Issue Date: May 26, 2002
Read with your eyes on the road
Have you wasted time in traffic lately? If you'd been listening to John Grisham's newest thriller, you would have waved gratefully at slow drivers for giving you a chance to find out what happens next.
Think about it: Perhaps the only thing standing between you and a frustration-busting audio book is a little technology. (We know we touted books in last week's column, but hey, May is National Book Month.)
First, bring your book-listening into the 21st century by getting an MP3 device; you can download books directly to it. In fact, you can fit several lengthy works into your shirt pocket. At Audible.com, the smaller-than-a-deck-of-cards Otis, left, is free with a subscription ($12.95 a month). The plan includes a book each month, plus an audio newspaper, magazine or radio subscription (choices include NPR's Fresh Air and daily Wall Street Journal highlights). Once you receive your Otis, just install the software, plug it into your computer and surf back to Audible.com to choose from more than 4,500 books to download. Otis even comes with a cassette adapter for your car stereo.
If you prefer to remain loyal to tapes or CDs, you'll find more than 5,000 unabridged titles at Books on Tape (booksontape.com). They're expensive (for example, Stephen King's 15-cassette Black House is $49.46), unless you buy from a selection of used titles. Also try the audio book section at Amazon.com (or just search for a book and see if it's available in audio format) to find titles at discounted prices. If you sprang for audio books that are now gathering dust, turn them into trade-in credit: Go to Audiobooks.com, click on "Trade-Ins" and fill out a form to mail in with your tapes. You'll get 25% of the original publisher's price in credit.
-- Christina Wood
Last week's Where on the Web
E-books and online book clubs
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