Audio Books
The first audio books were introduced in the 1920s by the UK Royal National Institute for the Blind.
The Talking Book Service has its roots in the First World War. The soldiers blinded in action needed to adapt to new life, but found it too difficult to learn Braille.
The early books were recorded onto 12 inch discs, and a typical novel would fit onto 10 double-sided records.
Nowadays, about two million audio books are issued every year, mostly on CDs, and today the talking books are listened to not only by visually impaired people. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, fewer Americans are reading books than a decade ago, but almost a third more are listening to them on tapes, CD's and iPods. The smallest iPod, the Shuffle, may hold up to four unabridged books.
Sales at Audible, the leading provider of digital audio books, surged from $5 million in 2001 to $34 million last year.
Audio books are gaining in popularity since it takes less time to listen to a book, than to read it. The listeners, however, say that the pleasure of listening to an audio book depends in many respects on the narrator.
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