More on Audiobooks

Looking around a few of my favourite blogs last night, I came across an article on Justin Germino’s site from back in December, entitled Audiobooks Are One Of My Favorite Hobbies.

It was interesting to read Justin’s article, because he seems to be in very much the same boat as myself, in that he has a very busy life thanks to the responsibilities of children, work and blogging.

Like Justin, I also enjoy reading, and used to get through a fair few books every year, but since my life is so much busier today than it has been previously I turned to audiobooks to keep up on my reading.

It seems that Justin prefers a CD in his car while on a journey, whereas I prefer to listen on my iPod, but that is irrelevant.  What is important is the fact that audiobooks are catching on.

Justin mentions in the article a quote from the big man of scares himself, Stephen King which I found interesting

“Audiobooks are among the best mediums for delivering the author’s work as it forces the reader to stay at the pace of the narrator and helps prevent people who skip ahead or skim faster through certain pages rather than others”

This raises a good point.  Books were written by an author with a story in mind, obviously, but an audiobook, as opposed to a printed book, helps to tell the story at the pace the author intended.

Now, unlike Justin, I do not pay for my audiobooks.  I’ve mentioned Podiobooks.com in a previous article, where you can download free audiobooks, released in podcast format (where each audiobook is divided in to episodes, and downloaded via RSS).  Justin prefers, it would seem, the readings of already bestselling novels. 

The point is, it doesn’t matter how you get your audiobooks, paid for or not, from mainstream authors or otherwise, the important thing to remember is

Audiobooks let you read (listen) to books when you would otherwise not have time.

So here is another reminder of Podiobooks.com, my preferred site for accessing thousands of free episodic audiobooks.

Do you know of any other good sources for free (legal) audiobooks?  Do you have any thoughts you would like to share on this article?  Please leave a comment, and don’t forget to Digg, Stumble or whatever, it all helps!