COPD & Emphysema Support Group
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I know there are a fair few here with some years on them and maybe not tech savvy, also some with eye issues and maybe some who'd just like to have a book read to them.....
Lately I've taken up using a text to speech program and having books read to me rather than listening to the radio when I'm in the car or doing house work. These programs are available for most modern cell phones (smart phones they call them) the one I use is called "cool reader". Voice programs can also be installed and you can even have the book read to you in a lovely upper class English accent of either make or female persuasion. There are also literally tens of thousands of free e-books to be had at sites like the free ebook project at https://www.gutenberg.org/ . Everything by Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Robert E. Howard, Rudyard Kipling and more. Basically any book that has a copyright that goes back 50 years at which time it has expired and the book becomes part of the public domain and can be copied or printed by anyone who is not selling it. Also, If you know where to look many recent books can be had for free or as little as a buck or two in e-book form. If you don't have a smart type cell phone e-book readers and e-pads of good quality can be had for as little as $50.
If anyone is interested I can post links and get you set up and getting read to right quick. In a matter of minutes actually not including time taken to play with the program and familiarise yourself with the settings.
Apart from that has anyone got any suggestions for reading material? I'm always looking for new authors or book titles and with this business of having my books read to me while I do other stuff it now appears I may actually get my lifetime "books to be read before I die" list completed with a few slots to spare. Lol
Lately I've taken up using a text to speech program and having books read to me rather than listening to the radio when I'm in the car or doing house work. These programs are available for most modern cell phones (smart phones they call them) the one I use is called "cool reader". Voice programs can also be installed and you can even have the book read to you in a lovely upper class English accent of either make or female persuasion. There are also literally tens of thousands of free e-books to be had at sites like the free ebook project at https://www.gutenberg.org/ . Everything by Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Robert E. Howard, Rudyard Kipling and more. Basically any book that has a copyright that goes back 50 years at which time it has expired and the book becomes part of the public domain and can be copied or printed by anyone who is not selling it. Also, If you know where to look many recent books can be had for free or as little as a buck or two in e-book form. If you don't have a smart type cell phone e-book readers and e-pads of good quality can be had for as little as $50.
If anyone is interested I can post links and get you set up and getting read to right quick. In a matter of minutes actually not including time taken to play with the program and familiarise yourself with the settings.
Apart from that has anyone got any suggestions for reading material? I'm always looking for new authors or book titles and with this business of having my books read to me while I do other stuff it now appears I may actually get my lifetime "books to be read before I die" list completed with a few slots to spare. Lol
http://danielsilvabooks.com/the-books/
http://www.michaelconnelly.com/extras/series/#Bosch
I have horrible eyes, books on CD is an interesting option I hadn't thought of. (i don't have a smart phone & would love to listen to a book instead of tv in the evenings)
I see there are 'rent a cd' club, but kind of pricey from what i'm seeing so far for newer released books.....i'm still looking thought as it is a great idea :)
Reminded me of the "Hannah Swenson" series by Joanne Fluke.
http://www.joannefluke.com/
those were easy reading & fun because they always had a recipe included in them.
Janet Evanovich - "one for the money" bail bondswoman supreme you mean? Yes, I've read most of them. Very funny, well written. I have a great liking for books like these. A lot of fun, requires no great effort from the reader to tag along, it's like desert for the soul. You could say I've got far more than my money's worth out of them since I borrowed my copies from a gal at work.
Not familiar with Connelly or Silva other than a recognition of their names and the genres they write in so I shall out them on the list of "to ty" authors
Jarca -
The book reader program can, I'm reasonably sure be downloaded to your computer desktop. So as long as you don't mind not being portable you don't have to be excluded.
Also, though I don't know where you live or how big a district you are in but if you have a public library near by no matter how big audio books can be brought in from other public libraries state wide at no cost as it just comes to them in the same shipments that move weekly between all the attached libraries. Also I do know that there are many audio books available for free download on line. I'll look into these two things I've mentioned here.
Cool Reader homepage. Downloads for your windows based desktop as well as linux and Android style smart phones. This reader doesn't work on I-phones since Apple will not let others source code as Android apps can be sourced by anyone who wants to try. If you have an Iphone there are other readers with text to speech. Let me know and I'll find the best one.
http://coolreader.org/e-index.htm
Free e-books. The Gutenberg project. Pretty much any popular book that has a copyright older than 50 years. More added all the time. Also many free ebooks which are newer than 50 years can be found by google searching the book title + the words "free ebook" The best file types for cool reader that I have found are .epub .txt and .html. Mobi book files don't work on cool reader so avoid them
https://www.gutenberg.org/