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My return to audio.

Sunday, January 1st, 2012

I haven’t listened to an audiobook in about a year. I don’t know why, really – I have several I’ve not listened to, and just haven’t gotten around to putting them in iTunes. The wrap-up posts across the book blogging world, especially among my Twitter friends, prompted me to get back to it, though, with many rave reviews of Wil Wheaton’s narration of Ready Player One. I’ve just finished Chapter Zero, and I think this is going to be a lot of fun. Have you read and/or listened to it? Drop a link to your review below and I’ll check them all out when I’m done (unless you specify that there are no spoilers in your review – then I’ll head over now).

Now, back to the game!

Free-form Friday

Friday, May 7th, 2010

It’s official: I am now the Social Media Editor for AudioFile magazine, the print and online resource for audiobooks! Tim Spalding, the founder of LibraryThing, let me know about the opportunity a couple of weeks ago, and it is truly a dream job for me on many levels. I’m very excited about the new community we’re launching on May 14, and will be sure to post an open invitation here once we’ve officially come out of beta. I hope you’ll join us even if you aren’t a regular audiobook listener; we’re going to have some exciting guest moderators, YA titles that you can download free from the publishing partners in our Sync teen summer listening program, and lively discussions about new and upcoming titles, technology in the publishing world, and so much more. I’m new to audiobooks myself, and have already been introduced to some great books and fabulous narrators.

That being said, what would your dream job in the bookish world be?

Free-form Friday

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about audiobooks this week, and I’m curious about the other bookish bloggers out there. Do you listen to audiobooks? How do you choose which books to listen to and which to read? Do you have favorite narrators whose audiobooks you’ll seek out? What resources do you use in order to choose your audiobooks? Do you get them from the library, buy them, use a web rental site? Have you ditched an audiobook because of the narrator? Do you think the quality of the reading affects your opinion of the book’s content?

My torrid affair with e-reading

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Clearly, we are all both readers and Internet users. There has been a lot of discussion (ironically, most of it online) about how the electronic age has affected the time – and more importantly, the money – people spend on print media. Book bloggers and sites like LibraryThing may be able to make up for some of the losses sustained by the disappearance of newspapers (and the book reviews within), but the damage inflicted goes far beyond what recommending a good book can repair. I wrote my final paper for my recent English composition class on this topic, and while I won’t subject you to the paper itself, I really don’t feel like I even began to talk about it in any real depth.

Personally, I am addicted to books themselves. Nothing in the world is quite like the feel, sound, and smell of the first time a brand new hardcover is opened. That has not, however, completely prevented me from testing other means of enjoying fine literature, particularly those novels which are in the public domain, and free to read via various means (we mentioned Gutenberg earlier, and there are other sources through my Stanza reader application on my iPod, as well). I will probably never own a Kindle or other dedicated e-reader, but I have to admit that the convenience of a “book collection” that fits in my pocket is pretty unbeatable. So far, though, I’ve been purchasing paper copies of the books I read electronically or listen to on audiobook/MP3, and thus keeping a good chunk of my income flowing directly to local sellers of both new and used books. So yes, I have a clandestine love affair with e-books, but I will always return to my stable, supportive, memory-filled shelves of “real” books, in the end.

What are your thoughts on the state of the publishing industry, and the internet’s connection to the demise of print media? Are you digging in your heels against Amazon’s ubiquitous hold on book sales worldwide? Gleefully donating your physical books as you replace them with digital copies? Trying to find a happy medium between keeping up with technology and keeping bookstores from folding altogether?