Books on MP3...

I've always found that listening to books-on-tape to be a useful way to pass the time when on long drives, or when stuck in traffic. Normally, I used to borrow book-on-tape from the public library. Now, you have more options.

Project Gutenberg has 16,000 public domain titles free to download. Within their online library, they also have a large number of Audio eBooks, most of which are narrated by humans. Some are read by computer. I have not listed to the computer generated audio books, so I can't vouch for their quality.

So you can download books that you have always meant to read, but never had the time. Then either burn them to CD in CDA format (for old fashioned dumber CD players in cars), or in MP3 format (for newer smarter CD players). Apple's free iTunes software can burn the CD for you in the format you need.

If you have an Apple iPod MP3 player, then a good solution it to simply load the books to that and play that through your car's FM radio. There are some good after-market solutions that do this. I use the Griffen iTrip. There is also the newer Griffen Roadtrip which works with the new iPod Nano. Another option is to pump the audio through your car's cassete player with the Griffen SmartDeck.

Once you get your car's audio system set up to listen to MP3s on your iPod, then you can also expand your listening library to other subjects, such as education, self-help, news, etc.

Podcast - A directory of Podcasts on the net.
LibriVox - Free public domain books in audio format for download.
NPR Podcasts - A list of National Public Radio's Podcast Files from their shows.
Podcasting News Directory - A directory of podcasts by subject.
Podiobooks - Serials in Podcast form.