Kindle Tips

Where to Get Free Audiobooks

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Thunder and Rain by Charles MartinI am a fan of audiobooks.  About 1/3 of all of my reading is audiobook.  Goodereader Blog has a very good post about the huge growth of audiobooks (especially digital MP3 audiobooks and Audible.com Audiobooks), especially compared to the recent slowing growth of ebooks.

What the growth of audiobooks as an industry means is that there are also a lot more free audiobooks.  Like ebooks, I have stopped picking up all free audiobooks and I am only picking up the ones that I am going to read soon (audiobook storage takes a lot more space than ebook storage).  But here are a few places I look for audiobooks.

Christianaudio.com

Every month Christianaudio.com has a free book. This month is one of the best Christian books of the 20th century, John Stott’s Basic Christianity.

NoiseTrade

NoiseTrade is a website devoted to giving away music (and now audiobooks) in order to generate interest for independent and lesser known artists.  Independent Christian Musician Derek Webb was the co-founder and there has always been good Christian music as a part of the site (but it is not a Christian site).

The current list of 22 complete audiobooks from NoiseTrade is at the bottom of this post. (There are also introductions and first chapters, but I did not link to those.)

Audible.com

Audible.com is my favorite source of audiobooks. They focus on audiobook subscription model (I buy 24 audiobooks for $229, which includes a free daily subscription to either New York Times or Wall Street Journal audio summary, 30% off any audiobooks that I buy without credits and access to a lot of sales).

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Sony 13.3 inch Ereader

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This week is SID Display week, a trade show for display makers.  The guys at Goodereader are at the show looking at the new displays for ereaders. Sony has a new 13.3 inch prototype reader using a new Eink screen.  The device itself is only 12.6 oz (only 4 ozs more than a Kindle Paperwhite, … Read more

Overdrive Launches Big Library Read

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Overdrive is the system that most libraries uses to distribute ebooks and downloadable audiobook via the web to its patrons.  Starting last week (May 15th) until June 1st, Overdrive is trying a new pilot project, Big Library Read. In more than 3000 library systems across the US, The Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone … Read more

Why Frontlight is Important

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The guys at Goodereader.com ran through a comparison the Kobo Aura HD against all of the other major front lit ereaders. I was most interested in their comparison with the Kindle Paperwhite (since most agree that it had the best light prior to the new Kobo Aura.) After watching their demonstration I agree the Kobo … Read more

E-Readers and Reading Comprehension

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Salon posted an article (originally in Scientific American) about ereaders and reading comprehension on Sunday (h/t Marc Cortez) that I think sums up a lot of frustration on reporting on ereaders. First, and oddly the Salon article has a picture of a first generation kindle (which is much clunkier to use than the now 6th generation kindles). But more importantly early in … Read more