Use Free Audiobooks to Put Your Time to Better Use

Site Member

Nov. 13, 2010

A site member offers this:

I read a lot. When I drive or walk around campus, I generally listen to audio books. I've just discovered a pretty cool way of combining the two.

I listen to the audio files at TWICE their normal speed AS I read.

I cut normal listening time in half AND I force myself to work through long passages of text that I might zone out for if I were simply reading the book alone. The new speed of the audio recording is JUST ABOUT my normal reading speed. It's not too slow, and you get the bonus of knowing you're cutting an hour long task IN HALF.

Here's how I do it.

I use the VLC media player, a freeware device that can be found here:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc

I have accrued a large library of digitalized audiobooks from libraries and other sources. But then I discovered this site: http://librivox.org It's the WIKIPEDIA of audiobooks. Look up an open domain novel from the past 300 years. It will probably be there, read UNABRIDGED. Calvin's Institutes are in there too. Aristotle. Plato. Dostoevsky. Dickens. Alcott. Etc.

Then I download an electronic copy of the text or grab my Picard-syndrome physical copy of the book off my stuffed bookshelves. I cue the audio, click on the PLAYBACK menu, and click FASTER twice, and I'm off.

The benefits?

1. I'm getting the benefit of aural and visual immersion. I remember more this way.

2. The playback is TOO fast if I were just listening alone, and the book may be a slogfest if I went at it alone. This method answers both of these problems.

3. The method has a built in input clock. Typically, these audio files are an hour long or stop at the end of a chapter. I can apportion my time correctly: "two hours of input on Novel X today" (which is actually FOUR hours of "real" playback time before it's sped up).

I just thought of this last Thursday. I've finished two novels and have started a couple more. I've started doing my morning Bible reading with it. I have all of Alexander Scourby's MARVELOUS KJV on mp3, and I read/listen in tandem.

Hope this helps someone. The VLC player and librivox site are worth checking out, even if you think my method is bunk.