I subsribe to www.simplyaudiobooks.com. There are three options: Rental club, download club and purchase. I belong to the rental club and I copy the cd to my computer and then download the book to my Ipod. It works great.

Zorro,

I was "lucky" enough to get an iPod for Christmas from my brother and sisters. It was a very nice idea and a very cool machine, and I certainly don't want to sound ungrateful, but it is not really what I wanted. They figured I could use it for running or something. Of course, unbeknownst to them, I never listen to anything while running. When I am my trainer, I will listen to audio books though. So I figured that perhaps I could download some to the iPod from my library, as they provide this service.

The problem seems to be on the iPod side. The audio books only will download in the WAV format, which is not supported by the iPod. For whatever reason (probably something to do with the write protection), they cannot be converted to MP3, so the iPod is useless for how I wanted to use it. I know that I can purchase audio books, and I bet there are probably a dozen rental services out there, but it would have been reall nice to utilize my library's service.

If I was going to actually purchase an MP3 player, I think that I would stay away from the iPod just for this reason alone.

As for suggestions, Holy Smokes!!! there is a ton of stuff out there. I have been listening to audio books for about 3 years now. I prefer the cassettes to the CD's (mostly because the CD's get ruined too easily). I can easily go through 2 books a week. I like historical fiction (the Bernard Cornwell books and the Patrick O'Brian books are good), I also like Sherlock Holmes stories (also the Laurie R. King stories with Mary Russel). Another fun series is the Amelia Peabody Emerson books by Elizbeth Peters. And if you ever want to hear a master story-teller reading his own stuff, it is hard to beat Tom Bodett (the Motel 6 guy). Some of the Clancy stuff is pretty good, but if you liked the movies you may have a hard time adjusting to the Jack Ryan character. I just finished a really interesting book called Saturday by Ian McEwan. For the most part, I prefer books that have really strong character development, so I typically like to get into series books, or they should be really long. If you like non-fiction try any of the history stuff by David McCullough. John Adams was my favorite followed by 1776. Ellison does a really nice job with Washington in His Excellency. Really there is a ton of stuff out there.

Bernie

---

______________
"Slowbern has always made astute observations."-Casey 03/10/2009
2013-2014 Detroit Lions---13-3 until proved otherwise.

I used to have to make a two hour drive, almost daily, and "books on tape" were what kept me sane and awake. My dad used to send me his tapes, then more recently CDs. I've listened to some great books that I wouldn't have otherwise had time to read. Hunny Bunny and I have listened to the entire Harry Potter series to date in the car. It makes trips go by incredibly fast.

I now subscribe to Audible.com. I used to download a book, burn it to a series of CDs, then listen to them in the car or on a Walkman CD player. Last night I just successfully downloaded a book onto my new Dell Ditty and it was quite thrilled when it worked on the first try. Can't wait to go for a run or walk today!

---

______________________________
Have you hugged Your Mom today?