August 5, 2005

Unabridged Classic Literature on Audio

For those of you who love classic fiction audio books I figured I’d point out some places to find classics unabridged. Three places where you’ll find just about all the seminal classics unabridged are Recorded Books, Blackstone Audiobooks, and Books on Tape. Blackstone and Recorded Books offer their titles for rent, and all these publishers have their titles on Audible.com and iTunes available for audio download. In Audio and Tantor are two other publishers that pride themselves on unabridged editions of classic literature. Penguin Audio and NAXOS Audiobooks offer some unabridged literature in addition to many abridged works of literature.

August 4, 2005

The Whole Foods of Spoken Word Audio

I had dinner a couple of nights ago with Asher, a great guy who is going to be doing some marketing stuff for us. We were talking about LearnOutLoud and the word that he kept using to describe our business was “organic.” He was referring to the fact that we’ve made the conscious decision not to sell all audio and video products under the sun but rather to concentrate on educational and self-development material.

The analogy that we drew at dinner was to Whole Foods, the natural and organic foods supermarket chain that is very popular here in California and catching on around the country. Whole Foods is very different from most other grocers. You won’t find Cap’n Crunch or Twizzlers there. And there are many people who won’t shop there precisely for that reason.

But what you will find at Whole Foods is a hand-picked selection of merchandise that’s not only good but (in most cases) good for you too. And that’s why Whole Foods is doing as well as they are. Because they’ve found grocery shoppers who are interested in improving their diets and in turn, improving their quality of life.

That’s what we’re striving for at LearnOutLoud.com. We’re not carrying the Hollywood blockbusters or the latest best-selling audio fiction (even though we probably could have made a lot of money selling Harry Potter…). Instead, we’re stocking stuff that is fun and entertaining but also is educational, inspirational and ultimately fulfilling.

In the past couple of weeks we’ve put up over a hundred educational and self-development podcasts in our catalog. We’ve spent a lot of time listening to these and reviewing them to ensure that we’re giving you the best of the best. There’s so much “noise” out there in the podcasting world that we think you’ll find this helpful. By the end of the month, we’ll be launching podcast.learnoutloud.com which will be a complete directory of high-quality podcasts. We’re very excited about that. (In the meantime, search our site using the word “podcast” to see all the titles we have listed.)

So we’ll continue our work here picking out the best produce…er, audio and video content for you. If that’s what you’re looking for we hope to become the one-stop shop for you. Please send me an e-mail if there’s anything more we can do in this regard. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the site!

August 3, 2005

” I can’t see myself without it…”

Here’s a great article on audio learning (and audio books in general):

Downloadable files have ear of the audio book industry

I love this passage:

(An audio book fan talking her experience with listening while commuting)

“Right now I can’t see myself without it because it has made my commute from something I hate to something that is quite enjoyable,” she said. “Sometimes when I get home, I’m sitting in the driveway for another 10 minutes because I’m listening to a book that I’m really interested in, and my family is wondering what I’m doing.”

And this one as well:

“I think what has happened in the last five years is that people are finding there are more and more responsibilities in their day, and their traditional reading time is being squeezed out,” Thomas said. “Everybody has made their life about multitasking, and audio books is the ultimate multitasking medium.”

And one more:

“If you hear Frank McCourt read ‘Angela’s Ashes’ or Jane Fonda read her memoir, there really is nothing else like that,” she said. “Once people try audio books, they can’t believe they never tried it before.”

Mmm…those quotes pretty much sum up the reason why we started LearnOutLoud.com. It’s fun to see the world get hooked on audio learning…one listener at a time.

August 2, 2005

Memory Palaces

A lady named Nancy who is working with us passed along this article to me about “memory palaces.” Here’s a brief blurb:

The memory palace was the foundation. Once that is in your head, you can begin practicing the science of memory. (See “The Science Of Memory,” at right). While the palace never changes, the objects inside of a room certainly can change. The strategy, when presented with a large text to memorize, is to walk into the first room of your memory palace and place the first stanza of your address next to a distinctive object, the second stanza next to another object, and so on.

What’s the application to LearnOutLoud? Well, let’s imagine that you’re listening to an audio course from someone like The Teaching Company. Let’s say you are listening to their excellent Great Minds series on your commute to work each day. The concept of memory palaces suggests that when you learn about certain philosophers your memory will associate what you’ve learned with where you are geographically. So if you’re learning about Aristotle while passing a bridge, in the future your mind might recall what you’ve learned each time you pass that bridge.

This begs the question of what you might want your mind recalling each day on your commute to work. By listening to really cool educational and self-development material (we know a great site for that…) you can theoretically tie your mind to teaching from some of the greatest individuals in history. Not a bad way to start your workday huh? To read more about memory palaces, click the link below:

Memory Palaces

August 1, 2005

Focusing

Ever heard of focusing? I hadn’t either until my Uncle Paul turned me on to it a few months back. It’s form of therapy that involves going “within one’s self” to pick up on feelings that might not be readily apparent at the surface level. The Focusing Institute’s website does a much better job of explaining this than I could.

Focusing is direct access to a bodily knowing.

As in ancient times, philosophy now has a practice derived from it.

With training you can find the entry point to your embodied knowledge. After that, you can become able to stay long enough to interact with it. Then you can do many different things when you reach a profound level.

I tried a focusing session and it was pretty cool although I definitely had the feeling that you would need to do multiple sessions to derive the full benefit. Focusing is a great subject to learn about through audio and video because at it’s heart focusing is very much an auditory activity (focusing partners often conduct sessions via the telephone). Seth just put up some of Ann Cornel’s focusing titles up on our site. If you’re interested in learning more about focusing I would encourage you to check them out.

Introduction to Focusing – A great one to start with if you’re new to focusing.

Learning Focusing – A two CD set that goes a little deeper.

The Power of Listening – A videocassette that seems geared a bit more towards those conducting focusing sessions.

The Return of the Soul – Another of Ann’s videocassettes. This one looks somewhat autobiographical in nature.

If you’re interesting in finding out more about focusing, please visit the website of The Focusing Institute at http://www.focusing.org.