts of the famous writers, their magnificient works. These a...
Download Audio Books : Biography Audio Books
Biography Audio Books Biographies on audio are fascinating, especially as some of these biographies contain original audio recordings for the peop...
Download Audio Books : Business Audio Books
Business Audio Books Learn how to approach even complex themes in business in a systematic and step by step way. Solutions, explanations and the e...
Download Audio Books : Crime & Thrillers Audios
Crime and Thrillers Audio Books Great Crime and Thrillers Audio Books that will entertain you for hours. And the great thing: You can download the...
Download Audio Books : Fiction Audio Books
Fiction Audio Books Great authors, great narrators... Listening to these fiction audio books you will pass an enjoyable, relaxing few hours. Give ...
Download Audio Book : Romance Audio Books
Romance Fiction Audio Books. Enjoy and participate in the exiting love life of princesses, simple girls and ladies and feel the emotions flow!
Download Audio Books : Health & Recreation
Health and Recreation Audio Books. Learn how to take care of your body and spirit, how to nurish and take care of yourself and your loved ones, mentally and physically.
Download Audio Books : History Audio Books
History Audio Books These are some of the best history audiobooks, covenring the ancient times and modern history. From stone age to world wars and todays politics.
Download Audio Books : Humor Audios
Humor Audios. Enjoy great comedy, fun and stand up comedy. British dry humor and American radio shows alike!
Download Audio Books : Kids Audio Books
Audio Books for Kids Children, Kids, they love listening to audios. A great story well told can be repeated many times and will keep children ente...
Download Audio Books : Learn Language MP3
Foreign Language Study Audios Learning a foreign language is much easier when you also hear it. The Pimsleur method has helped millions to learn a...
Download Audio Book : Radio Show Audios
Radio Show Audios - Need we say more? Re-listen to your favourite radio show over and over again!
Download Audio Books : Religion & Spiritual
Religion & Spiritual Audio Books. Covering the major religions, the bible, great teachers and healers. Do soemthing for your mental and spiritual uplifting.
Download Audio Book : Self Help Audio Books
Self Help Audio Books. Develop your abilities further and work on your personality. These audio books are like your personal coach: Here when and where you need them!
Download Audio Book : TV & Film Audio Books
TV and Film Audio Books. Listen to your favourite actors and their biographies, listen to episodes from their lives and from their films and series.

Printed books about Learning 

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware (Pragmatic Programmers)

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The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance

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Learning Outside The Lines: Two Ivy League Students With Learning Disabilities And ADHD Give You The Tools

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Learning from the Heart: Lessons on Living, Loving, and Listening

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Introduction to Student-Involved Assessment for Learning, An (5th Edition)

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Audio Book Format 

Audiobooks come in different formats

The audio book has undergone a quite incredible transformation and only today's technology has made it really convenient.

In the beginning audio books were recorded on vynil records, and these records had a very limited capacity. Because of this reduced capacity, books were mostly recorded in a co called abridged (shortened) version. Even then it was not unusual for an audio book to contain several (up to 12 and more...) large vynil disks. You can imagine that this made it impossible to listen to them on the go!

Next came the audiocassette, a large step up as far as convenience was concerned, now up to 2 hours could be recorded on one cassette, and the players started to become portable also. They still were cumbersome at the beginning, but then Sony launched the walkman, and for the first time audiobooks became truly portable.

With the new CD and soon the DVD, capacities were once more increased, the players were still very portable and battery life improved too. Now it started to become possible to take several audio books on a trip without having to carry a separate suitcase just for the audio books.

... and over the last two years, MP3 players and downloadable audio books, coupled with the internet make it now feasible, to carry nearly as many audio books as you like with you, requiring little more space than a pack of cigarettes!

This is a quite a development, and it all took place in less than one hundred years!

Audio Books on audio cassettes 

Even though this audio book format is on the way out, there are still many good books available on audio cassettes. Here is a shor selection of some popular books:

Old-Time Radio Thrilling Mysteries (10-Hour Collections) [BOX SET]

Release Date: 10/30/2001

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The Big Four: A Hercule Poirot Mystery (Mystery Masters)

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Audio Cassette - TIGER: MAKINGS OF A CHAMPION

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A Firm Foundation: Six Essentials for Solid Christian Living - Audio Cassettes

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The Book of Psalms Read and Commented on By Dr. Jerry Falwell (Audio Cassette)

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Audiobooks on CD 

Audiobooks on Compact Disk

There are many great audio books available on CD. Below are some of my personal favourte audio books:

The Patricia Cornwell CD Audio Treasury Low Price: Contains All That Remains and Cruel and Unusual (Kay Scarpetta)

Release Date: 07/26/2005

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Classic Women's Literature

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Poirot Investigates: Eleven Complete Mysteries

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His Finest Hour (Penton Audio)

Release Date: 02/24/1998

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War On Radio: The Pacific and European Theaters (Topics Entertainment-History (CD))

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Audio Books on DVD 

The DVD format allows for longer recording times and often these audio books also offer some additional material, even videos are often included.

Heroes and Weapons of World War II

Release Date: 11/06/2007

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The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

Release Date: 05/08/2007

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The Urantia Book: Indexed Version with free Audio Book on DVD

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The Book of Revelation Vol. 6 (6 DVD's) In-depth Study

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Brainy Baby: Left Brain - Inspires Logical Thinking

Release Date: 08/12/2002

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Audio Books News - The Latest Infos on Audiobooks 

MP3 players with variable playback speeds
by Jasmine France The Sansa Fuze offers three playback speeds--fast, normal, and slow--for podcasts and audiobooks. As its title may suggest, ...
A first: RCom to deliver books via SMS
?We want to grow the VAS market beyond Bollywood and are looking to launch poetic works like shayari through audio books,? said Durbha. ...
Summer audiobooks: 'Driving Like Crazy' by PJ O'Rourke
The book includes self-deprecating stories about his own motorcycle experience and chapters about road trips, such as his participation in the Baja 1000 ...
Events at the library
Do you want to listen to a book but don't want to worry about having a number of tapes or cds? Try Overdrive downloadable audiobooks, which are available ...

Let's discuss Audio Books: 

Personally, I love audio books for what they provide me: The freedom to 'read' where I could not before: To be able to spend time listening to a great narrator, reading to me when I'm in the car driving is priceless!

Are audio books really that great?

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Yes, I simply love them!

No, only printed books are the real thing!

businessblossom says:

I shall forever be wedded to the bookishness of books . . . but, as a a business owner and communicator in the 21st century, I appreciate the utility and ease of use an audio book provides, and I have half a mind to take my own books and make them audio books! But for me, flipping through pages and hefting the genuine article is the thing.

 
 
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How Do You Use Audiobooks? 

Where and When do YOU listen to your audio books?

Let others know how you use audio books, where you listen to them and when. Also let's hear what your favourite subjects are and, if you use audio books to learn anything or to further develop your personality and know-how, what the results are.

I know that some of the self-help books I have on audio are like my personal coach and that they have certainly brought me forward quite a bit!

tdove wrote...

Thanks for joining G Rated Lense Factory!

ReplyPosted January 15, 2009

Audio Book Players - MP3 Players 

Best MP3 player for audio books

The most convenient way to listen to an audio book is on your MP3 player, below are a few models. The market is constantly changing and evolving, so please make sure that the player you choose meets your needs. Best check with the seller to hear if your favourite model MP3 player is capable to play audio books.

8 GB MP4/MP3 Player with FM Radio, Camera, Voice Recorder, USB Portable, and 2.8-inch Touchscreen

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Coby 4 GB Flash Video MP3 Player with FM Radio (Black)

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Amazon Price: $41.80 (as of 07/11/2009) Buy Now
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SanDisk Sansa Fuze 4 GB Video MP3 Player (Black)

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Amazon Price: $62.15 (as of 07/11/2009) Buy Now
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SanDisk Sansa e250 2 GB MP3 Player with microSD Expansion Slot (Black)

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SanDisk Sansa Clip 1 GB MP3 Player (Black)

Release Date: 10/29/2007

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The MP3 Format - An Explanation 

What is MP3? - Here you find your answers:

MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on digital audio players. MP3 is an audio-specific format that was designed by the Moving Picture Experts Group. The group was formed by several teams of engineers at Fraunhofer IIS in Erlangen, Germany, AT&T-Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ, USA, Thomson-Brandt, and Category: :fr - :CCETT|CCETT as well as others. It was approved as an ISO/IEC standard in 1991.

The use in MP3 of a lossy compression algorithm is designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent the audio recording and still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio for most listeners. An MP3 file that is created using the mid-range bit rate setting of 128 kbit/s will result in a file that is typically about 1/10th the size of the CD file created from the original audio source. An MP3 file can also be constructed at higher or lower bit rates, with higher or lower resulting quality. The compression works by reducing accuracy of certain parts of sound that are deemed beyond the auditory resolution ability of most people. This method is commonly referred to as perceptual coding. It internally provides a representation of sound within a short term time/frequency analysis window, by using psychoacoustic models to discard or reduce precision of components less audible to human hearing, and recording the remaining information in an efficient manner. This is relatively similar to the principles used by JPEG, an image compression format.

MP3 Players Auctions 

Cheapest Portable MP3 Player

There are regularly great deals on EBay for really cheap MP3 players. Some people think only the latest model will do and regularly buy a new one. That means relatively new MP3 players end up being auctioned off. If you know the model you need, you can easily pick up an MP3 Player at a very cheap price!

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by audiobooks1

I love audio book downloads. They allow me to increase my 'reading' by using otherwise idle time to listen to my favourite autors. (more)

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