The other day I was reading Stephen King's latest novel, Duma Key, when I veered off a bridge, plunged 480 feet down the side of a mountain and totaled my car. I escaped uninjured,  but with a pair of broken reading glasses, and feeling a little stupid for attempting to read a book while driving a car. Hopefully, you wouldn't consider reading a book while driving your car to work and neither would I. The horrific scene described above was for demonstration purposes only. If you don't know about audiobooks, you could be putting your life in danger.  Reading while driving is not a sane thing to do. In fact, reading why doing almost anything is not very practical even when it's not dangerous. I've seen people thumb through magazines while running on a treadmill or exercise bike. It may be safe, but is this a comfortable or enjoyable way to read?  I have a much better suggestion: Buy audio books. Better yet, how about audio books you can download online? Best yet: Why not download FREE audio books? .  The beauty of audio books is that you can take them with you anywhere while you are doing just about anything, and still have full use of your eyes, arms and legs while you are reading. This is obviously important if you are driving a car or using a treadmill. As my demonstration proved, an audiobook can literally save your life. Anyone who loves reading, yet dreads wasting time commuting in the car, would be crazy not to try listening to a good audio book. On those long, 45 minute commutes from home, the time will pass so quickly, you will find yourself wishing your job was twice as far. There are two ways to listen to audio books: Through an MP3 Player or through your CD Player. The advantage to downloading audio books and storing them on your MP3 player is convenience and space. MP3 Audio files take up far less room then CD discs. Normally, when you purchase an audiobook from a book store, it will come with a number of discs which you will have to juggle and replace as you are driving. MP3 audio books are completely electronic. You can download them at any number of online audio book stores, store them on your PC, then upload them to your MP3 player when you are ready to listen to them.
By now you're probably asking, "Which books are available in Audio Book format? Where is a good place to buy and download audio books? Where is a good place to find audio books to download for free?"

What Audio Books are available?

Just about any good book you can buy at a bookstore is also available in audio book format for your listening enjoyment. Even the latest, Stephen King novel, Duma Key, is avalable right now.
Sometimes, the very latest novels are not available in audio book format until a few weeks after the paperback book has been released. Audio books are available in just about any category you can imagine; Business, Classics, History, Suspense, Fiction, Romance, Kids, Self-Improvement and more.  You can even find 12-month audio book subscriptions to some of your favorite magazines or newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Time Magazine, Forbes, Scientific American, etc. There really is no shortage of available content for electronic audio books and the list is growing every day.

Where is a good place to buy audio books?
Your'e favorite author can be found in audio book format at Amazon, Borders or just about any regular book store, online or on-the-street.
Amazon is partners with an audio book store, known as audible.com. Each book is described in detail on their website, as well as providing a listening sample, and the number of hours to complete. Dean Koontz', Strangers, for example, offers 29 hours and 24 minutes of uninterrupted listening. They are not cheap: The best sellers average around $34-$35.
Where is a good place to buy and download audio books?
Downloading audio books is a more affordable option. For $14.95 you can download just about any popular novel from theaudiobookstore.com. If you sign up as a member they will give you 1 book per month for $7.95 for three months. The Audio Book Store advertises over 50,000 titles. A license key is included with the download, so the audio book cannot be transferred to other users. This is a form of copy protection that never existed with traditional books. Once downloaded, you can use iTunes, Windows Media Player, or your favorite MP3 software to transfer to your MP3 player, or convert the audio tracks to CD. Keep in mind, you will need several CDs for a large book. The great part about buying and downloading audio books is that there is no waiting for your order to arrive; it's instant gratification. The audiobookstore.com is just one in several places to buy and download audio books online. Feel free to shop for the one that best suits your needs.

Where is a good place to find free audio books online for downloading?
For a book to be legally downloaded free of cost, it must be listed in the Public Domain. The public domain contains books which have either be donated or given permission by the author to distribute for free. There are a good number of classic novels that can be found in public domain. An excellent website to find these free downloadable audio books is LibriVox (www.librivox.org). The Red Badge of Courage is a classic written by Stephen Crane in 1895. You can download chapters at a time, or your can download the entire audio book which is 141.9MB long. The total listening time of this novel is 4 hours, 55 minutes and 30 seconds. There is no licensing involved, so you can simply copy the audio files over to your MP3 player any way you like. There seems to be several thousand downloadable online books at LibriVox. Do a search for your favorite author and start downloading free audio books today.

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