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Monday, July 24, 2006
By Christina VanGinkel
If you love reading, chances are you have at least looked at audio books as a source for obtaining reading material, be it a best seller or some obscure, offbeat title. Stores, libraries, and Internet downloads are becoming increasingly popular sources for audio books. Sites such as Amazon.com and iTunes offer audio books available for immediate download. This seems like it would be a great way to obtain a book you have wanted to pick up, such as the latest bestseller, but do not want to wait for it to be delivered, or for those who are trying to track down a hard to find older title, and cannot find it on their local bookstore shelves. While not all books are available via audio book format, the number of titles that are, is growing by the day.
I am a huge fan of reading, with a book almost always a part of my daily routine. I have even been known to read several books at once. Yet I always resisted the idea of an audio book for several reasons. For one, I often reread passages, especially if I am reading a complicated thriller. For instance, if I believe I might have missed a clue, the idea that I could not easily re listen to a passage would not be a plus in my book, no pun intended. I also equate reading a book with total silence. With a busy family and lifestyle, quiet time is very appealing, and an audio book somehow seemed to reminiscent of a television show or radio program.
Once, a long time ago, I did pick up an audio book on cassette tape, and though I started to listen to it, I never did finish it. It was bothersome to rewind if I wanted to re listen to a part, as I never seemed to rewind it to the place I intended. I went either too far, or not far enough. The sound quality of my cassette player was not all that great either, and it just seemed like to much work to listen to a story, when I could just toss the same story in book format into my bag, or on my bedside table, and read at my leisure. Recently though, our local library, in conjunction with the larger sister library it is a branch of, made it possible to download audio books via the OverDrive Media Console, and after browsing the titles available, I decided to give the whole setup a try.
I never really intended to, browsing the available titles more out of curiosity than anything, but a book I had desperately wanted to read, that had a very long hold list, with something like 75 patrons on the waiting list before me, and only two copies of the book in circulation, was available for immediate download via OverDrive. While audio books available via your library may also have a waiting list, this particular book was available for immediate download, with a lending time of one week. As I was planning a weekend trip where I would be spending several hours each way in the truck, I figured it would be as good as time as any to see what improvements the audio books of today had, if any, over the one I had tried years back.
First, I added the book I wanted to borrow to my cart, much like a shopping cart at any other online store, though this required no money, just an account with the library. I then downloaded a copy of my chosen book to my computer's hard drive, along with permission to transfer it to CD or to my handheld. I chose to synchronize it to my Dell Axim's CF card, where I would be able to listen to it via Window's Media Player, a program that I and I know many others are familiar with. Its controls are easy to use, and rewinding, I soon learned, was simple and accurate. Depending on your own choice of listening device, sound quality will most likely be much improved over a cassette recorder, such as I used the first time I tried an audio book.
Now that I have tried an audio book, not only will I be downloading more from my library, but I can also envision myself purchasing them online from places such as Amazon.com and iTunes. If you have ever wondered if an audio book is something you would enjoy, the best advice I can give you is to try one, as you might end up as pleasantly surprised as I was.
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