Blogocentric Formulations

Audible.Com + iTunes = Literary Awesomeness

Audible.Com may be my new favorite site ever. They're the ones that put out so many of the audiobooks that we all download on iTunes or wherever. And as much as I hated them for their incredibly limited number of subscription options, I have to admit that I have a new reason to love them.

Originally, I didn't like them because, while an audiobook can run anywhere from $6.95 to $44.95 depending on the length of the work and its popularity, Audible offers a subscription-based plan where you can download any one book you want for $14.95 a month. Or any two books you want for $22.95 a month. I suppose if you're listening to bestsellers that are regularly $25+ each, that's not a bad way to go. But I listen to a lot of audiobooks because I spend 3+ hours in the car every day for my commute. So I can go through an unabridged audiobook in a week, week and a half. And Audible doesn't have any unlimited-type subscription plans where you can download as much as you want. You're stuck with your one or two books a month and then have to pay regular price for any others.

What I've been doing is downloading books that have been on sale. When something shows up for $9.99 on iTunes, I'll download it, in an effort to keep the costs down.

But I just found something that makes me love Audible to the point where it outweighs my disappointment with their service plans. Audible offers unabridged versions of classic literature for practically nothing. Here's what I bought the other day:

         Bram Stoker's Dracula - $1.95
         Moby Dick - $1.95
         Anna Karenina - $0.95
         The Count of Monte Cristo - $0.95

And since they're unabridged (and if you've read those books, you know how long they are), I just downloaded about 150 hours' worth of four classic audiobooks for about $6. There are a ton of books available too. The Bronte sisters, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Twain, Hardy, Flaubert, Austen, Eliot, Swift, James, Stevenson, Doyle, Verne... the list goes on and on. They're generic readings - you're not going to find George Clooney reading Tom Sawyer or Dame Judi Dench acting out Jane Eyre - but the narrators are decent.

So now it's only a matter of choosing which books to download... but I'm getting what will probably amount to an entire year's worth of commute listening for the price of one or two regular-priced audiobooks. Sure, it may not be the latest Patricia Cornwell or Tom Clancy... but I'm sure I'll survive on the classics. It might even do me some good to read some "literature" once in a while.

Besides, I've still got Michael Crichton and Dan Brown on my Kindle for vacations, so I won't turn into a total snob.