Chicks On Lit discussion

My grandma is 84 years old, an avid reader, and legally blind. She loves books on CD, which appear to be dying out due to digital downloading. She is past the age of teaching her to use an ipod or tablet and couldn't see it anyway. Do any of you have great sites for buying books on CD? That's all she's asked for for Christmas. I was shopping today and Amazon and Barnes and Noble are charging between $32-$45 dollars for one book. Is that the norm? Thanks for any help you have!

We have talking books. It is through the state of Illinois. I can give you the website if you want to browse. I believe there is a national service. Here is the website if you are interested. http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/dep.... There might be more information to contact your local services.

The only site I can think of at the moment is: http://www.audioeditions.com

I hope this helps.

Also, check out the local libraries. They have books on CD and cassette, for free.

If she is legally blind, she can obtain talking books through the National Library Service for the Blind and Visually Impaired, which works with libraries in all states. Here is a starter page for them:

https://www.nlstalkingbooks.org/talki...

They have books on cassette tape and digital books though, not usually CDs, and the books are only on load (library), not to keep, but they do mail them to you postage free, and you return them the same way. They will even loan you a cassette player or digital book player (specially designed for blind users) if she needs one.

If she wants books to own though, books on CD can be pretty spendy. They often cost quite a bit more than a regular paper book.

This site sells just audiobooks.

http://www.audioeditions.com/default....

They do have a clearance section too, so you might be able to find some good deals there.

http://www.audioeditions.com/clearanc...

Thanks Shelia, I wasn't quite sure of the talking book website. I used it a long time ago.

Ditto the library, but I have been traveling a lot lately and have found a surprising number of inexpensive audiobooks for sale at truck stops and convenience stores. Not always a great selection, but I have been pleasantly surprised. Many of them are $10 or less.

I have bought audio books on ebay for pretty cheap.

While this won't help you now, there's a site that provides free audiobooks for download over the summer. They are geared towards getting youth to read, but they pair young adult novels with classics. This summer I got Sherlock Holmes, Oliver Twist, Hamlet, Through the Looking Glass, the Prince and the Pauper, and the YA books, too. They put out 2 books per week and once you download them I think you can burn them to cds. http://www.audiobooksync.com/free-syn...

As a librarian, I'm going to encourage you to borrow as opposed to buying! I run a homebound delivery service to my patrons; if your grandmother's library offers that too, maybe she'd like to take advantage of it.

I have some old ones that I would be willing to send if you pm the address.

Thanks so much everyone. I live at one end of the state and my grandma lives at the other, so I'm not sure what her library offers, but I think I'm going to give them a call.

Often library sales have the audio cd books because the libraries 'discard' them as newer titles come in. Maybe you could look for them at sales and pick ones up for her? Often they list them on http://www.booksalefinder.com/ so you have to get there *first thing* because people often go from sale to sale to buy them (and books and dvds) on the cheap so they can sell them on ebay/amazon etc as used to make $.

By any chance does she have a computer for sight impaired? If she does, maybe www.audible.com would be an option?

You can get audio books through a program called RFBaD, Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic. They have an extensive list and you can mail them books to put on audio format if they don't already have it. http://www.rfbd.org/

The company that took over bookswim.com has the option of books, cds, and audio books. I think this will really help your Grandmother keep up with her love of books. The bookswim website will lead you to the new site. Everything has a flat rate so it shouldn't be too costly. Hope this helps.

I wanted to bump this thread up to let people know that the free audiobooks for youth is back again! They pair modern YA books with older classics. You have to go back each week to get the next download, but once you download them you can burn them to cds or put them on mp3 players. It's only on its 2nd week, so you've got a whole summer of free audiobooks if you want them!

http://www.audiobooksync.com/sync-sch...

Enjoy!

Jennifer W wrote: "I wanted to bump this thread up to let people know that the free audiobooks for youth is back again! They pair modern YA books with older classics. You have to go back each week to get the next dow..."

I just looked at this website, what a fab idea! thanks Jennifer.

You're welcome! Enjoy!

And just in case anyone's not into the young adult books, this week's classic selection is Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.