There’s no question.

I am a book lover.

Books have been a big part of my life, since I was a little toddler. My parents made sure they instilled the love of books in me. I never had any problems at school with reading, unlike some of my friends.

Reading was fun to me. I didn’t even do it to get good grades at school, I did it because I loved it.

As you’d expect, this love of books carried on into my adulthood.

To tell you how serious this love is, I even met my wife in the library where I went to get a novel I had heard so much about.

I still find the time to read, even though our kids take up a lot of my spare time now. I love books so much, and it’s great to see that my children are starting to feel the same.

It doesn’t matter how tired I am when I get home from the office, I make it a habit to read to my children EVERY night before bedtime.

At this point in my life, I had never realised that audio books were available to anyone and everyone - I never even knew that you could download audio books directly on the Internet.

I never expected it to, but my long hours at work meant that I would always get sleepy while reading to the children at bedtime. In many occasions I have even fallen asleep before my kids right whilst I’m reading to them!

Deep within me I could see that there just wasn’t any way I could keep up with the habit of always reading to my kids each night… I was left feeling that unless I managed to find another job that didn’t require such a time commitment (but one that still paid well - impossible, right?)

Whilst I’d been dreaming of the impossible, I was given a promotion at work. Unfortunately, this resulted in longer hours at work - a full hour before everyone else started, and another full hour after everyone else had gone home.

Sheesh, that’s an hour every morning reading motivational and inspirational chapters and an hour spent reading to my children after I get home from the office - all down the drain.

I was in a great dilemma about what to do. I didn’t give up reading my children’s bedtime story, even though my wife suggested that she take over.

I was still battling for a way out when I discovered audio books on a website I stumbled upon! The website I found was called Spoken Network. www.spokennetwork.com?cam=ama0005

Eureka… the savior had arrived.

Six weeks after my first contact with audio books, my dilemma has ended.

Remember those 8 track cassettes that kept on breaking down? Well, technology has surely moved on and now you can listen to music and novels and not a sign of a moving part. Now, that does not mean that something will not break down, but the new iPods and MP3 players are made of robust material with a very low failure rate. And, they are so light.

So, what audio books exist?

Visit your online audiobook store where you will find thousands of titles ranging from

serious classic literature to off the wall humour.
The categories listed there include Arts and Drama, Biographies, Fiction,

Romance,

Among the titles are fully dramatized plays by William Shakespeare along with serialized

radio shows like The War of the Worlds, The Goon Shows and Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.

When people are searching the internet for advice about medical matters or dieting or

exercise, they quite often are not aware that there are a vast number of audiobooks on these subjects

What’s in the Self Help Category?

This category is further divided into several sub-categories.
Under the heading Creativity Audio Books there are 146 titles including Be

Creative by Guy Claxton and Bill Lucas: Release your imagination and recognise your creative

intelligence. Creativity is a most important economic force of the 21st century. In this 1 hour audiobook and in concise steps, Guy Claxton and Bill Lucas teach what ‘creativity’ is and how creative thinking can be learned. Making use of exercises and casestudies, the authors demonstrate essential skills for the workplace and show how developing creative ability can help us achieve harmony, balance and personal success in our lives.

Other titles in the audiobook series include Get Up and Do It!, The Confidence Plan and Find The Balance.

There are 308 Health and Fitness Audio Books including titles about diets,alternative medicine, spiritual living, anti aging, fitness and wellness, healthy living,how to relax, how to meditate, how to practice yoga, how to avoid diabetes.

Balancing Meditation .. A Guided Relaxation Exercise is a fine example by Marianne Laug, who

says: The relaxation exercise Balancing Meditation guides you through a sequence of minimal body movements. It utilizes conscious breathing and body awareness methods to enable a relaxed and meditative state of mind.
This relaxation exercise has its origin in the centuries-old Yoga tradition. Breath and Yoga Nidra
We turn the attention towards the breath and use abdominal breathing to calm the breath down and to make it deeper and easier. The breath plays a central role with all relaxation techniques, since conscious respiration is a wonderful method to release tensions.
Listening to an expert explaining medical conditions and how to

relieve or avoid them is well worth the effort, and much more advantageous than reading

about them.

Which books have been transferred to audio books?

The list of audio books is endless and ever growing, but here’s a few notable names: Shakespeare,, Tolstoy, Stephen King, James Patterson, Dale Carnegie, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bohorquez, Steve Majors.

Are audio books good value for money?
Well, they are certainly less expensive And, they are available as an instant

download so you do not have to hop in your car and increase your carbon footprint.

There’s no paper involved in the production of audio books and so you are also saving some of the world’s rain forests. They are much lighter than books and will not cost you excess baggage charges on your next vacation And, as far as learning is concerned, audio books are the new way to read.