Audible.com THE Source for Audio Books
Written: Aug 07 '09 (Updated Aug 07 '09)
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When I got my Kindle II there was a mention of Audible.com as a source for Kindle II audio books. The site had a special Gold membership at $7.49 a month for the first three months, changing to $14.95 a month after. A Gold member gets one audio book free each month as well as discounts on all the books in the extensive library. I joined.
Audible.com
My first free purchase was A Painted House by John Grisham. This was a book I had read in its early release and a movie I had seen. I thought I would enjoy having it read to me again. I first had to download their software and then go to my library on the web site and download the two volumes of the book.Once this is done the device you are using has to be connected to the computer and another download to that device accomplished
While I was waiting for the two volumes to download, it took about fifteen minutes over Cable, I perused the site. There are thousands of audio books available, most around $16.00 at the member discount. Many older works are free. You can download in four different formats to suit whatever audio source you have. I am currently using mine on the Kindle II and on my iPod. They can be used with Windows Media Player as well.
I enjoyed the narration of A Painted House. The narrator spoke clearly and used different voices for the different characters speaking. Since then I have downloaded three more of their books, all popuilar fiction. The quality of each is quite good on all the media I have tried. The download time is not too bad. Each volume of a novel is about eight hours of speaking.
Of course the enjoyment is petty much controlled by the quality of the narration. So far even the least promising narration has kept me interested in the book. The one I am currently having read to me is The Bourne Deceptionby Eric Von Lustbader. This book was a June release and was available on Audible.com in July. The narration is the best I have enjoyed so far, replete with different voices for different characters, sound effects, and background music.
After the trial I discontinued my Gold membership since I also download books from Amazon.com. Many of those can be read by the Kindle II but the voice is robotic and some of the mispronunciations hilarious. I will continue to selectively use Audible and can recommend it, especially for those who have trouble reading because of their eyes. It is much better than the text-to-speech converters available today.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Downloadable Audio Books
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gamblin_man
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Member: Larry
Location: Pacific Northwest
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