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audio books


caesar novus

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Sometimes you can work an audio book into your schedule easier than a physical one. Here are some of my initial attempts to pursue that, in case it might inspire others to do so or to tell us how to do so.

 

Free audio books online: There are a surprising number, expecially old ones in the public domain. Most are in indecipherable synthetic speech, and some narrated by a mixture of painfully amaturish volunteers. There is supposed to be a new on-demand synthetic speech project released in near future.

 

Public library DRM downloads: Holy moley... my threadbare local library has gone online with umpteen audio books and CD's available under the watchful eye of Digit Rights Management software. Requires a library card, and makes me wonder if I might be eligible for any other library card with similar privileges.

 

Issues: Most of what I see seems to be in Windows Media Audio format, which can't even be played on an Apple Ipod, at least with DRM. Even if you have a compatible WMA player, we can't load it via a Mac because it's DRM only works with mp3 (here).

 

Anyway, an unexpected resource. Thinking of downloading "Caesar's Legion;

Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome" but will have to wait til I find time to both sort out download issues and actually listen. They still enforce check out timeframes, and the bits presumably vanish on a schedule.

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Not sure what to think of it, those options don't sound particularly attractive to me.

The free ones would probably be too annoying quality-wise, and I don't do DRM out of principle.

If I buy something I want to own it without restrictions.

If any of that changed I would definately consider it though.

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Pretty good one on Roman Civil War, huh? http://www.archive.org/details/Pharsalia .

The above narrator seems to have a rare gift of very pleasing delivery - just click on one of the 128Kbps mp3 files. For more examples of free readings of Roman material of much more variable quality, check the beginning of http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=ro...dio_bookspoetry and towards the end of http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=ro...etry&page=2

 

Maybe the less good ones are worthwhile for listening during distracting environments like commuting. I think an ideal player for audio books is the Sansa Clip which has a tiny screen just big enough to navigate among books (and music, etc) yet is as little as a matchbook. I found a 8 gig (=20 books?!) one on sale for almost no more then the most entry level Apple ipod.

Edited by caesar novus
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  • 4 months later...

Here are more free recordings of audio books, including Roman ones. Just this page (click thru all 19) contains Suetonius and a bunch of Tacitus http://librivox.org/newcatalog/search.php?...&offset=600

 

The list is growing, and you can volunteer to read more into the database. A spot check revealed pretty good quality of readers, as long as you can accept that substitution of W for R kind of thing. I wonder if that's a modern day equivilent to Hadrian's wall. Some English men (the women don't do it) may be intentionally distinguishing themselves from the bold rolling R of the "barbaric" Scots by going to the other extreme of a babytalk W? For them, WORLD rhymes with RAILROAD... sort of a WE-WOD!

Edited by caesar novus
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