I'm a sales rep so I spend a lot of time behind the windshield, audio books really help pass the time.

Public library.

One Click Digital. Use our local library card. Have an app on Android tablet that downloads the checked out book.

Mothers Day I left on a 6,000 mile road trip. The day before, I hit the local library for books on DVD.

The Oath (and another) by Lescroart. Excellent stuff!

A Philbrick offering was read by Scott Brick, so I put a STOP to that. Brick gets tiring. Over-inflected, but OK for sci-fi.

And the last 2100 mile push was Great Expectations, read by Michael Page. Actually, I'm on the Thames; they've just been intercepted. Excellent reading.

For me, it is either silence or books on CD. Music content during my trip was exactly 0%. No more, no less.

As far as the stories go, it is all in the narrator. The Master And Commander series read by Patrick Tull is an all-time favorite (Simon Vance reads the same stories way way too fast).

One particular library has a huge collection; a handful of other close-by libraries have mediocre collections. Amazon Prime may offer free downloads ...

Quite a few audiobooks are included with your Amazon Prime membership. They are available through the Audible app.

quote:

Originally posted by Woodman:
Mothers Day I left on a 6,000 mile road trip. The day before, I hit the local library for books on DVD.

The Oath (and another) by Lescroart. Excellent stuff!

A Philbrick offering was read by Scott Brick, so I put a STOP to that. Brick gets tiring. Over-inflected, but OK for sci-fi.

And the last 2100 mile push was Great Expectations, read by Michael Page. Actually, I'm on the Thames; they've just been intercepted. Excellent reading.

For me, it is either silence or books on CD. Music content during my trip was exactly 0%. No more, no less.

As far as the stories go, it is all in the narrator. The Master And Commander series read by Patrick Tull is an all-time favorite (Simon Vance reads the same stories way way too fast).

One particular library has a huge collection; a handful of other close-by libraries have mediocre collections. Amazon Prime may offer free downloads ...

6000 miles ought to be just enough to listen to 'Washington' by Ron Chernow. Longest (and one of the *best*) books I've ever listened to.

Second Hand Books

quote:

Originally posted by Keystoner:
Public library.

That's where I'd start. In addition to books on physical CDs, many libraries these days include access to downloadable audiobooks through services like Overdrive. The main downside is that selection may be a bit limited, depending on your library, and the books you want won't necessarily be available to check out at the time you want it.

If you listed to that many audiobooks, an Audible subscription is well worth it. It's $15/month, which gets you one credit per months good for the purchase of any audiobook, along with access to a number of free books and free streaming stations. (Once your credit is spent for the month, you must purchase additional audiobooks, though they do run specials and sales all the time.)

$15/month really isn't that much in the grand scheme of things. And considering you can use your monthly credit to purchase $20/$30/$40 audiobooks, it's actually cheaper than just buying them outright. Plus, there are a number of audiobooks that are Audible exclusives.

In addition to audiobooks, look into podcasts. These are usually free or very cheap, and you can find podcasts that cover just about any topic you're interested in. Podcasts are audio files, but they're not books. They're more like listening to a university lecture. Or some are more like radio talk shows, with an interviewer and one or more guests.

Overdrive app. Use your local library card to borrow audio books on your mobile device

I'm a huge fan of the Overdrive app.

It lets you borrow audiobooks and ebooks from public libraries for free. You will have to visit the library one time to get a library card, if you don't already have one, but after that you never need to physically visit the library.

I used to use two credits a month on Audible, but now only use 6 credits a year. If you contact customer service they will put you on a plan to get one credit every other month, instead of one or two each month, even though the every other month option doesn't appear on the website.

It's very rare that I can't get the books I want through the libraries I belong to, and I'm saving $186 each year, just on Audible. I've never tried to calculate a cost savings for Kindle books v. ebooks through Overdrive.

Borrowing audiobooks and ebooks is just like borrowing physical books. The libraries will only have a certain number of digital copies. So you have to wait until a copy is available, and usually you have each title for 14 or 21 days. To increase my odds of finding books I want, and not having to wait too long to popular titles, I joined the library system in my county, and two neighboring counties.

You can also get on a wait list for titles, and have the app notify you with an email when it's available for you to download.

Check out graphicaudio.net. Their bookes are awesome! I drive a lot too, I used to listen to regular audio books then a friend steered me to graphic audio. You can also find the CDs in truck stops. Some have deals where you can trade the books back in after a certain time frame. Deathlands is the.series I started with.

Our local library uses two services, OverDrive and Hoopla.

I use them both, and download the books onto my phone.

Hoopla lets you check out 30 titles a month, and OverDrive lets you borrow the audio files for 14 days.

quote:

Originally posted by IndyRob:
. . . OverDrive lets you borrow the audio files for 14 days.

The length of time is decided by the library, and is often dependent on what book you want. For the libraries I belong to most titles can be borrowed for 21 days, and only a few are 14 days. Usually the very new/popular titles are the ones that might be shorter borrow times.

quote:

Originally posted by Keystoner:
Public library.

Exactly! I have been downloading them for years, works great and free!

I have audible and get 1 book a month. I also listen to a lot of podcasts. The true crime stuff is great.

Check out these podcasts:
Serial (season 1)
S-Town
True Crime Garage
The Vanished
CrimeTown
How did this get made (comedians talk about how crappy movies were made)
Joe Rogan podcast

The audible book I'm currently listening to is Who Killed These Girls about the Austin Yogurt Shop murders. Audible now allows you to send books to your friends

A few years ago, I had a client that owned a trucking company. She asked me if I ever listened to audiobooks.

I told her I listened a lot. She then went out into her pickup to get me a few that the truckers had all listened to.

She came back with a garbage bag full of audiobooks. The only problem was that they were all on casette tapes.

Oh well, I donated them to the Food Bank Store just as she had donated them to me.

Mike

Definitely check your local library. Our library is connected to both Hoopla and Overdrive.

I prefer Hoopla as their app is much better than the Overdrive app. Plus, I can download books to my device via Hoopla and not use my cellphone's data while listening.

quote:

'Washington' by Ron Chernow

But read by Scott Brick?

He makes every other sentence sound like a conspiracy.

Although I love his approach in The Twelve by Justin Cronin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Brick

First option is Public Library / Overdrive.

I'd also recommend podcasts. Not books, but if you can find a few, well done podcasts on subjects you are interested in, that can fill the gaps when you can't get any audio books for a while.

Librivox has free audio books. Only off-copywright books are available, so that means you'll be dealing with mainly classics. Probably the latest stuff other than self-published books is ~'50s sci-fi. You might check at archive.org (again, free)while you're at it. A lot of stuff there is duplicates, but there is some different content.

Most stuff you'd come across is mp3 format, but there is occasionally a choice.