Category: books

testing Audible.com

On By Rick McIn Apple, books, music, product endorsements, travelLeave a comment

These days I would much rather have a book on my MP3 player than in my backpack. But getting the books I want is challenging. (MP3 books on tape available in the library are limited.)

I finally tried the big boy in audio books – Audible.com. So far I’ve been very impressed.

Sign-up was no more painful than with any other website. You get 2 free books to try it out. I quickly and easily found two of my top to-read-next books:

  • Shantaram: A Novel
  • Himalaya

    • Himalaya

    My computer asked if I wanted them in iTunes. Of course I did. The site knew I was on Mac and it caused no grief.

    Actually, two of the files did not download immediately. I called the 1-800 number and was greeted on first ring. They fixed my problem instantly. Great service!

    Audible.com content is encoded in their proprietary .AA format, but it worked with my Apple iPod so no complaints.

    The only downside of Audible.com I have to report (so far) is the price.

    <blockquote Membership plans can be purchased on a monthly ($22.95) or annual ($229.50) basis.

    Most people sign-on for the 2 books / month for US$23. For me, I still feel $11.50 / book is a bit high. (I wonder what percentage the author gets?)

    They do have some special promotions once you are a member.

    mainimage_bookstack.jpg

    Here’s another review:

    If you are a “money is no object” person, then I recommend sticking with the audiobooks section of the iTunes Music Store (iTMS). The selection is the same as Audible.com, but because the experience is completely contained within iTunes, it’s by far the easiest way to shop for, buy, and listen to audiobooks. The downside is that you’ll pay full retail, instead of being able to take advantage of subscriptions and sales common on Audible.com.

    The option which I believe best balances convenience and cost is Audible.com. Signing up for a premium subscription costs $22/month, and entitles you to two book “credits” per month.

    Aldoblog

    Now I have 11hrs of Michael Palin and 1.7 days !! of Shantaram to get me through my upcoming summer travels. (Loving Shantaram, so far!)

    Audible.com – Wikipedia

    Fossil Fuels: Friend or Foe?

    On By Rick McIn audiocasts, booksLeave a comment

    I’ve not particularly speculated on the Mad Max future of the Earth as we run out of fossil fuels.

    We can assume that new technology will come on-line as the price of energy rises.

    But recently I heard an audiocast of a lecture for the excellent CBC Ideas radio program. The speaker has the most believable, coherent vision I’ve heard as yet:

    Mark Jaccard is a professor of environmental management at Simon Fraser University and an internationally acclaimed energy economist and consultant.

    In this lecture he challenges the assumption that fossil fuels will be the death of us and posits that they may offer the most sustainable future for the planet.

    Fossil Fuels: Friend or Foe? – listen to the audiocast

    It’s a LONG lecture.

    If you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing, Jaccard concludes that the Earth has at least 200yrs of reasonably priced energy left. That’s counting only existing reserves and technologies.

    No worries. Right?

    Actually Jaccard feels humankind has plenty of potential to destroy our planet and environment. But that fossil fuels will not be the mechanism.

    The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy
    Donner Prize in writing Canadian Public Policy

    Sustainable Fossil Fuels: The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy

    25 Sites We Can’t Live Without – TIME magazine

    On By Rick McIn books, movies, music, product endorsementsLeave a comment

    Amazon.com

    The uber-e-tailer that never forgets its bookstore roots.

    The new print-on-demand service means customers can now order out-of-print, backlist and large-print books from several big publishers.

    Soon it will start selling DRM-free MP3s     (meaning you can copy the songs for personal use and download them to any device) from EMI and other labels out of its new music store (iTunes already does).

    And, if the rumors are true — that Amazon is in talks to buy Netflix — before long it could own the market on movies, both digital downloads (through its Unbox service) and rent-by-mail.

    Amazon.com – 25 Sites We Can’t Live Without – TIME

    I just used Amazon for several purchases. Awesome, as usual.

    Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

    On By Rick McIn audiocasts, books, governmentLeave a comment

    GREAT podcast. I listened to it several times:

    Lawrence Wright spent five years researching the history of the events leading to the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers in New York City.

    His book about the subject, The Looming Tower won the 2007 Lionel Gelber Prize, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. In this public lecture, Wright analyses the forces that created Al-Qaeda, and adds to our understanding of what we must do to fight them.

    Download File – 24.3 MB or Listen To This Podcast – CBC’s The Best of Ideas Podcast

    Or if you have time and money to spare, get the book:

    Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

    The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

    Salt Lake City Public Library

    On By Rick McIn books, travel, travelogues1 Comment

    Wow.

    This place is gorgeous.

    I write from the main library, a five-story tall, wedge-shaped building faced top to bottom by a curved glass wall.

    Outside is a huge landscaped plaza.

    450px-salt_lake_city_public_library_intern.jpg

    A rooftop garden completes the structure. It is planted with trees, grasses, flowering bulbs and various perennial plants.

    The whole library depends on natural lighting, reducing the need of lights in the library. A huge five story glass wall is where most of the light comes from.

    Salt Lake City Public Library – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Having won Library Journal’s 2006 library of the year award I feel it’s even better than the new Vancouver Public Library.

    Hey — same architect. How about that.

    450px-vpl1.jpg
    Vancouver

    World Fantasy 2008 – Calgary

    On By Rick McIn books, McCharles familyLeave a comment

    My brother is a key organizer for the biggest Sci If Fantasy Writer’s convention of 2008.

    VIPs scheduled already include David Morrell, Barbara Hambly, Tom Doherty, Todd Lockwood and Tad Williams.


    Our theme for 2008 is “Mystery in Fantasy and Horror”.

    Much of our program will look at how the mysterious is used in fantasy and horror storytelling. Be it occult detectives, Holmsian dragons, or Who Stole Frodo’s Ring? How does mystery play out in fantastical fiction?

    World Fantasy 2008

    convention-2008.jpg

    Amazon – do you want my money?

    On By Rick McIn books, product complaints, product endorsementsLeave a comment

    images.jpegI love Amazon.com, but it lacks some really basic features. For example:

    I like certain authors (William Gibson, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, etc.). I’ll basically buy every new book from about 7-10 different authors. Give me a better way to track new books from a favorite author.

    At one point in the past I created Amazon email alerts for new books from a few specific authors, but then you started sending me emails for “related” authors. As far as I could tell, there was no way to get alerts about new books without getting the unwanted “you might also like this author” emails. If you let me watch specific authors, I’d buy the new John Brockman book from Amazon instead of stumbling across the book in a bookstore.

    While you’re at it, provide an RSS feed for that “new books by this author” info instead of as an email.

    Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO » Five tweaks Amazon needs to make

    The Amazon search function is poor, has always been poor, and seems never to improve.

    Why not use Google?

    Kurt Vonnegut farewell

    On By Rick McIn bad news, booksLeave a comment

    Ron says it well.

    200px-vonnegut12.jpg

    “I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” – Kurt Vonnegut

    One of my literary heroes died yesterday at age 84. Today’s New York Times has a good obit.

    Vonnegut’s dark wit, playful voice and humanist values helped me and millions of other teenagers live through the 70s with our sanity intact. He was funny, imaginative and, above all, outraged to the core at the cruelty of war and the absurdity of existence.

    He was a snarky, charming athiest; the Mark Twain of his time.

    His work is probably one of the main reasons I became a writer, and when I think about it I realize that he’s with me every time I string a sentence together.

    Goodbye, Mr. V.

    Hi ho.

    For Your Approval: And so it goes

    official website – Kurt Vonnegut

    locations published in books

    On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

    The Inside Google Book Search blog has posted maps of the Earth populated with dots representing locations referenced in books.

    A Welsh View: Earth Viewed From Books

    For your great novel you may want to choose locations that have not been over written.

    world-maps.jpg
    original source – Google

    book – In Tasmania

    On By Rick McIn books, product endorsements, traveloguesLeave a comment

    The best book I have read in years: In Tasmania by Nicholas Shakespeare.

    I knew Shakespeare as the biographer of the most celebrated travel writer of all time, Bruce Chatwin.

    Shakespeare fell in love with Tasmania after a holiday hiking the Overland Track. He promptly moved there from England.

    By chance discovery of family correspondence, Shakespeare learned he was related to the “founding father” of Tasmania, a con-man named Kemp.

    His book — a fascinating, personal history of the island from Kemp’s penal-colony Van Diemen’s Land origins to modern day — has many parallels with the work of Chatwin. It’s eerie at times.

    My conclusion: Shakespeare is an even better writer than Chatwin. This is a fantastic book.

    In Tasmania

    In Tasmania

    This is the last post on the Australia travelogue.