I listen to books all day long when I work. I'm an illustrator and while I'm painting they are indispensable. I can't listen while sketching though because it's too distracting.

Our library has a good selection but they are not downloads. I never rent books either because they cost too much and I go through 'em too fast. I'm on good terms with our librairians and they will get me most often what I want.

Many genres I will only listen to and never read. I feel like my actual reading time is precious and I save that for truly worthy books, or highly entertaining! Thrillers, spy, horror, suspense are usually decent enough for me to paint
to and some books translate so much better in audio than in book form. Mitford series and dare I say it? Harry Potter, but that one I will read of course. I tend to skim over boring descriptive passages that audio makes me hear. And even though cds are the current mode, I much prefer tapes because I don't lose my place when I stop and start. And I've become a fast splicer when necessary.

I never rent either, it's just too expensive. I'd rather buy a book, and I try not to do too much of that, except cookbooks. My library has about 50-50 BOTand on CD. For awhile they were getting NO new tapes and I was getting desperate because I've listened to almost everything but now they are getting a few new tapes. But there's lots more downloads, if I just knew how to do it.

I actually prefer the CDs because too many tapes from the library have become distorted over time. Also it is hard to find a portable tape player any more.

I like to listen when I am sewing or when I am doing a certain kind of driving. In town, in traffic, audio books take too much attention and I won't play them. I don't need the distraction. But when driving on long trips where there is little or no good radio to listen to, audio books keep me entertained and alert.

Rosefolly

granjan - to answer your original question - you can get Mp3 players which cost less than $30 which will work admirably for downloaded mp3 books from your library. (I've included a link to one example. This is NOT a recommendation - I know nothing about it - but it just shows what can be found.)

You plug them into your USB port on your computer, and they appear just like another hard disk - then you download the mp3 and transfer it. You can of course play the mp3's on your computer as well, using WinAmp or Windows Media player or anything else.

It is really easy-peasy. If you're not sure, just ask anyone under the age of thirty to give you a hand.

Here is a link that might be useful: a cheap mp3 player

Having listened to both both Books on Tape, and to CDs, I have also found the number of tapes I have not listened to diminishing. Question: assuming I can transfer CD audio to a MP3 player; will an MP3 player remember my "place", when I must pause my listening? In other words, can I listen to half of it on my way to the city, and then listen to the other half on the way back, without a lot of searching for my "place"? Anyone?? Under 30?? Heh heh.

Bob

Simple answer - yes. Just press pause. There's nothing mechanical, so it just hangs there and picks up again when you press start again.

(I'm not under thirty by any means - it's just that 95% of people over thirty would be able to help, whereas perhaps 50-60% of people over fifty would be able to...)

Hey - less of the under/over thirty, please, boys and girls. I am only 10 and I know some things but not others, yet.

Dido

granjan, funnily enough I was just talking to the DD on the phone and she mentioned 'audible.com' books as she is working for their UK sister co. as part of her PR job in London.
I know nothing of the company but she says it is possible to download books from their site onto an Mp3, or pay a subscription and get unlimited listening.
Of course the technical stuff means little to me as I am long past 30, but at 28 the world is still her oyster.

Here is a link that might be useful: audible.com

All right, all right - I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be ageist!

The point is - mp3's are really really easy to use, and mp3 players are very cheap. And if a library is kind enough to make mp3's of audiobooks available for download, it seems sensible to take advantage of it. And it's not hard to find someone who will help you to do it, if you're not sure.

That's all I was trying to say....

martin_z; no problem...a bit of humour tends to keep us sane...Regarding the mp3s; when I was teaching, I would see youngsters walking around with them hanging from their ears. Over the years, I have many times bitten on "Oh yes, you can do......", only to find that Murphy was lurking in the wings again. Now I tend to be more careful...So, can you pause in mid paragraph, or like songs, only at the end of a "track"? I ask, because most books on cd dont have "tracks". I hope your answer is that I can pause and continue at any point, and then I shall run down to a Frys and buy one of those wonderful gadgets. Thanks..
Bob (well over 60)

And I want to know the same thing as Bob. And I agree with the under over 30 thing. Although my son is over 30 and under 40 and knows ho to do it all.

Not being ablle to keep your place is the most frustrating part of the CDs. And Rosefolly, you can find cassete players at Target and Walgreens. They are very cheap but are no longer made with reverse buttons! If you want to back up you have to turn the tape over and push fast forward!

And none of the big electronic places have them, I guess because they are too cheap. And of course cars only come with CD players now. My car is 8+ years old and I'll never be able to get rid of it! Another instance in which the world neglects readers.

Right.

I've had a play with a little mp3 player my daughter has.

The good news is that you can just press "pause" and it stops. And you can leave it there till you want it again.

The bad news is that it's not switched off, so it's using battery when it's paused. (There's a lock slider, so there is no chance of pressing anything else). It's not a lot, compared to when it's playing, but it does lose battery power.

So the trick is to buy the cheapest one you can that can be recharged. Then you just plug it in every night and you'll be fine.

Or just accept that you'll go through batteries quite quickly - though not half so fast as a CD player (or even more, a tape player).

We recently culled a lot of the books on cassette at our library-when I inquired why, the answer was that they are no longer being produced so missing tapes can't be replaced, and that the tapes on so many have gone wonkey, or the middle one of three is broken, or twisted, and "REPAIRS" are no longer going to be attending to their ills. We will soon be all CDs....and all DVDs on the movie aisle.
So off they all went to the sales. I made a haul for my mom, who listens while having her 4 hour, 3 times a week dialysis treatments, so goes through books at rapid pace.

I download books from audible.com to my iPOD. On the iPOD I am able to stop the audio and when I start it again it is at the spot where it was stopped. It is possible to "rewind" gradually or to go back to pre-set "bookmarks". Whether all of these features come from audible.com or the iPOD I'm not sure but I'm guessing it might be a combination of the two. I've never downloaded a book from anywhere else. The iPOD does remember where I stop when playing music, too, so that must be an iPOD feature.

For listening to books indoors where I prefer not to use headphones I have a small speaker system for the iPOD so I can listen while I do all kinds of things.

Frances, when you say you stop the audio does that mean you have turned it off? I really don't want to have to keep using battery power.

Thanks, Martin for testing the MP3. Actually my tape players use very little battery power for my books. They seem to use more when I occasionally play music tapes! But one set of batteries lasts through 10 to 15 tapes. No way would that happen if they were paused all the time.

This whole thing is so complicated. Why don't the companies still support tape replacement? There are lots of us out there who still want the books on tape. Or why don't the book recording people figure out some way for us to save our place? Shouldn't be so hard.

granjan, I realized after I posted that I didn't make that clear but the device is turned off. The iPOD doesn't have batteries that can be changed but it does need to be recharged on a regular basis but not too frequently. I've never measured how long it can go without recharging but it is quite a few hours. I just plug it in whenever I'm not walking around with it.

Yes, thanks for the experiment, Martin...I guess I will buy one of those mp3 gadgets when I am next at a Frys. It sounds like we will be taking a trip over to LA to a ham radio flea market at months end, and we usually stop at Frys at San Diego on the way back. (We get up at 2am in order to be at LA for 6:30 am. Good job it is only once per month.) I did try the CD thing, and found it truly annoying. I'd sooner listen to the CBC radio, and its equally annoying political diatribes.
Again, thanks;
Bob

Martin, you say you can pause and it starts again. But does it start at the correct place after you turn it off?

I download from the library all the time. Note that Netlibrary and the Maryland Digital Library do not work with iPods. It is also difficult to find MP3 players that remembers where you stopped. Or it was a couple of years ago. I finally called Books on Tape, the Netlibrary source, to get their recommendation. My thumb was getting cramps from fast forwarding to the proper place in my book from the one I'd first tried. These gadgets were designed to play 3 minute songs, not hour or 12 hour books. And the books I can download from my library are either in 1 hour chunks (Maryland Digital Library) or as the entire book however long that may be (Netlibrary.) I've linked to the one I use for library downloads. It is a 1 gig device, but unless you want to keep several books on it, a 512 meg player would work just as well.

It comes with a short cord that connects the player to your USB port and the software to run it. The library also has software you will download that takes care of the licenses you need. You will need Windows Media Player on your machine (the library downloads don't work with any Apple products). You can also listen to the books in Windows Media Player.

I highly recommend getting those little gel or sponge covers for the earpieces that you can pick up at Best Buy and other places like that. Because of liability issues, the earphones that come with the players are too large to shove down into your ear and are not very comfortable.

Here is a link that might be useful: The one recommended by Netlibrary

Chris, I don't really understand anything much in your post, except that if I get the recommended device it will keep my place when I turn it off, just like my tape player does. Correct? I don't have a clue on how to download any of this stuff but I do know many of those frisky youngsters who I can persuade to teach me once I get the right device.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Chris - that's the point I obviously didn't make - if you pause it, lock it (so you can't accidently restart it) and DON'T turn it off, it'll start from where you left it. Probably not a huge problem as the amount of battery it uses is negligible even when it's on all day, so long as it's paused. It's a bit like a mobile phone - that will last for three or four days if you don't make or receive many calls, and conk out in less than a day if you actually use it for calls all the time.

But the only way of turning off my daughter's mp3 player also resets to the start. Annoying.

I don't use an MP3 player for books, but for music (though it would be the exact same for a book as they're both mp3 files). With my iPod, which I assume Martin's daughter uses as it sounds the same, when something is paused, you can leave it for days on pause, and then press play and it will start in the same place. If you were to turn it off, you would have to start at the beginning and scroll through to find your place. I'm not sure what it's like for other players. My boyfriend has a Walkman MP3 player, and I believe it turns itself off, but I'm not sure if it keeps his place or not.

I never turn my iPod off, simply because our PC is nearly always on and that's how you charge it, through the computer, so it's not a problem charging it frequently.

Having looked at audible.co.uk, I see that you can only listen to one or two books per month for £7.99 or £15.99 respectively. That seems extortionate to me! I thought it might be a good way to get some of my university reading done while I'm busy doing other things, but if I ever do decide to listen to books, I'll be going to the library.

Granjan, sorry about that. Bottom line: if you are going to download books from the library over the internet, get the Creative Zen Nano I linked earlier. If you are going to bring home CDs from the library and transfer them to a portable device, get an iPod.

Feel for me, folks. My system crashed a month ago and only 3 of my 4 iTunes backup DVDs worked. And with my new logic board, my computer thinks the iPod belongs to another computer and will only connect to it now if I wipe the iPod and start again. Sigh.

I'm pretty sure you can't bring home library CDs and transfer them to a portable device. Royalty stuff. But I'll try the Zen Nano IF I can find someone who will let me return it if it doesn't work like expected. I'll have to double check Amazon return policy.

If you are transfering the book to a portable device for personal use it isn't a problem. If you are transfering it to sell, bad girl!

Granjan, 95% of the music on my iPod is from CDs I own or have borrowed. You transfer them to your computer and then to your MP3 player. It's perfectly legal as long as they're for your use, as Chris said.

And I do feel for you, Chris. I can't imagine what a pain it must be to have to start over.

Chris - my sympathies. But this whole concept that you can only attach to one computer is something I loathe. It's your iPod and you SHOULD be able to connect it to any computer and reload your music onto that computer, rather than having to bank on your backups. Who the hell do Apple (and Microsoft) think they are? The whole setup is based on the assumption that we are all criminals who are going to take every opportunity we can to steal software and music.

Don't let them get away with it. Contact Apple support and tell them that you want to get the music off your ipod onto another computer as your old one has died, and you expect them to help you to do it. It's your music. Why should you lose it?

I am a fossil, still in the 20th century technology (tho I did recently get a cel phone.) I still have a Walkman, and still listen to my tapes when I am out shopping, walking, or working out in the yard. I have replaced many of my worn out tapes with CDs that I listen to in the car or at home. I have heard of iPod and iTunes of course, but I don't feel the need for them.

As for books, I don't do well listening to them. My thoughts tend to wander, esp if I am just sitting there doing nothing else. We have used them on long distance trips and those are ok. But I need to visualize the story, and the only way I can do that is to read the print. My DH used them when he worked as an apt custodian - said they were a life saver for him.

I do agree that manufactures should still remember that many people use cassettes over CDS or iPod, and that they need to provide those in book form. But then, I think that computer companies should not make programs and computers obsolete after three months....

There are some sites that have free downloads of classics. I've never used them but you might want to look at what they offer.

Too late! Already re-loaded, Martin. The only thing I lost that I truly cared about was K.D. Lang's version of "Hallelujah," and for 99 cents I'm okay with buying it again.

Another advantage of iPods and the like are podcasts. Almost all National Public Radio (NPR) is available in podcast form. I subscribe to Science Friday podcasts, for example, so I can listen when convenient.

Here is a link that might be useful: NPR Podcast Directory

Actually, Martin, you can put things from one computer onto another using just your iPod and the USB cable to connect it. You just need another computer with iTunes installed - when you plug your iPod into a new computer it asks if you want to add everything from your library to the different computer's library. Assuming you have everything in your computer's library on your iPod, you could easily store it on another.

I do think it's a shame that people can't get cassette tapes as readily as CDs or MP3s, but that's the way technology manufacturers get your money. They create something new so something you loved becomes obsolete and have to buy the new item. Records, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, MP3s ... what's next?

I wouldn't mind them "improving" the technology. It's when their improvements mess up a really good system, like being able to hold your space in an audio book, that I get upset. (I also miss the rewind buttons on the tape machines, but they are so cheap now, I can't complain.

The one time someone was going to show me how to download a CD there was a licensing thing and we couldn't. Never tried again.

Cindy, I never listen to a book when I'm just sitting there. That's my reading time! But I NEED something to engage my mind when I'm weeding out all that oxalis!

We actually have one of our PC's wired in w/ our television, so I can select VDP and view or listen to anything downloaded off the internet via our stereo/tv system. You can pause/resume MP3 files. Don't ask me how my husband did it. He's the engineer. I noticed Project Gutenberg has some audio files you can download but most of them seem to be computer generated and don't sound very good (as you can imagine, it's like listening to Stephen Hawking read you a story).

Angelini, maybe I did something wrong. I guess I could have put the serial number in wrong when I reloaded iTunes. I did have to drag out the special glasses I use when threading needles in order to read it off the box. ;-) But the software accepted the serial number just fine.

Georgia, the computer I'm on and probably most new systems out there have the narrator option. I know I didn't special order it. In Windows, from the START button, it is under Programs, Accessories, Accessibilty. It does sound awful and I feel for those who must relie upon it.

I should clarify. Project Gutenberg (and other sites where you can find/purchase audio book downloads) does offer human-generated audio books but their selection is limited. Also, the one or two that I sampled weren't that good. Audio books are only as good as the reader, and many of the free ones are recorded by volunteers, so you don't get the same quality as an audio book being read by a professional actor. My kids make it impossible for me to listen to anything at home, so I'm left with reading the old fashioned way for now (unless I wanted to listen in my car, and I like to listen to music on the rare occasion I'm by myself in the car). I guess I envy those of you who can listen to an audio book.

Listening to books in the car is a whole different event. There was one time when I was listening to a Bill Bryson book, and I had to slow down because I couldn't see properly for the tears of laughter in my eyes.

And then there was the famous occasion, already mentioned here on RP, when my wife and I were blinking back tears during a death in Anne of Green Gables - and suddenly heard heartbroken sobs from Lisa in the back of the car....

Good narrators do make a huge difference. That's why I like Recorded Books best because of the overall quality narration. I have given up on some books (had to read them) because the author chose to do the narrating. Cold Mountain, for instance.

Martin, you are lucky. We saw all the Anne of Green Gables videos while on a coach tour of Eastern Canada, and there were sniffles from lots of people. My husband was so involved that he was devastated to find that Anne was not a real person.

Interesting question, but boy did it get technical! I couldn't drive 5 hours to Maine several times a year without those "passengers" to keep me company. It seems I'm there in no time.
I live in a small city so listening while doing errands takes forever. Can only listen in the house when doing the most boring things, like today painting the bathroom, UGH. On a sunny, cold days I can park at the ocean and listen. Very nice.
Another thread asked about narrators. I love the man who did the Mitford series. After reading the first book, I found the second on tape and was hooked. Also love a good English accent narrator.

I finally got my Zen nano and I love it. It works just as advertised. I can pause or turn it off and keep my place just like a Book On Tape. And a friend already had one so she figured out the tricks of downloading from the library site. It uses real batteries, which is a plus for those of us who like to take things out in nature where there is no place to recharge. Thanks to Chris in the valley for the tip and Martin for exploring possibilities. XOXOX Janet

Here is a link that might be useful: Zen nano

Well, to answer the question, I listen to books through the Talking Books program that is run by the US Library of Congress National Library Service. I do all of my "reading" this way and have done so for the last 25 years. I'm very used to books on tape. Soon they will be converting to a digital format.

Of course, being this kind of reader means that I don't often get to take part in discussions of books on boards like this one. I can't just order up a book from the library and expect to get it in time for the discussion. Sometimes I wait many years for a requested book.

Just the other day I got one I'd requested 12 years ago, for instance.

On the other hand, I get to keep the books for up to a year. I know of no other library with such a generous policy.

Back in my student days, we often had to get library books for 24 hours only--and race back with them to avoid stiff fines.