By Manjari Kaul
When I was a little girl I would love and look forward to the end of the day when I would sit on my father's knee and he'd tell me a bedtime story. These stories - of adventures and animals, fantastical and read were sometimes read out to me and at other times just folklores and tales that I would listen to with much eagerness before being tucked into bed. However, these story telling sessions ended when I learnt how to read myself. The experience of the first novel I read was a heady sense of achievement. But I always missed being read out to- the warmth of a voice telling the story made the stories more real for me.
When I came across audio books at the book fair I was thrilled. I stood and listened to the Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer being read out to me by a recorded voice. Audio books are reviving the tradition of story telling and thus making stories more accessible. Reado which deals in audio-books has a stall at the fair that sells audio books classics like children's classics (Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland and Jungle Book to name a few) to self help books for adults. At the Flipkart these audio files have been made available to be heard by anyone who wishes to do so.
Audio books are a boon to the visually impaired as well. Now one can listen to a book while jogging, cooking, walking, travelling. The book, compressed to an mp3 format doesn't have to add bulk to your luggage but be a file on your phone, i pad, tablet etc.
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