iTunes 8 allows you to mark any file as an audiobook, which then allows not only bookmarking, but allows you to listen to books at a higher rate of speed using pitch shifting. If you have an iPod.

I will definitely have to get that book. I have considering it for a while. Haven’t bought it due to the whole “time to read” thing.

Stuart,

Thanks. I wouldn’t get the Ipod either. I will check out Audible’s site. I am basically looking for the cheapest player that has the feature, because it will only be used for that. I am not the type of person who has ear buds in his ear all the time.

Any iPod will do it I believe, but I’m an anti iPod person and the easiest way to find a player that will work with bookmarks is to use audible’s tool - http://www.audible.com/adbl/store/deviceCenter/devices.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&showDType=mp3&whichMfgr=142 - just go to the URL, select the manufacturer you like and then peruse their available offerings.

Hope this helps?

S

Matt Ellsworth’s last blog post..Yicrosoft Directory - Say What?

I bought the EW course years ago and I worked on it some with my daughter. I’ve had some mediocre results from it…

You might consider something from “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferriss though.

He talks about reducing reading (which i can’t really see a reason to do - books have saved my life! literally, and figuratively!) and then too, he mentioned a technique I think maybe he created?!?

Not really sure about that…

He talks about scanning a line with your finger or a pencil - and reading only the third word from each end.

I’ve been doing that on the blogs I visit during my regular web crawls (using the cursor).

Now, my normal reading comprehension is quite good (i know that from the EW course!) and I gotta tell you, I know that this type of scanning reduces my comprehension some - it isn’t that bad though!

Give it a try (and read his book for that and WAY more interesting stuff)!

I don’t think I want to do EXACTLY what he does - I have totally different goals in life though too.

Let me know how it goes!

Pam Hoffman
http://seminarlist.blogspot.com

p.s. i used to have oodles of books going at once (something like 50 or so at one point) and yet, I get more reading done, doing something i just started this year.

i read whatever i want right before bed, usually for ‘pleasure’ and then, during the day, i read something for my brain - “The Millionaire Maker” is the current book. I read something like 5-6 books in January! i think i have averaged 1-2 per month most years (i keep track of every regular book i finish in a composition book, i’ve done it for years!) and that was reading one at a time.

for whatever reason, this is working for me.

you really want to make reading part of family time too IMHO - i would cozy up with my daughter on the couch A LOT! when she was growing up. she is an avid reader now. i always told her ‘if you don’t learn anything else, learn to read because if you do, you can learn anything else you want to learn.’

don’t give up your reading! it’s so important for so many reasons. it’s the quickest, least expensive way to ‘get away from it all’ even!

your reading evangelist, pam

I figured there was another option. I found this a while back. It’s a text to speech addon for Firefox.
http://clickspeak.clcworld.net/downloads.html