October 27, 2008
Finding books, What to Read
1 Comment
My life is pretty hectic at the moment, with two preschoolers, and full time study. Reading is one of the things that has been sacrificed, as the only time i get to sit down without interruption seems to be when I am “encouraging the kids to fall asleep”. Since returning to study, I get even less reading done. However, I have gained a commute.
Slowly, I have started to listen to audio books in the car, and it has opened up a new world for me. Although it takes me about a fortnight to get through a book, this is at least as fast as I am reading in real life.
How to find audio books
Audio books are openly available and inexpensive.
- Readings of classic literature is available for free download from Librivox (these can also be downloaded as a podcast into itunes, so you can get the book in manageable installments)
- Local libraries have Books on CD that can be borrowed, and even converted into digital format if you use an MP3 player in your car
- Itunes has new release books for about $10 or $15 each
- Audible offers a subscription service where a yearly fee gives you to download a quota of books each month
- Books on tape and CD are often available at charity shops and garage sales, but choice and quality is limited.
How to convert books to itunes format
If you download a book from Librivox or record one from a CD, then it is not automatically recognized as an audiobook by itunes. If you use an iPod, this means the tracks won’t keep a bookmark and won’t show up in your audiobook folder.
If you have Itunes 8, it is very simple. Simply select the track, hit “get info” (CMD- I on the mac) and select “audiobook” as track type. Make sure the “Remember playback position” check box is ticked as well.
If you have a previous version of iTunes, it is a little more complicated. This method definitely works on Mac, but I haven’t tested it on Windows
- Download the “make bookmarkable” script from Doug’s Applescripts
- Follow the instructions to install it to itunes
- Select the track, right click and choose “create AAC version”
- Select the AAC version and run the applescript (from the applescript menu on the toolbar). It will be converted to audiobook format, and shifted to your Audiobook folder.
- Make sure you check the track info, and if you have multiple tracks, number them correctly. This ensures they will play in order.
- Check “gapless playback” if you find there is a pause between tracks.
I listen to a lot of books in my car now - mainly non fiction and classical. It has created an oasis of self-indulgence in my grinding trip home. What audio books do you love?
August 26, 2008
Finding books, Review
2 Comments
I live in fear of a Mount TBR (to be read) avalanche, but I still can’t get enough book recommendations. One of my favourite tools for book recommendations is LibraryThing.
LibraryThing begins as a book cataloguing service - up to 200 books for free, and and your whole library for a small lifetime membership fee. You can do all the standard things - tag and search your books, add notes and reviews and select cover art for display. Fancy graphics let you visualize your library as a montage of covers. Maybe some readers would find that enough.
But the real value comes in leveraging crowd-sourced information through the libraries of others. You can select a user-uploaded cover, if Amazon doesn’t supply one to match yours. And you can see others with similar libraries, and get recommendations of what books you might like, based on the books you already have. This is a cool feature. I used to only enter books as I read them, and not my big pile of TBR’s. The recommendation feature would routinely serve me up a list of the unread books I had sitting on my bookshelf. So cool.
Other cool features include the inclusion of real libraries, and libraries of famous dead people, or current authors. They have a unique Early Reviewers program, that allocates books to those with the most appropriate library. And if you don’t like amazon reviews, this is an excellent source for book reviews.
August 4, 2008
Finding books, Review
2 Comments
eBooks are infuriating, and using a reader on my phone gives me eyestrain in the dark, but I now couldn’t do without them!
I recently downloaded Stanza (free) for my iPhone and downloaded a whole bunch of open access books from Feedbooks. Over the weekend, I travelled to an interstate birthday party. I took my book with me, of course, but I got at least as much reading done on my phone.
My last book, Neuromancer, took me about 3 weeks to read. I am so far halfway through the Trial, after just three days. I admit that I am reading very slowly at the moment, but the iPhone reader has made a huge difference. During the last week, I read my electronic copy of The Trial:
- While sitting in my car, waiting for my sleeping baby to wake
- While waiting for hubby to finish filling the car with petrol
- Waiting in line at the register at Target
- Lying in bed in a darkened room, as my daughter was sleeping in our room
- Sitting in the airport lounge waiting for Qantas to get it together
These are all times I wouldn’t get my book out, o wouldn’t normally have ti with me. A couple of pages have let me read more of this novel, and keep my train of thought through a very busy weekend. Even though the format is difficult (I mean, who is happy with a chapter of 53 pages?), it has been a life-saver.