I am familiar with the Gutenberg Project but I wasn't aware that it holds the
audiobooks. What an excellent choice of classics it provides. It feels good seeing so many old familiar titles:
Mark Twain is listed there as the most popular Author and his "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" as one of most downloaded titles.
Would audiobooks replace the printed books? Here is a very interesting article on the subject:
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ttp://ezinearticles.com/?Audio-Books---The-Big-Wave-of-the-Future&id=499788The author of the article, Wayne Leskosky, who is also an owner of the audio book store, argues that audio books have many advantages over printed books. First, we are leading very busy lifestyles and there is no time to read. We can combine listening to the audio book with other tasks: commuting, shopping, computing, travelling, doing house chores. The audio books are portable, downloading is fast and we can keep them forever. There is a great selection of them online and their quality has improved greatly: today's audio books are made into plays, with different narrators, sound effects and background music. They much more affordable. They don't need space, we can store them online.
Well, I don't like the notion of print becoming extinct. I love my iPod but I use it for listening to music. I don't like books read to me. Particularly if this is a novel, a poetry. The stranger's voice takes away a mystery, imposes different meaning, interpretation. I like to feel my book, to live through its story, to imagine.
With all due respect to technological progress, I like to think that print will survive. That reading will survive.