Audiobooks, Ebooks, and Torrents.

[Zenjamin]

currently, i live on campus. so there is no need for downloading... "illegal" or otherwise.


however over the summer, where i worked i was hours away from the nearest Libary. towards the end of my stay i discovered torrents and used that to get my books.


anyways, i just thought id start this thread do discuss downloaded books.
some translate verry well into audiobooks, some do not.
some are easy to find as a torrent, some are not.


ill just start off then...

Orson Scott Card has said that his writing style is very vocal in that he wants people to "hear" the charcters in their mind. and he selects his readers very carefully. all his audiobooks should translate very well, but i was unable to find a torrent for Lost boys, and that is on my "to read list"

The Audio book for Dune got great reviews.

i havent listened to a Stephen King interpretation yet. again, on my to-do list.

i havent read any Ebooks. in general they seem just as hard to find, and not much cheaper.



so... discuss.

[bibi]

I have an audiobook of the Hitchikers' Guide to the Galaxy, I think it's hilarious though I'm more visual and I'll buy the book. With the audiobook, I'm distracted, so I think I'll pick comics audiobook. I read fanfictions on internet, but I haven't been on ebook, I'm a old lady: I love the odor of a new book just picked out of library.

[Ryth76]

^I have Hitchhiker's Guide. It was the first audiobook I got. I'm not used to the normal book version, so I usually listen to the audio version. I couldn't help but check if the book version is the same word for word (which it happily was ), though. I've had bad experiences with the LotR audiobooks (would it kill them to actually do a word-for-word series on LotR?)

I don't think I've listened to any audiobooks by Orson Scott Card... I'll have to check him out sometime.

As far as audiobooks I have listened to, I've listened to the Harry Potter audiobooks. I really liked them. Though I didn't like how the guy made this one guy sound whiny and elderly when he were supposed to be sounding loud, deep, and thunderous. Except for that, the entire series was well done and I have no complaints about it. My biggest complaint is that I couldn't get a hold of Chamber of Secrets and that once I started a book, I couldn't stop (no matter what!) until it was finished because mine weren't divided into chapters.

I also listened to John Grisham's King of Torts. And H.P. Lovecraft's Outsider. The first I can't remember much about, other than there were some really dull parts and a rather satisfactory ending, and Outsider was a bit anti-climatic IMO.

I have a vast library of e-books. I have yet to read all of them start to finish. I probably never will be able to read them all, lol. I'm currently reading Art of War. It's really good.

I'm still more of an old-fashioned book person myself, but ebooks are nice to have on hand. They don't take as much space, for one thing.

[bibi]

Mode integrist ON
ebooks don't smell good...
Mode integrist OFF
I have Art of War too, great stuff.
I once had an horror audiobook, well my mom had, it was Lucifer talking and I was really scared , but I can't remember the name.

[Hama]

I listened to a bunch of the HP books too! Never owned them- just always ended up in someone else's car who had them.

Right now the only audio book I have is Gideon The Cutpurse. I really like this story- read it once, now listening to it. Only thing that really bugged me was when he did the girl's scream. It really started me, and sounded nothing like a girl. Well, I guess the startling was intentional, because the boy listening was very disturbed.

[appacatbus]

The HP audiobooks are great.

Also, I love David Sedaris, and audio is by far the best way to hear/read his essays.

[Hama]

Actually, I remembered another one. Assasination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. I was roped in, I think, because it features the voices of Jon Stewart, Conan O'Brien and Brad Bird as historical figures, but this was even more awesome than that. Sarah's commentary was great and she struck me as a person I could really get along with. It was also very educational, and reminded me why I love history so much. Man, I have to listen to that again,

[Ryth76]

Archive.org has many audiobooks in the public domain people can download and listen too.

I got the essay Offences Against Oneself: Paederasty by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) from there. It was originally written in 1785 arguing for the liberalization of homosexuality, but wasn't published until 1931. On July 28, 1967, the Sexual Offenses Act was enacted in the UK. It decriminalized male homosexuality (with restrictions) for the first time.

It was very good, but the guy who read the first parts was all mumbly. It could've been read out better.

[Zenjamin]

I recently bought a iPod Shuffle, and downloaded AudioBook Builder

It has seriously made my life better.

I work weekends as a dish washer to pay for college. and now.
so I am listening to an audiobook while doing dishes, if someone talks to me, i reach to where it is clipped to my pocket, and pause it (or adjust the volume or whatever) without even bothering to look.


also, i place the audiobook at the top of my playlist, so if i want to listen to music, i switch it to shuffle, and it automatically bookmarks the last place it left off the the audiobook, and im off to listening to the rest of my music. and when i want to go back to the book, i just press the play button 3 times to go back to the bookmark in my first track.


currently, i am listening to the unabridged "count of monte cristo".
all of the OSC audiobooks are excellent... I just wish there were more torrents of them.