As many of my regular readers will know, I am a big fan of both ebooks and audiobooks. For those of you unsure about e-reading or looking to take the first step, take a look at my Newbie’s Guide to eReading. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them. For my audiobook needs I go to Audible. Here’s how it works. You can either buy audiobooks at full price, with no membership or monthly commitment. An average audiobook, say for example The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling, costs around $25 USD for non members. A larger book, like say Fires of Heaven from the Wheel of Time may be as much as $60 USD, but most are in the $25 USD range. Alternatively, you can choose to take a membership with Audible. The basic plan $14.95 USD per month which gives you one credit per month to use on any audiobook. An ideal introduction to Audible. The Platinum plan, which I have, is two credits to spend on books a month. That costs $22.95 USD per month. They also have an Annual plan for which you pay…
Recently, I spent a fun couple of days putting together a digital bookshelf of all my books with Delicious Library (Mac OS X only). I particularly appreciated being able to view my Kindle and Kobo ebooks, physical hard copy books (of which I still have a few) and Audible audiobooks all in the one place. The software includes a barcode scanner, so you can scan in and add physical hard copy books. Audible audiobooks and iBooks are added via iTunes and I used a drop and drag from the Amazon Manage Your Kindle page to add my Kindle collection. I had to manually search for and add my Kobo books. I should note that Digital Library has full iTunes integration so it also includes your iTunes movies and TV shows. It took me a little while to work out how to include Audible and ebooks on the same shelf – but a quick Google search indicated that I needed to edit my shelf to include both “iTunes Audiobook” and “book” type content. Delicious Library can also generate fascinating stats about your library. For example, I learned that to listen to my entire Audible collection back to back would take me…
Recently, I spent a fun couple of days putting together a digital bookshelf of all my books with Delicious Library (Mac OS X only). I particularly appreciated being able to view my Kindle and Kobo ebooks, physical hard copy books (of which I still have a few) and Audible audiobooks all in the one place. The software includes a barcode scanner, so you can scan in and add physical hard copy books. Audible audiobooks and iBooks are added via iTunes and I used a drop and drag from the Amazon Manage Your Kindle page to add my Kindle collection. I had to manually search for and add my Kobo books. I should note that Digital Library has full iTunes integration so it also includes your iTunes movies and TV shows. It took me a little while to work out how to include Audible and ebooks on the same shelf – but a quick Google search indicated that I needed to edit my shelf to include both “iTunes Audiobook” and “book” type content. Delicious Library can also generate fascinating stats about your library. For example, I learned that to listen to my entire Audible collection back to back would take me…
During my reading for the recent BookTubeAThon in which I compared classic works of literature with more modern novels, I realised fairly early on that there is usually a very good reason why “classics” continue to be read year after year and why they have stood the test of time. It seems to me that what they have in common is a combination of exploration of universal themes, interesting characters, entry into a fantastical new world, understanding of the human condition and/or a witty and engaging writing style. 1984 explores the theme of government control, and Big Brother is a pretty dominant “character” in the book. Pride & Prejudice has Jane Austen’s wonderfully witty narrative combined with the eternal quest for true love. Naturally it made me wonder which of today’s novels will become tomorrow’s classics. Looking at Amazon’s 100 top selling books, there are several I see there that I don’t believe we will still be reading in years to come. I’m sorry E.L. James and Dan Brown, but I really doubt people will even remember Fifty Shades of Grey or Inferno in fifty years’ time. I simply don’t think they combine enough of the criteria to last. So…
During my reading for the recent BookTubeAThon in which I compared classic works of literature with more modern novels, I realised fairly early on that there is usually a very good reason why “classics” continue to be read year after year and why they have stood the test of time. It seems to me that what they have in common is a combination of exploration of universal themes, interesting characters, entry into a fantastical new world, understanding of the human condition and/or a witty and engaging writing style. 1984 explores the theme of government control, and Big Brother is a pretty dominant “character” in the book. Pride & Prejudice has Jane Austen’s wonderfully witty narrative combined with the eternal quest for true love. Naturally it made me wonder which of today’s novels will become tomorrow’s classics. Looking at Amazon’s 100 top selling books, there are several I see there that I don’t believe we will still be reading in years to come. I’m sorry E.L. James and Dan Brown, but I really doubt people will even remember Fifty Shades of Grey or Inferno in fifty years’ time. I simply don’t think they combine enough of the criteria to last. So…
Through @katytastic I recently learned about BookTubeAthon – a book reading marathon for YouTube book bloggers. Take a look at the introductory videos. Although I don’t blog on YouTube, I think this sounds a really exciting idea, and I look forward to taking part. In summary, it’s a challenge to book bloggers to read as much as possible between 15th and 21st July and to complete certain challenges:
Through @katytastic I recently learned about BookTubeAthon – a book reading marathon for YouTube book bloggers. Take a look at the introductory videos. Although I don’t blog on YouTube, I think this sounds a really exciting idea, and I look forward to taking part. In summary, it’s a challenge to book bloggers to read as much as possible between 15th and 21st July and to complete certain challenges:
Some of you kind enough to check out my writing may not know me personally, so I thought it was probably about time to tell you a bit about myself. To get started, here’s a fun fact. I have read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings right through – all 1,200+ pages – in four different languages; English, French, German and Dutch. Normally, I don’t like to be pinned down to a favourite book, but if you really, really REALLY pressed me, I’d probably have to answer Tolkien’s masterpiece. My handle is Scottish Bookworm in Quebec. Yes, I am Scottish, yes, I am a bookworm and yes, I do live in Quebec. In order to fund my book habit I work in technical support, although I’d much rather be reading with my cat Isis curled up on my knee. As a youngster, I always had my nose stuck in a book. It was hardly surprising then that I studied Modern Languages at the University of Edinburgh where I spent four years dissecting classic French and German literature. For some time after I graduated I refused to read anything deeper than the latest issue of Cosmopolitan. It wasn’t until I…
Some of you kind enough to check out my writing may not know me personally, so I thought it was probably about time to tell you a bit about myself. To get started, here’s a fun fact. I have read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings right through – all 1,200+ pages – in four different languages; English, French, German and Dutch. Normally, I don’t like to be pinned down to a favourite book, but if you really, really REALLY pressed me, I’d probably have to answer Tolkien’s masterpiece. My handle is Scottish Bookworm in Quebec. Yes, I am Scottish, yes, I am a bookworm and yes, I do live in Quebec. In order to fund my book habit I work in technical support, although I’d much rather be reading with my cat Isis curled up on my knee. As a youngster, I always had my nose stuck in a book. It was hardly surprising then that I studied Modern Languages at the University of Edinburgh where I spent four years dissecting classic French and German literature. For some time after I graduated I refused to read anything deeper than the latest issue of Cosmopolitan. It wasn’t until I…
I was recently shown a little tool that lets you automatically track new releases from your favorite authors – http://getpushpig.com