Audiobooks

Audiobooks are books, professionally read, and recorded onto either CD or MP3 for distribution. Many are sold, but many libraries also have audiobooks to comply with federal handicapped access laws. Fiction is very popular for audiobooks. Any music player, including most cell phones, ipods, and any tablet with a speaker, will play an audiobook. I use a Sandisk Sansa 2 GB solid state player. It was $32 when it was new. It runs for around 12-16 hours on a disposable AAA battery. Just one. That's amazing. It lasts so long because it is NOT a cellphone, and so isn't trying to communicate with towers. It lasts so long because it has a tiny monochrome, backlit screen, which uses very little power and the light is an LED. It lasts so long because the AAA battery is replaceable, and I used mostly discharged batteries, too weak for my insulin pump anymore, to run the player another 12 hours. I LOVE that. True recycling. I get twice the life from an MP3 player because of this. And it still works, after several years because it is NOT rechargeable, so doesn't become useless when the battery won't charge... like a cellphone. It is also very light, weighing around one ounce. Its barely noticeable in a shirt pocket. I'm close to wanting to replace the earbuds because the vinyl on the wires has degassed sufficiently to harden with age. They still sound great, they're just old.

My local library, where I volunteer twice a week for 6 long but fun hours each day, has an agreement with an online ebook and audiobook provider called Library To Go. I find a book, select my county library and enter my card info and I can download up to four ebooks or four audiobooks at a time. This is wonderful. I recently listened to "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". I love that the reader emphasizes the Deadly Arts and Katana between nattering on about marriages and courting. Women eat this up, which is why there are so many divorces. Nobody lives up to that expectation. I was married. I would say Jane Austen was writing a parody of lame romance in that story, so PPZ was a parody of a parody, improving it with modern fun.

While I work, shelving books or polishing DVDs and audiobook CDs, I listen to my player. It allows me to pass the time twice as usefully, listening to a book being read while I put books where they belong, an otherwise boring activity, though it is excellent aerobic exercise. I build up a good sweat every time I work there, and the first few times I got serious muscle pains. I am still sore from the last visit on Wednesday due to kneeling in the childrens book section. A cart of childrens books holds 6 times as many titles as an adult book, thanks to them being so thin. And every one belongs in the correct place. There are many children's audiobooks, for kids whose parents don't have enough time to read to their children. I hope they get around to it. Kids are only little for a short time, and they grow up much too fast.

In a few days I am receiving some rechargeable batteries for my player, and a charger, so I won't go through my batteries quite so quickly. I've been listening to so many audiobooks that I've had to use fresh, new batteries, the ones that normally run my insulin pump for a whole month. I shouldn't waste those. They're really quite valuable, and slightly expensive. I have to be the premium ones, you see. These Nickel Metal Hydride rechargeable batteries should work great with my player, and allow me to listen over and over again. And that pleases me. Because I really like walking and working with a book in my ears. And music too. Its all good.

Check if your local library has audiobooks. If you have a library card, odds are you can borrow audiobooks. Then check if you have an MP3 player or iPod. Or perhaps your cellphone will play music, and if so, see if you can upload to it. Many computer based music players will interface with a phone, provided you have a cable. If you can transfer to a memory chip, like MicroSD, via a USB reader, that works too. Put a little effort into it, and maybe make your life a bit more fun in those boring hours we all run into in the real world. And remember, its a $1 cable to connect your player to your car auxiliary audio port and play it there too. Easy!