I’m late to all of this stuff, I know, but I’m sure there are many of you who read this blog who are even more hopeless than I when it comes to being up-to-date with technology. So this is for you folks: a great website can be found here for those of you just getting into "listening" to books. It’s a new thing for me and I’m having a wonderful time with it. But up till now, I’ve been borrowing my audiobooks from the local library. You can buy and download all kinds of audiobooks on-line, but they are normally newer books and it’s rather expensive. The link above, however, will take you to a site that allows you to download books that are in the public domain for free. People volunteer to read them and make them available to the public.
Now, I found the site. I haven’t actually used it yet because that would entail actually learning how to download the files onto my MP3 player. I’m still working on downloading those podcasts . . . one of these days!
Thanks, Julie, that IS a great website. It is a treat to have downloaded Poetics into my Ipod. I even volunteered to read.
Perhaps, Kate, you might do us all a better service and explain to us poor dumb techno-phobes (in terms we can understand) exactly HOW to perform this operation. I only found the thing. I have no idea how to use it or the patience to figure it out.
Dear Technophobes,
They have a podcast, which you can access for free through the ITunes store. Go there and ask for Librivox, or access it through the page you offered above. That is, "Podcast" under "Listen". They have King Lear, which I have been reading and reading about, lately. Bliss. I do hope it is good.
The true source, however, is "Librivox Catalog" under that same heading, "Listen". This takes you to a search page. You may type in a title or author, but I did not know what I wanted. However, I noticed, on the right, listen to LibriVox with the sub-heading "Our catalog". Joy! On that page, "1. Completed Books" seems to be a problem, but the other lists work well. The list of Children’s Literature might appeal to you, Julie. Choose that one, or Poetry or Non-Fiction. The page opens to a list of available works of that type. Choose one, open that link, and of the options available, I suggest Zip file of the entire book, and your computer will tell you what to do next. Mine offers to "save to disk," which I chose, sending the zipped book to "Downloads." Since I have instructed my computer to open sound files with ITunes, that’s where I sent the downloaded files. Those took some time to open, unzipping themselves into ITunes, but I listened while they did so.
I asked ITunes to translate those MP3 files to AAC audio, (done in Advanced, from the top) because that takes less room on the IPod - my personal preference. I also opened the "Get Info" option and retitled each section to make the order correct. (Alphabetically, "Preface" wanted to come last after "Chapter") You might not have to do that, but I did. Finally, I "sync" to my IPod, just as I would a podcast, (like Peter Schramm’s, for example) and shortly all is happiness. Oh. It thinks it is music, but I don’t care. It says, "Aristotle" under the heading, Artists, which amuses.
There may be a more technically proficient way to do this. There are some things wherein I am blithely fearless and enjoy fumbling through to possible success: this sort of thing and motherhood. Intrepidity in the face of obstacles works in both cases.
There are some things wherein I am blithely fearless and enjoy fumbling through to possible success: this sort of thing and motherhood.Intrepidity in the face of obstacles works in both cases. This explains all my miserable failures in both! Kate, I am thick, I realize but I still don’t get it. Oh where’s a good man when you need him! Of course, asking mine to help me with this is like asking him to paint the house! But if I could get through a semester of statistics in graduate school, I suppose I can plod through this. The reward will be better, anyway.
We all have our thick spots. Getting these MP3s is like following a particularly complicated recipe. One year my son, Frank, asked me to make him a cassata cake for his birthday. Ye Gods! I tell you, that’s motherly love! Yet, step by step, being careful not to burn the custard and ignoring the part about piping on gelatinized whipped cream for decoration, I got the essence of what he wanted.
Maybe you do not have a zip file program on your computer. In that case, download the mp3 files, directly. That’s within the last options on the list on the ultimate page. For books, that would be taking it in sections, but for some shorter works, and I am looking at Bierce’s The Parenticide Club right now, it is just one download, and you probably want to choose the slower (64kbps) speed if your computer is not a wonder-machine.
Do you have Bit Torrent for movies or the like? I think that is a free download and might make all simple for you. You do not HAVE to upload these to your Ipod, but can listen to these right from your computer. People used to sit around the radio to listen to broadcasts. Can it be much different, sitting around the computer?
You took statistics in graduate school? I AM impressed. To me, reading about statistics compares to reading about quantum physics, and makes as much sense: "It is this, unless it is that, or something else altogether."
Seriously, keep poking around at Librivox until you find the way. Like making a good pie crust or Sauce Bolognese or a decent human being, it looks harder than it really is and if "this" doesn’t work, then try "that." If I can do this, thick as I am, you can do it. You did graduate school, and I am only halfway through, and that at an appalling age!