Archive for the ‘ Audiobooks ’ Category

Complaining About Free

Author: JoshMiller

Feb 20

I found a new App recently which is pretty neat.  It’s called Overdrive Media Console.  It’s neat because, I can hook it up to my Library card and get library books delivered digitally.  I am of course, limited to using this app to consume the media due to DRM and the whole “it expires” thing of a Library.

I’m actually not interested in this at all from a text perspective.  I may be in the future but right now, I have a huge backlog of eBooks and Paper Books and whatnot.  I also don’t care to read text on my phone, though I have been doing it on the Kobo App as sort of a test.  What I like is that Overdrive gives me option for Audiobooks. 

I do not buy Audiobooks. They cost too much, for the most part.  Paperbooks I buy in paper or used, eBooks i get on sale or with a coupon.  Audiobooks, I check out CDs from the library.  I probably should just get a subscription to Audible but I have issues with the idea that my books are DRM trapped in a system that may or may not exist in the future.  If Audible were DRM free, I’d be all over it.

I love me some Audiobooks.

Overdrive has Audiobooks, delivered digitally to my phone.  I have a single complaint and one worry.  First off the worry, can I check these books out more than once?  I tested the waters with a book I own and have previous read, Chuck Palahniuk’s Survivor.  It has been years since I read it in paper and I kind of felt like rereading it recently.  (Nevermind that I should be instead working on reading more of Haunted by the same author instead).

I did finish the book in the week given, but I wonder if I can recheck it out if I don’t finish within the week.  If I can, it’s not a big deal, though some of the books have a huge waiting list.

My real complaint?

There is very selection available.  I believe there were 190  books available, at least half of which were standard Public Domain books like Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein.  Of the remaining ones, very few were anything I’d ever heard of.  I picked Survivor partially because it was available and I knew what it was.  The only other books I really already wanted to read were the Hunger Games Trilogy books, the first one had a waiting list like 30 people long.  I suspect these rotate around as well, which means those Hunger Games books will probably disappear once the movie drops out of the spotlight.

So, while this is great service, it does have it’s limitations.  Mostly, I find it funny that we have to apply physical limitations of a normal Library to Digital Media in order to allow the thing to exist.

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Filed under: 2012, Audiobooks, Phones and Mobile Devices, Reading & Books | Tagged as: , , , ,

The Accidental Billionaires, The Social Network, and the Founding of Facebook

Author: JoshMiller

Sep 8

I’ve recently been reading through The Accidental Billionaires, the book written about the founding of the popular social networking website, “The Facebook” which the film The Social Network is based off of.  It’s reasonably interesting though right in the forward it admits that some of the story has been altered slightly for time respects, sometimes for some dramatic effect and sometimes because the information concerning events could not be directly be obtained so some assumptions had to be made.

The biggest hole in the whole story is that Mark Zuckerberg, the central character of the story, has not contributed to the story.

Anyway, reading through the book, the biggest draw I’ve gotten from it is that The Social Network is generally accurate but more than likely mostly dramatic assumption.  The book itself admits to it’s containing somewhat inaccurate points.  The movie takes it’s own liberties with several points in the book itself.  Some notable points, as of about halfway through:

  • If i recall, in the movie, Eduardo was reluctant to distribute the site to the Phoenix Club list, in the book, it was his idea.
  • Mark sends a note back to the Winklevoss’ Twins’ Ceace and Desist letter defending The Facebook as an original idea in the book.  The movie implies Mark simply ignored the letter and completely blew it off.
  • The book is full of sex, much of the early book seems to be a documentary of the sex activities and methods of Harvard.
  • Mark’s confrontation with his girlfriend in the opening is not the trigger for Facemash.com as depicted in the movie, in the book.  This is one of the film’s more glaring issues actually as the real life Mark Zuckerberg has had the same girlfriend since 2003 in college and they live together today.  Facebook is not some desperate attempt to impress some long lost girlfriend.  In the book, Mark has no girlfriend of any sort at this point, the story is in March 2004.
  • The whole story depicts Mark as some awkward super genius obsessive computer hacker, which the more and more I hear it, the less and less I believe it.  I’m not saying the guy isn’t smart or that he doesn’t know how to work a computer, I’m just saying I don’t believe he’s quite the total recluse he’s made out to be.  that sounds more like a stereotype being pushed as fact.

Now, really, these differences between book and movie aren’t really the issue.  Lots of movies take liberties with their book source material to varying degrees.  the problem is that both, more so, the movie I think, are being marketed as “The Story of the Founding of Facebook.”  It’s one thing to make stuff up and change a book, it’s another completely to essentially just make things up when they are based on true events.  Both stories are certainly “Inspired by” events but they are really more like some sort of alternate universe what if scenario that happens to use names of real life people.  It’s be like writing a story where Barak Obama is some action hero guerilla fighter who infiltrated the middle east himself and personally took down Bin Laden after a fist fight on the wing of an F-16. 

Yeah, in the general sense, it’s true, in the literal sense, it’s pretty much completely false.

So the moral is, read the book, watch the movie, then go read Wikipedia to get a real idea of what is true and what is not.

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Filed under: 2011, Audiobooks, Blogging and Social Media | Tagged as: , , , , ,

Is it Still A Book if it is Audio Only?

Author: JoshMiller

Aug 31

Ok, so let’s put aside the Audiobooks debate of reading a book versus listening to a  book.  That debate still deals with the fact that you’re still dealing with a book in either case.

What if, you’re listening to something that isn’t a “Book”.  Or at least, it’s not available in text forms, though it otherwise follows the conventions of a book.  It’s got chapters, and dialogue and story and narration.  I suppose technically it’s an audio drama.

HowtoDisappearCompletelyNewest Podiobooks.com is full of these audio only books, but I want to touch on one in particular that I was reminded of recently.  How to Disappear Completely by Myke Bartlett, available if you search on iTunes or on the author’s website.

This is sort of an old school Noir Detective style story couple with some interesting Sci-Fi Bits.  The read, done by the author, is really well done as well, which really helps the whole story.

There is a new sort of remake out that I have not yet listened to but plan to get to.  I will admit, if memory serves me right, the original kind of went off the rails a bit in places on the plot and could have used with a good scrub down edit.  It’s been a few years since i listened to it.

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Filed under: 2011, Audiobooks | Tagged as: , , , ,

Can’t Afford Audible? Try Your Local Library!

Author: JoshMiller

Jan 19

I’ve made an amazing discovery recently. OK, technically it’s not a discovery since somewhere in the back of my mind, I was already aware of this. My local library carries audiobooks!

A library? With books? You don’t say!

I’ve had a lot of success with my reading initiative over the last year and I’m off to a good start this year. Reading is something I did a lot up until around when I started college. Then, somewhere in that period, I started to hate reading. Also I had much less time for reading. Classes had lots of required reading in textbooks, the internet was growing at a staggering and exciting rate, I had been forced to read lots of boring garbage in High School for classes. A lot of factors killed my enjoyment of reading.

I’ve gotten over a few of these hurdles these days however. I no longer have classes or textbooks, though I still like to learn. The internet is still as exciting as ever but I’ve gotten pretty streamlined for my internet consumption process. I’ve grown and matured a bit so many of those stodgy boring books in high school that I breezed past with skimming, cliff notes, and educated guesses are the ones I’m picking up and reading today. Also there was my discovery of audiobooks.

I have a huge love of podcasts, I occasionally get hooked on NPR, I generally enjoy (educated) speaking audio. I added the educated part because I can’t stand morning radio shows. That’s really the best way to phrase the difference here. I realize there are many people who suggest that audio isn’t “reading” but it really is. It’s the same content consumed in a similar manner. It’s not like say, the movie version of a book in any way since a movie will be heavily abridged and often edited to put a new spin on old ideas. We consume books audibly as children, we like to attend lectures and consume information on audibly on the radio or in classes, all of the content is there, it’s very much the same.

The main difference is, and this is why I enjoy it, I can do it while driving. Reading while driving is difficult and hazardous. I will admit that I occasionally read my Twitter stream through my Blackjack while driving, and trust me, it doesn’t work too well and I don’t do it in heavy traffic.

But i can listen all day long while driving. In fact, podcasts and audiobooks are probably better for my driving habits. If I listen to music with lots of energy behind it (as I often do) it tends to inject energy into my driving. I end up getting tickets or driving like an asshole as a result. With audio information, I tend to drive much safer and generally prefer to be in the car longer so I can finish off the chapter or podcast episode.

But I’m moving off subject a bit. Back to the library. Last year, I had a bit of a problem with acquiring audio books. There are several resources available for free audiobooks but many of these are older stories which are often very very short. Alice in Wonderland is only like a half hour in audio form. Robinson Caruso is the same.

I went through a few audiobooks I found on Podiobooks.com, a donation based service (I need to get around to affording a donation to Mr. Myke Bartlett for his wonderful How to Disappear Completely). Still, I wanted to read other more mainstream books that I had been itching to get into.

I looked into Audible.com, a storefront style service for audiobooks as well. The pricing seems a bit steep for me. They seem to only offer books through subscription plans (though I may be wrong). The cheapest plan is something like 15 bucks a month for what amounts to one book. Even when buying print I tend to wait for paperbacks since I can spend 5-10 bucks on a book instead of $20-25 on the hardcover edition. So, $15 is too much for me to afford, especially at this time in my life when I’m generally broke.

This is where the library comes in. Sure enough, my local library carried books on CD.

Unfortunately, they also carry Books on Tape. This is something to be careful of. If you have a way to play tapes, great, got for it. Sadly, I’ve expunged all of the tape players from my life save the one in my front room stereo. This is not the ideal place to listen to audio books. The first thing to remember when checking your local library is to make sure you’re getting a format you can use.

Maybe you don’t have a CD player though. Not as uncommon of a proposition as one might think in today’s digital world. Don’t fret. You can always rip that CD to your MP3 player. Unfortunately, this is where the legality gets a little fuzzy. My personal stance on it is, you have the CD copy from the library, what difference does it make what format you listen to it in. On the other hand, “The Suits” want you to pay for every format you listen to your audio in.

On that note, I won’t specifically recommend any particular software for this purpose but I will say that Google is great for finding things!

Anyway, the first disappointment I had though was the selection. I live in a pretty small rural town and our library is decent but it’s not huge or great. This disappointment was quickly dissipated however at the discovery of what they call the “Rolling Prairie Library System”. Basically, most of the libraries in the area from schools to hospitals to stand alone libraries, including two LARGE libraries in Decatur and Springfield, are part of a system that let you effectively order books to be delivered to your local library. This system is apparently slightly limited however as I discovered when I looked up David Allen’s Getting Things Done. It’s available in audio form but it’s only available for pick up at the Effingham library. I’m not sure why certain books would only be available in certain libraries and I’m irritated but I’m willing to take that trade off.

Plus I can manage my library orders from anywhere through the internet.

So if you’re like me and looking for a cheap and easy way to get into audiobooks, try your local library. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised!

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Filed under: 2009, Audiobooks

Reading vs Listening

Author: JoshMiller

Aug 11

While I tend to be pretty “tech savvy”, I only started carrying an MP3 player within the past year, really more like the past 6 months.

The real fun is, I don’t really listen to much music on this player. Most of my time is divided between Podcasts and Audiobooks. Like most, if not all tech podcast listeners, I’m a fan of the TWIT Network podcasts. Listening to Leo brings me back to 1998 when I had Tech TV and would religiously watch The Screen Savers with Leo Laporte and Kate Botello.

But I’ve done a post about podcasts already, This posts concerns Audiobooks. When I was younger and had time to actually read books on paper, I vaguely remember making fun of the idea of “listening” to a book. These days, the best time I have to read is during my 50 minute commute to work. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to read a book and keep your eyes on the road. With the advent fo a portable media device negating the need for cassettes or CDs as well as an abundance of “sitting on my ass driving” time, audiobooks don’t seem so lame anymore.

I’ve certainly revived my care for reading, and I’ll still call it reading. I’ve probably read more books so far this year than I have int he past 8 years combined. It’s rather satisfying to get through a lot of these stories I’ve wanted to know for many years. I’ve even started branching out into other genres I don’t normally read (ie not SciFi or fantasy).

The best part is that I can read anywhere, while driving, while doing housework, while walking. It’s very relaxing and enjoyable.

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Filed under: 2008, Audiobooks