The technical advancement of the recording media for audio books mp3 has speeded up tremendously. At the beginning audio books were pressed on LP’s, today they are simple digital files that can be downloaded from the internet. Here’s the detailed story:

Audio books are a great way to use idle time. Load an audio book into your MP3 player or iPod - you can find mp3 audio books for just about any interest, from stories to business books and download audiobooks about self-improvement to even the holy book or the coran. You can find them around the clock, just by clicking a few buttons on your computer and an internet shop delivers the contents for your iPod or MP3 player with no worries to you.

Even if they have only become very popular again recently, the original idea of audio books goes back about 80 years! Initially books on tape or on LP’s were produced for the sight impaired. Here’s a short look back in history:

Already in the 1920’s, the Royal National Institute for the Blind in England (RNIB) initiated research to find the best method to manufacture audio books for sight impaired soldiers that were the result of the World War I battles. They finally decided to produce audio books on LP’s and the first ones were made in 1926. To play them they were put on the old fashioned LP players that had to be cranked by hand and delivered the sound through the big horn. This was a great development for the sight impaired, but was hardly used by normal consumers. So these audio books from RNIB remained a niche product and never reached the masses.

Because the concept was successful, the RNIB started the ‘Talking Book Service’ in 1936 . The first two books they distributed were:’The murder of Roger Ackroyd’ (Agatha Christie) and ‘Thyphoon’ (Joseph Conrad). Because the records could only contain 25 minutes of spoken text, an average audio book had to be recorded on about ten records.

During WWII, the studio used by the RNIB was attacked with bombs, and one month later a other new studio was flattened as well, destroying much needed equipment to continue the audio books production. The AFB (American Foundation for the Blind), who had started to produce audio books in the USA sent replacement parts and equipment to London so that the production could be taken up again.

The old fashioned LP’s were displaced by modern LP’s and finally cassettes, making listening to audio books more practical. Sony’s Walkman made it possible to take your audio book with you and listen whilst on the road. This is the time audio books started to be bought by the public at large. The next step was to produce these listening books on Compact Disk (CD), making them even more convenient.

Over the last few years the audio book technology has made a quantum leap: Digital files (MP3) can be packed onto a player that weighs only a few grams and runs on one set of batteries for many hours. The most popular player is without doubt the Apple iPod, but there are many other MP3 players on the market that have helped to make listening to content on the go very popular.

Finding an audio book is as easy as typing an address into your internet browser, consulting the catalog of the online audio books shop and then downloading your audio book within minutes. No more need to visit your local library or book shop. If you want to shop at 3 am - no problem, the shop for your downloadable audio books is open 24/7!

One shop that offers a wide variety of audio books is the AudioBooksCorner Store. High quality audio books from publishers like BBC, Hachette and many others cover a wide variety of topics. Best selling authors offer their novels as audio books and the well known language learning courses by Pimsleur are available for download too. They also offer free online audio books - a great way to try if this is for you.