Ipods and MP3 players are now so pervasive that it came as no surprise to me yesterday to
see some 80-year old grandpa on the subway with earbuds sticking out of his ears (aside: what did surprise me,
however, was how grey and robust his ear hair was. It looked a bit like he had trapped a furry caterpillar inside his
head). These players have changed our lives for the better. My question is: would you like to make “better” even,
well, better?
So I am going to start a little feature about great spoken word content. Music is great. We can all agree on that,
and on how wonderful it is to have every CD you’ve ever owned immediately accessible to you on a small player the size
of a deck of cards. But there is a rapidly growing world of informational content out there that deserves to be better
explored. This content is a wonderful addition to the traveler’s digital library. I mean, how great would it be to ride
a train in some foreign country and listen to a history of that region as the landscape whizzes past? The alternative
is pressing your nose into a book and missing the scenery.
I am an avid subscriber to Audible.com, an audiobook service that has for
about a year now changed my world. Audible.com has available for download a virtual
Library of Alexandria of spoken digital content. Not
just books, but radio shows like Fresh Air and Charlie Rose (both of which I have subscribed to). You can buy these
items a la carte, or, like me, you can subscribe and get one book and one subscription a month. The cost is $14.95 a
month, which may seem a lot, but when you consider what the books cost a la carte, this is actually a fabulous deal. I
can’t say I listen to a book a month, but I do listen to almost every show I subscribe to, and I now have a catalog of
about 15 books that I can go to anytime I want. The beauty of audible’s technology is that it “bookmarks” your books,
so you go back to the spot where you left off. This is a HUGE deal when it comes to listening to long books like
Charlie Wilson’s War or Shadow Divers (two of my recent favorites). But the best
thing is that you can move from book to book depending on your mood. When I am in a sciency mood, I listen to
James Watson’s History of DNA. When I’m looking for something light and hilarious, I go to
America, the Audiobook, by the guys at the Daily Show (fricken HILARIOUS, I shit you not). Audible’s
stuff is available on itunes (for ipods only) or from their site, and they support most major MP3 players.
So if you are an ipod traveler, I urge you to check out audible. It has
improved my quality of life by exactly 12.431 percent…not a small amount when you think about it. In future posts, I’ll
write more about other books I’ve heard and other places you can go to find great spoken content for your player. Until
then, check out audible and find a good book for your travels.