I started reading Proust, only to find that I was unable to purchase Within a Budding Grovehttps://twitter.com/mrkrndvs/status/1464547865498308609https://twitter.com/mrkrndvs/status/1464547865498308609 with credits. I assume that there is no workaround for this?
Tag: Audiobooks
We are Libro.fm, an audiobook platform that makes it possible for you to buy audiobooks directly through your local bookstore. We are fiercely independent and we oppose Amazon’s efforts to prevent independent bookstores and libraries from providing certain audiobooks, called Audible Exclusives.
Sadly, Audible is available in Australia, while Libro.fm is not.
The prevalence of wifi, smart phones and unobtrusive earphones, combined with abundance of audio content in audiobooks and podcasts, makes me feel that we are entering a similar combined oral/literacy phase socially and moving away from a largely literate dominated one. Given the number of other tasks that only require partial attention (from playing Candy Crush to having your dad talk to you), the opportunity for orality to become prominent is present. And I for one, welcome our new audio-overlords.
The most recent study, which compared brains when they were listening and reading, showed that words tend to activate the same brain regions with the same intensity, regardless of input.
It was a finding that surprised Fatma Deniz, a postdoctoral researcher at the Gallant Lab and lead author of the study. The subject’s brains were creating meaning from the words in the same way, regardless if they were listening or reading. In fact, the brain maps for both auditory and visual input they created from the data looked nearly identical.
Jennifer Walter finds that listening to a book is just as productive as reading a book. I wonder if what matters more is the context of reading or listening more than the mode itself? Stephen Downes suggests that much of the finding in this report are left to interpretation.
via Ian O’Byrne
If you’re interested in songwriting, parenting, or the creative process, I recommend Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy’s memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back). I listened to him read it on audiobook, which is rare for me. (I don’t have a commute, I like reading with a pencil, I use words all day so I can’t listen to them, and I usually like taking my walks without headphones in.)
Austin, I am intrigued. Did you listen to Tweedy’s memoirs because it was read by him? I find listening to an author read their own work really compelling. For example, I not only love the way Douglas Rushkoff writes, but am grabbed by his prowess as a reader too. Although false, it makes me think I am somehow closer to the truth of the text.
Libro.fm is the first audiobook company to make it possible for you to buy audiobooks directly through local bookstores. Get your first month for free.
An independent audiobook store that sells all the same audiobooks you can get on other platforms like Audible, Google Play, Apple, Downpour, etc, but unlike the industry leaders at Audible and Apple, they are DRM-free, and unlike all of their competition, they work with independent booksellers.
via Cory Doctorow
Today is a day that a lot of people have waited a long time for. Market concentration is a modern scourge, but even by contemporary standards, the audiobook market is a disaster, with a single company in a position of total dominance that it uses to squeeze writers, actors, production staff, publishers, and, ultimately, customers. Anyone who signs an Audible-only deal for their books after today is an idiot; and anyone who buys another DRM-locked Audible book after this is just asking to be kicked in the pants by a giant, uncaring monopolist that has abused its dominance for a decade.