New Books In, February 2016

Silent in the Grave (A Lady Julia Grey mystery) by Deanna Raybourn
The Perfect Match by Kristan Kiggins
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
The Violets of March by Sarah Jio
And One Last Thing by Molly Harper
Between the Tides by Patti Callahan Henry
Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Unforgettable by Eric James Stone
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
The Last Librarian by Brandt Legg (ebook)
The Stranger by Albert Camus (ebook)
A Small Indiscretion by Jan Ellison (ebook)
Loosed Upon the World: the Saga Anthology of Climate Fiction edited by John Joseph Adams (ebook)
HebrewPunk by Lavie Tidhar (ebook)
Letter to Tiptree by Alexandra Pierce and Alisa Krasnostein (ebook)
Some of the Best of Tor.com, 2015 by Nino Cipri (ebook)
You by Caroline Kepnes (audiobook, read by Santino Fontana)

This month, being February I guess, I decided it was time to tackle my romance novel block. I asked for recommendations from friends, from Twitter, and from podcast listeners. I went armed with said list to several used book stores and the library. That explains the Raybourn (mystery-romance), Higgins (contemporary romance), Jio (historical romance), Harper (contemporary romance), Henry (southern romance), and a few more that I downloaded from the library.

My former podcast cohost snagged the Stone for me from LTUE, and it's signed by the author. I like spies, as everyone knows, and this one has... a quantum spy? Sign me up. Actually we discuss it on Episode 052 of the Reading Envy podcast, if you haven't listened to that one yet.

I purchased a few books full price, brand new for my own collection this month. I ordered the Chambers from Book Depository in the UK because it doesn't come out in print in the states until July, but that cover is ugly, and I just couldn't wait to read it. Buying it from a UK distributor was not expensive but took longer to get than my Amazon Prime deal. Totally worth it, loved the book, will discuss it more in the future. I pre-ordered the Anders, and although I haven't read it, it is the March selection for the Sword and Laser book club, so I'm ready to go! The Kabat-Zinn is required reading for the mindfulness class I start at the end of March. I read it last year but wanted my own copy, so I'm happy to have it.

Most of the eBooks listed (Legg, Ellison, Adams, Tidhar, Pierce/Krasnostein, and Cipri) were Kindle deals that I snapped up, usually $1.99, $.99, and free.  The Camus I downloaded because I wanted to re-read it quickly before starting The Meursault Investigation.  I needed a new audiobook that would grab my attention, remembered Misti saying You was her best read of 2015, and picked that. NO regrets, great listen.

Working with Audiobooks in iTunes 12

I'm not much of a complainer, but it drives me crazy when applications like iTunes get worse after an update. Ever since updating to iTunes 12, I have had an impossible time trying to get MP3 files to work as audiobooks.

I often get audiobooks as MP3 files from publishers, or ripped from an MP3 CD. In the past, all I had to do was select all tracks, select Get Info, and change the media type from music to audiobook  (since iTunes imports as music by default.) Suddenly, that stopped working. In an earlier version of iTunes I figured out that if I first converted the files to the system default, AAC, then I could convert to audiobook. More recently, this stopped working. I had read and write access to the files, there did not seem to be any type of DRM control on the files, but yet I could still not convert them to audiobooks.

Why does this matter? It's true I could still put an audiobook-as-music-album into iTunes and onto my iPhone and listen to it, somewhat. But that puts the files in the shuffle, and doesn't keep track of where you are in the audiobook. The beauty of the audiobook media type is that it gives you more options - saving your place, and even more important - the ability to speed it up. I almost always listen to audiobooks at 1.5x-2x speed, because the normal speed is slower than my brain works. I couldn't face listening to the five audiobooks I'd most recently downloaded at 1x speed!

My husband, the utmost in all things tech support, did a little investigating and after we both slaved over trying to trick iTunes into doing what it used to do with no problem, he came across an app recommendation. I do not know if there is a PC equivalent, but it works well on a Mac. This is not a paid advertisement. I paid the $9.99 to download the app and feel like how well it works makes it worth the money.  It is called Audiobook Builder. It has a pretty simple interface - drag and drop, then a button that adds it to the iTunes library.

For those that need step by step, please read on!

Before you start, go find the cover image and the audio files you want to work with.

1. Download and open Audiobook Builder.

2. When you open the app, you have a few options. Start by clicking on "Create a New Project."

3. The first tab is the equivalent of the album-wide information. Drag the cover image into the space provided, add the title and author, and keep the genre "audiobooks."

4. The second tab is where you drag and drop the audio files. When they are done uploading, the app makes a chime sound.

5. The last tab is where you decide what to do with the audiobook you have built.  When you click on "Build Audiobook," the export to iTunes begins.

6. In iTunes, click on the icon that looks like an open book. Within Books is a tab for Audiobooks. Once the musical theme sounds indicating your audiobook has been built, you should see it in your library.

7. Click on the iPhone icon to navigate adding the content to your device. For me, it builds a separate playlist. On the iPhone itself, this will show up not in iTunes but in iBooks. It looks like going forward, Apple has moved the audiobook functionality into iBooks rather than keeping it as an option for iTunes.  I suspect that eventually, iTunes will not be involved at all, which is unfortunate seeing as an audiobook really has more in common with an album than an eBook.
Here's a pic of mine ready to be played on my device!