Talking Books – A Useful Resource

What are talking books? They are fiction or non-fiction books – sometimes full-length and sometimes condensed or abridged – which have been narrated and the narration saved onto an audio tape, CD-ROM, or even directly onto a computer disk.

There are three main sources for talking books:

1. Your local library, and even your local bookshop, probably has a limited range of talking books on CD and audio tape. These will be free from the library, but at the bookshop tend to cost more than the book on paper. Your local library is free to join and will be in the phone book, or contact them via your local council. Usually you’ll need to be mobile enough to go there to get your books, but some branches have a home-library service for the elderly and disabled.
2. Vision Australia Library – the library of audio and braille books for the print handicapped. Vision Australia Library has mostly blind users, but caters for people with CFS who suffer brainfog which makes reading hard, and weakness/low stamina which makes holding the books hard. This service mails books on cassette tape to you – no charge for postage either way, and its even free to join! Their range of fiction is pretty good but they are short on non-fiction. Vision Australia Library can be contacted on 1300 654 656 during normal business hours, Monday to Friday.
3. The commercial website Audible has a bigger range than either of the above services, but you’ll have to pay for the privilege, as well as be connected to the Internet to access the site. Usually a recording from Audible costs about the same as the book itself would cost in paperback form, so the cost is not too outrageous. Once you have downloaded your book, you can listen directly at the computer, load the book onto an MP3 player such as an iPod, or turn it into a CD-ROM to listen to in the car, or in bed. They also have a neat login service which ‘remembers’ which books you’ve paid for and lets you download them over and over in case you loose them.

Talking books can be good for people with all degrees of CFS – whether you listen on the train on your way to your part-time job, or while you’re bedridden and listen to them softly because its all your ears can tolerate.

Talking books – talk about one today!