Audio Books

If you are one of those people who simply don’t want to read, then audio books are just the right thing for your. How about curling up in the bed listening to your audio book? Well audio books have been a revolution in the book-publishing sector with almost every classic book now available in an audio format.

History of audio books

The idea of audio books originated in 1931 with the advent of the Books for the Adult Blind Project aimed at helping the blind adults. The first audio book series was published in 1932. In the year 1935 as a part of taking the same project further, the Congress approved free mailings of audio books to blind citizens. Advancement in technology and inventions like portable cassette recorders the audio books started gaining popularity and by the late 1960s libraries also included audio books in their collections, primarily on vinyl records but also on cassettes. Although the earlier audio books consisted of educational recordings soon the audio book collections had self-help tapes and literature as well. In 1970 a company called Books on Tape Corporation started rental plans for the distribution of audio books. By the year 1992 the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped network had circulated millions of audio books to more than 700,000 handicapped listeners. Today with the advantage of compact discs and the rising influence of the Internet, audio books have become a very convenient source of information as well as entertainment that can be shared over the Internet by downloading or even peer-to-peer sharing. Another trend that is catching up is that the paperbacks are being sold with a copy of the audio book CD, which has increased the popularity of these audio books. Today audio books are sold either in compact discs, cassette tapes or even digital formats like mp3 and wma.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Audio books

An audio book provides the audience the convenience of gaining the information without reading it. Also replaying a particular part that was not comprehensible is a n added feature that is of great importance in audio books. So audio books allow listeners to listen to selected segments of a book and even repeat the segments for better understanding. People who listen to audio books while reading in the actual book can learn the words that they might not comprehend while only reading the book. Audio books are a source of great help while taking notes as well since you can pause and play and even control the speed of reading to help you fathom the meaning and take sufficient notes. A dialogue or a conversation in a book can be better comprehended in the audio format due to the voice modulations and other vocal cues. Perhaps the biggest and only disadvantage of audio books is that they spoils the fun of good old-fashioned habit of reading books. Audio books do not encourage children to read but instead provide an easy option for reading, which is bad since reading is a habit that can be very enriching if inculcated at a young age.

Popular Audio Books

If you are wondering about all the popular books that have been converted into an audio format, here is a list of some popular audio books:

Children’s Literature: Aesop’s Fables, Little Women, The Jungle book, Heidi, Peter Pan, White Fang, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of huckleberry Finn and many more..

Classics: Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Pride and Prejudice, Atlas Shrugged, The Hobbit, Moby Dick, Rebecca, Frankenstein, The Count of Monte Cristo, War and Peace, Anna Karenina and many more…

Poetry and Drama: Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A View From the Bridge, Poems of Emily Dickinson and many more…

Besides the ones mentioned above, there are millions of audio books ranging from biographies and autobiographies to health, humor, poetry, mystery, music or any other subject under the sun that you can listen to. So the next time you don’t feel like reading, try listening to an audio book!