Thursday, June 14, 2007

Laughter is the Best Medicine

It has been one of those days... And I have decided that it is time to unplug from the computer and unwind with a humorous audio book. First I headed over to AudioBooks.net, a new site for free audio books that I recently found. If you sign up for a free account, you can download up to two free audio books per day. Not a bad deal. They have a nice mix of contemporary and classic works, some which you can find at other sites and some you can't, and a wide range of genres to search in. Unfortunately for me I didn't find anything under comedy that interested me today.

So then I headed over to PodioBooks, as I figured this would be my next best bet for something humorous. Sure enough. So now I am going to sit back and give "Fiddle and Burn" by Jason Pomerantz a try at tickling my funny bone, or at least putting me in a better frame of mind.

I sincerely hope your day has been better than mine, although it is starting to look up now.

Happy Listening!

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

If You Haven't Got Your Health...

You haven't got anything! Now you can get a free audio book geared toward attaining perfect (or at least more perfect) health.

Jon Barron wrote the book "Lessons From the Miracle Doctors" and then provided a free ebook form online. In it he talks about what to do to achieve optimal health, why some of the "miracle" supplements work for some and not others, and what to look for in supplements - all without promoting any specific brand of supplements. You can get the ebook here.

He has also provided a free audio series called "Take Back Your Health" that parallels many of the chapters in his book. You can find them here. You will also find more free audio at the site in the form of Jon's radio show archives.

Happy Listening!

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

War of the Worlds

Yesterday I showed you were you could find old time radio programs to listen to for free. Most of them were radio serial shows.

So what about the individual programs? You now the ones that were kind of like movies, only without the pictures...

The finest radio drama program of the time (1930's) was Mercury Theatre on the Air. And their most famous production was War of the Worlds. You know, the one that caused mass panic and had people believing that we were being attacked by aliens.

Now you can listen to the original broadcast for free and find out what all the fuss was about. You can find War of the Worlds and many other radio dramas, such as The Count of Monte Cristo, Dracula, Treasure Island, The Immortal Sherlock Holmes, Around the World in 80 Days and many more at TheMercuryTheatre.

Happy Listening!

Monday, June 11, 2007

Free Old Time Radio Shows

Once upon a time, audio was king. People from all over would listen to radio broadcasts. And they weren't just listening to music. Radio programs would tell stories and there were audio plays, audio soap operas, audio adventures and audio children's stories. Some programs were one time events and the whole story would be told. Others were serialized and a little of the story would be told each time the program aired. These radio programs were very popular and whole families would sit around the radio to listen.

Then along came the TV and it replaced the radio. Stories were still told, only there were video pictures to go along with them. And today you can find the same types of programs to watch on your TV that folks used to listen to on the radio.

Fortunately some of these radio programs have been saved from extinction. And now you can listen to them again. RadioLovers is just one site that has collected many of the radio programs and you can listen to them online or download them for free.

These are great to take along on long car rides to keep the whole family entertained. They are also a way of getting some entertainment while doing something monotonous like housework or exercising. You don't always have to be listening to those self-improvement titles, you know :)

Happy Listening!

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

More Places to Travel with Free Audio

I must have been bitten by the travel bug. I have been searching for more travel audio guides and have found quite a few. Here are two of them for you today.

Ireland. Oh, one of the many places that I want to go! For now I will settle for listening to a free audio guide of Dublin. There are a full dozen different "walks" that you can listen to and some even have brochures that you can download, print, and take with you. Or just look at if you are traveling virtually like me :)

And how about Boston? It is the home of the Celtics after all! And now you can get the Boston Freedon Trail audio tour. 14 different sites on a 2 1/2 mile tour. Its almost like going. Sort of.

Even if you don't want to travel (real or virtually) these audio tours are a great way to learn the history and culture of a place. Which means you can force them on your children! After all, just because it is summer doesn't mean they shouldn't learn something! :)

Happy Listening!

Monday, June 4, 2007

Traveling with Audio

My family and I just got back from a camping trip, which is how our family takes vacations. Mainly due to cost. Traveling is expensive, especially when you are taking three kids along. And while camping is a great way for our family to spend time together away from home (without spending a fortune) it doesn't stop me from dreaming of going to more exotic places!

Now I can! Sort of. One of the new things in travel is audio guides. They are mp3 files of travel destinations designed to be listened to while you're at typical tourist spot or on a suggested walking tour. Kind of like having tour guide, only you can turn them off whenever you want :)

ItalyGuides has free audio guides of Rome, Venice and Florence. Each city has 3-4 audio guides of different locations, including the Coliseum, Michelangelo's David, and St. Mark's Basilica to name a few. In addition to the audio guides, there are numerous pictures, interactive maps and virtual panoramas to make your vacation more real.

So head on over if you are like me and aren't going to Italy but would really like to. And if you are going to Italy, then you should head over too and get the audio guides to take with you. Either way, have a nice trip!

Happy Listening!

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Listen to the Voices of the Authors

For years, Don Swaim had a CBS radio show called Book Beat. This show aired a 2 minuute interview with writers. But in order to get that 2 minutes, 30-45 minute interviews were taped. Now you can listen to all of the unedited interviews for free at Wired for Books.

These are interviews with some of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. They include: Maya Angelou, Isaac Asimov, Margaret Atwood, Mary Higgins Clark, Tom Clancy, Christopher Buckley, Kurt Vonnegut, Calvin Trillin, Paul Theroux, Amy Tan, Anne Rice, Alison Lurie, Andrew Greely, Janet Daily, James Dickey, Dick Francis and way too many more to list fully.

Wired for Books' mp3 page has an alphabetical listing of the interviewed authors in addition to some free audio books that include Alice in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol, In the Land of Men, The African American Oral Tradition, The Illiad in ancient Greek, the Aeneid in Latin, and some of Shakespeare's works.

Happy Listening!