The revival of the audio book

A short history of the audio book

In 1920 the Royal National Institute for the Blind in England was allready doing research on how to create audio books for the blind. At that time there were a lot of ex World War 1 soldiers who had gone blind as a result of the fighting. In 1926 the RNIB started to use LP's to record audio books which could be played on record players (the kind with the big horn, you had to swing a handel a couple of times befor it would play).

In 1936 the "Talking Book Service" was launched.The first two books were:'The murder of Roger Ackroyd' by Agatha Christie and Joseph Conrad's 'Thyphoon'. The records used at the time could hold 25 minutes of spoken tekst, so they needed about 10 records for an average audio book.

In 1940 the studio used by the RNIB was bombed, and one month later a replacement studio was bombed as wel.The RNIB wanted to start publishing audio books again, but they needed certain materials which had been destroyed.

In America, the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), had started producing audio books as wel, and they did send the much needed parts to help their English counterparts. Unfortunatly the shipment got lost during a bombing raid of the London harbour! A second shipment however did make it, and the RNIB was able to start again with the production of audio books.

In the sixties the audio books started to appear on casettes, and later, after the infention of the compact disk player, on CD's.

Nowadays the audio books have become more are popular then ever befor, in spite of their age. One of the main reasons for their ever growing popularity is the fact that audio books can be downloaded straight from the Internet. There are a good few audio book publishers who provide this service, and it looks like their on to a winner.

Audio books, more then 70 years old and still gowing strong.

Back from vac with Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Back from its screen-free holidays to one of its favourite places (the very gorgeous Andalucía, in case you were wondering), a rested and refreshed Film Studies For Free today brings you some links to high-quality, film studies-related, book reviews from that very worthy e-organ Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Do please scroll down for those.

There are plenty more Openly Accessible film-studies delights coming up in the next days and weeks, so do please come back to this blog soon, but thanks for the toneladas of email correspondence in FSFF's absence. Free (and legal) films online and Victor Perkins are as deservedly popular as ever, FSFF is happy to note.

Oh... and those early to middle adopters among you might like to know that this (always later to the party) blog has succumbed to the delights of Twitter - partly in order to be able to follow David Hudson's brillant new film-on-the-web updates for The Auteurs Daily.

Christoper Grau (ed.)
Philosophers Explore The Matrix
Reviewed by Allan Hazlett, Texas Tech University
2006.01.15

Dan Flory
Philosophy, Black Film, Film Noir
Reviewed by Angela Curran, Carleton College
2009.03.10

Eyal Peretz
Becoming Visionary: Brian De Palma's Cinematic Education of the Senses
Reviewed by Gregg Lambert, Syracuse University
2008.03.11

Ronald Bogue
Deleuze's Wake: Tributes and Tributaries
Reviewed by Todd May, Clemson University
2004.05.07

Irving Singer
Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Reflections on His Creativity
Reviewed by Thomas E. Wartenberg, Mount Holyoke College
2008.05.23

John Mullarkey
Refractions of Reality: Philosophy and the Moving Image
Reviewed by Joseph Mai, Clemson University
2009.06.26

Giorgio Agamben
Profanations
Reviewed by Jeffery Geller, University of North Carolina, Pembroke
2008.06.35

Keith Ansell-Pearson
Philosophy and the Adventure of the Virtual: Bergson and the Time of Life
Reviewed by Daniel W. Smith, Purdue University
2002.07.14

Bernd Herzogenrath (ed.)
Deleuze/Guattari & Ecology
Reviewed by Eugene Holland, The Ohio State University
2009.07.22

Peter Hallward
Out of This World: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Creation
Reviewed by John Protevi, Louisiana State University
2007.08.03

J. M. Bernstein
Against Voluptuous Bodies: Late Modernism and the Meaning of Painting
Reviewed by Daniel Herwitz, University of Michigan
2006.09.18

Nathan Widder
Reflections on Time and Politics
Reviewed by Dorothea Olkowski, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs