Rubénerd!

Liked Going Rogue by Sarah Palin on Audible.com.

It's another Audible blog post; one would think I'm a beginning to develop an obsession. In this case though it's their filing of Going Rogue [allegedly] written by Sarah Palin under... Nonfiction. I tell you what, when all is said and done, it's good to see the database maintainers on Audible have a sense of humour... by golly, you betcha!

In related news, I'm terrified both of Sarah Palin and the fact she's being taken seriously by so many people in the US. I'm dead serious. It makes be break out in a cold sweat thinking just how close she became to essentially being vice president of Earth in 2008, and how she's already being tipped for 2012.

You know what, I might listen to the book though, if only to be fair. I wonder if she read Dreams from my Father?

Remember a few days ago I finally caved into TWiT pressure and got an Audible account? Well I finished my first book already and just posted my first review! I think a new addiction may be brewing.

I could review the book specifically, but we're all already aware The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the best (if not the best) books ever written, so I'll save my review space for the audio book narration.

As soon as I saw Stephen Fry was narrating perhaps the greatest book ever written I hastily purchased it before realising there was an unabridged version for the same price! My initial buyer's remorse evaporated as fast as a humanoid out of a Vogon airlock though when I started to listen; despite being abridged by 30 minutes or so it was still an absolute delight and a pleasure to listen to. Steven made all of Douglas' (Douglii?) characters come to life in his usual imitable style and the pacing was perfect.

This was the first book I purchased with my brand new Audible account, and I reckon one couldn't get a better introduction to the service than this audio book. Jolly good show! Now if you'd excuse me, I'm off to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

As I said on Friday, I got the Audible Gold account using the coupon code from MacBreak Weekly that entitles you to a monthly book instead of the Platinum code from TWiT that gives you two books a month because I just wanted to trial the service first. Given I chewed through a book that was supposed to last me a month in less than three days, perhaps I should upgrade already :).

I've already got a ton of books in my wish list including every single other book from the Hitchhikers "Trilogy" along with every Wodehouse and a stack of non fiction. Is it possible to share you wish lists and library?

When a certain subset of students (alliteration is awesome) finish their exams for a semester they celebrate by intoxicating themselves with certain fermented beverages, while other more socially awkward loser types such as myself sit back and write a blog post about how they're investigating signing up for Audible.com, then like a child on Christmas Eve because they're too excited to wait they go ahead and register for it before they've finished said investigation.

As I said previously I've been listening to Leo Laporte rave on about Audible even before they started sponsoring his TWiTTY shows, so I figure having been a listener since 2005 I may as well see what all the fuss is about. As he aptly points out it's a natural progression from listening to podcasts (sorry Leo, netcasts!) to listening to audio books.

If you listen to This Week in Tech you get a coupon code to try the Audible Platinum account which entitles you to two free books, followed by recurring payments and two more books each month. I opted instead for the MacBreak Weekly coupon code which entitled me to one free book, followed by $14 for another book each month.

An inexplicably named island called France

My choice of free book that I've been so thoroughly enjoying is perhaps a predictable one, though the absurdity of the first paragraph of this nonsensical post that perhaps could have been expressed by just saying "I got Audible!" illustrates the profound effect this tome has already started having on my mind. If for some inexplicable reason you can't see the image above, it's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. When I saw it was read by none other than Stephen Fry, I felt as though I had almost no say in the matter, and what say I did have was insignificant enough as to be drowned out by my squeal of delight upon discovering it.

If you'll indulge my Ducky from NCIS urges for a moment, this reminds me of my mum who literally filled bookshelves not with paperbacks but boxes of cassettes and later CDs. As I walked to the Boatdeck Café this evening for a cup of tea and some programming (I have wild Friday nights) I started listening and Stephen Fry is brilliant. It seems my mum's genes are alive and well :).

Arthur Dent's house being knocked down

To be fair Audible has been fun but there are a couple of negatives. Perhaps the most annoying so far is the DRM which entailed me dragging the downloaded audio book file into iTunes and then "authorising" myself by logging it, bringing back dark memories of the early days of iTunes music purchasing when I realised I'd formatted my Mac too many times and "ran out" of authorisations because I hadn't taken the care to "unauthorise" each time. Still if it becomes bothersome I suppose I can burn an audio CD to back it up if in case something goes awry.

For a complete newbie like me it also wasn't obvious how to actually get the audiobook onto my iPhone after I'd downloaded it: there wasn't an Audiobook tab in the management screen for the device. Turns out you need to drag the book over manually as you would a song, but once it's on the iPhone it appears under the Audiobooks section, and it even tells you how many minutes you've got remaining and remembers where you left off.

The Audible website itself also isn't quite as seamless and easy to use as I would have liked initially, but exploring it for a few hours I've got used to it. For one I was disappointed a technology category wasn't listed in their main sidebar, but it turns out they do stock them and you can access them by clicking "More".

Squelch squelch

I'm liking Audible so far, I just worry that perhaps I signed up for the Gold account with the MacBreak code when I should have used the TWiT code and gone Platinum. I'm already a quarter of the way through my first book and it's supposed to last me a month :). My wishlist is already full of a ton of tech, science and history books and a few novels too.

Alas that's the problem with living so close to where I study, I don't have any commute time! I imagine it'll come in really handy though for when I'm cleaning or going through stacks of old emails. That reminds me, I haven't finished that blog post about email either. There just aren't enough hours in the day :).

If you're an Audible user, what books have you listened to recently? Any recommendations?

I tell you what, having been a listener to TWiT and most of Leo's other shows since the beginning I've been hearing a lot about Audible and have finally decided to take the plunge! There's only one small problem, as an Aussie who lives in Australia and Singapore I'm not sure which of their sites to use. In their English language forms, Audible is made up of Audible.com in the United States and Audible.co.uk in the United Kingdom, neither country of which I'm a resident of.

I have lotsa concerns.

Firstly, I'm not sure whether I'm even allowed to register with either of them in the first place given I'm an international customer; Leo Laporte doesn't even seem sure when he talks about them on his podcasts. And even if were allowed to register with them, would I be limited to downloading only a subset of material?

The second concern is about content. If I'm allowed to register with either, do they stock different material? I noticed the Audible.co.uk site had links to BBC productions which made my eyes light up with delight, but would that be limited to their site and not to the American one?

Thirdly has to do with presentation. These are audio books so I'll be listening to people speaking for hours on end. I have no trouble understanding most American accents, but British accents on the whole are closer to the pronunciation of English that I'm used to in Australia and Singapore and are easier for me to understand, so if there's a book read by an American and a Briton I'd probably prefer downloading the latter, unless the author themselves are reading. Do the American and British Audible sites offer the same books but read by different people depending on which site it appears on?

Finally, and this might end up being the decisive one, as far as I can tell Leo's coupon codes only seem to work with the American one, unless there's a different way of accessing the British site.

Perhaps I'll have to email the Audible guys about this.