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109-511: The publication was launched in 1992 as a 12-page black & white newsletter containing about 50 critical reviews of audiobooks , focused on new releases. In 1997, it switched to a 36-page color magazine format containing about 60 reviews per issue and interviews with authors, readers, and publishers. In 2000, AudioFile launched an online database of past issues. Current issues were offered online beginning in 2001. AudioFile bestows Earphones Awards to presentations which are deemed to excel in

218-484: A talking book ) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements . Spoken audio has been available in schools and public libraries and to a lesser extent in music shops since the 1930s. Many spoken word albums were made prior to the age of cassettes , compact discs , and downloadable audio , often of poetry and plays rather than books. It

327-431: A 5-hour book, the narrator is paid for 5 hours, thus providing an incentive not to make mistakes. Depending on the narrator they are paid US$ 150 per finished hour to US$ 400 (as of 2011 ). Many narrators also work as producers and deliver fully produced audiobooks, which have been edited, mastered, and proofed. They may charge an extra $ 75–$ 125 per finished hour in addition to their narration fee to coordinate and pay for

436-641: A Little Lamb ", the first instance of recorded verse. In 1878, a demonstration at the Royal Institution in Britain included " Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle " and a line of Tennyson 's poetry thus establishing from the very beginning of the technology an association with spoken literature. Many short, spoken word recordings were sold on cylinder in the late 19th and early 20th century; however,

545-449: A change of editors at the newspaper; Kay Robinson , the new editor, allowed more creative freedom and Kipling was asked to contribute short stories to the newspaper. In an article printed in the Chums boys' annual, an ex-colleague of Kipling's stated that "he never knew such a fellow for ink – he simply revelled in it, filling up his pen viciously, and then throwing the contents all over

654-738: A college education to all veterans, but texts were mostly inaccessible to the recently blinded veterans, who did not read Braille and had little access to live readers. Macdonald mobilized the women of the Auxiliary under the motto "Education is a right, not a privilege". Members of the Auxiliary transformed the attic of the New York Public Library into a studio, recording textbooks using then state-of-the-art six-inch vinyl SoundScriber phonograph discs that played approximately 12 minutes of material per side. In 1952, Macdonald established recording studios in seven additional cities across

763-560: A couple who boarded children of British nationals living abroad. For the next six years (from October 1871 to April 1877), the children lived with the couple – Captain Pryse Agar Holloway, once an officer in the merchant navy , and Sarah Holloway – at their house, Lorne Lodge, 4 Campbell Road, Southsea. Kipling referred to the place as "the House of Desolation". In his autobiography published 65 years later, Kipling recalled

872-500: A decanter across a friendly dinner table." By January 1896, he had decided to end his family's "good wholesome life" in the U.S. and seek their fortunes elsewhere. A family dispute became the final straw. For some time, relations between Carrie and her brother Beatty Balestier had been strained, owing to his drinking and insolvency. In May 1896, an inebriated Beatty encountered Kipling on the street and threatened him with physical harm. The incident led to Beatty's eventual arrest, but in

981-405: A disability or illness which makes it difficult to hold a book, turn its pages, or read in the usual way, this includes people with visual, physical, learning or mental health difficulties. They have audiobooks for both leisure and learning and a library of over 7,500 titles which are recorded in their own digital studios or commercially sourced. The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB)

1090-593: A few libraries, such as the Library of Congress, began distributing books on cassette by 1969. However, during the 1970s, a number of technological innovations allowed the cassette tape wider usage in libraries and also spawned the creation of new commercial audiobook market. These innovations included the introduction of small and cheap portable players such as the Walkman , and the widespread use of cassette decks in cars, particularly imported Japanese models which flooded

1199-596: A good way to multitask. Another stated reason for choosing audiobooks over other formats is that an audio performance makes some books more interesting. Common practices of listening include: Founded in 1948, Learning Ally serves more than 300,000 K–12, college and graduate students, veterans and lifelong learners—all of whom cannot read standard print due to blindness, visual impairment, dyslexia, or other learning disabilities. Learning Ally's collection of more than 80,000 human-narrated textbooks and literature titles can be downloaded on mainstream smartphones and tablets, and

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1308-401: A letter: "A little maple began it, flaming blood-red of a sudden where he stood against the dark green of a pine-belt. Next morning there was an answering signal from the swamp where the sumacs grow. Three days later, the hill-sides as fast as the eye could range were afire, and the roads paved, with crimson and gold. Then a wet wind blew, and ruined all the uniforms of that gorgeous army; and

1417-422: A lot of policy support related to the industry, and secondly, Audiobook production environment infrastructure was insufficient. Third, research and technology development, such as academia, has not been active in order to continue to grow as an Audiobook industry. Producing an audiobook consists of a narrator sitting in a recording booth reading the text, while a studio engineer and a director record and direct

1526-669: A maximum of 4 hours, one Sound Book could hold eight hours of recordings as it ran at half the speed or 9.5 CPS. However, just like the Tefifon, the format never became widespread in use. A small number of books are recorded for radio broadcast , usually in abridged form and sometimes serialized. Audiobooks may come as fully dramatized versions of the printed book, sometimes calling upon a complete cast, music, and sound effects. Effectively audio dramas , these audiobooks are known as full-cast audiobooks. BBC radio stations Radio 3 , Radio 4 , and Radio 4 Extra have broadcast such productions as

1635-533: A mere four years he produced, along with the Jungle Books , a book of short stories ( The Day's Work ), a novel ( Captains Courageous ), and a profusion of poetry, including the volume The Seven Seas . The collection of Barrack-Room Ballads was issued in March 1892, first published individually for the most part in 1890, and contained his poems " Mandalay " and " Gunga Din ". He especially enjoyed writing

1744-478: A month each Christmas with a maternal aunt Georgiana ("Georgy") and her husband, Edward Burne-Jones , at their house, The Grange, in Fulham , London, which Kipling called "a paradise which I verily believe saved me". In the spring of 1877, Alice returned from India and removed the children from Lorne Lodge. Kipling remembers "Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told any one how I

1853-622: A musical rendition of Rumpelstiltskin narrated by Jim Dale , and featuring a cast of Broadway musical stars. Audiobooks have been used to teach children to read and to increase reading comprehension. They are also useful for the blind . The National Library of Congress in the U.S. and the CNIB Library in Canada provide fees for audiobook library services to the visually impaired; requested books are mailed out (at no cost) to clients. Founded in 1996, Assistive Media of Ann Arbor, Michigan

1962-530: A phrase in Haggard's Nada the Lily , combined with the echo of this tale. After blocking out the main idea in my head, the pen took charge, and I watched it begin to write stories about Mowgli and animals, which later grew into the two Jungle Books ." With Josephine's arrival, Bliss Cottage was felt to be congested, so eventually the couple bought land – 10 acres (4.0 ha) on a rocky hillside overlooking

2071-427: A regular column to cover the industry. By the end of 1987, the audiobook market was estimated to be a $ 200 million market, and audiobooks on cassette were being sold in 75% of regional and independent bookstores surveyed by Publishers Weekly . By August 1988 there were forty audiobook publishers, about four times as many as in 1984. By the middle of the 1990s, the audio publishing business grew to 1.5 billion dollars

2180-540: A total of 41 stories, some quite long. In addition, as The Pioneer ' s special correspondent in the western region of Rajputana , he wrote many sketches that were later collected in Letters of Marque and published in From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel . Kipling was discharged from The Pioneer in early 1889 after a dispute. By this time, he had been increasingly thinking of his future. He sold

2289-731: A traveling salesman who listened to sales tapes while driving long distances, had the idea to create quality unabridged recordings of classic literature read by professional actors. His company, the Maryland-based Recorded Books , followed the model of Books on Tape but with higher quality studio recordings and actors. Recorded Books and Chivers Audio Books were the first to develop integrated production teams and to work with professional actors. By 1984, there were eleven audiobook publishing companies, they included Caedmon, Metacom, Newman Communications, Recorded Books, Brilliance and Books on Tape. The companies were small,

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2398-658: A two-hour conversation with him on trends in Anglo-American literature and about what Twain was going to write in a sequel to Tom Sawyer , with Twain assuring Kipling that a sequel was coming, although he had not decided upon the ending: either Sawyer would be elected to Congress or he would be hanged. Twain also passed along the literary advice that an author should "get your facts first and then you can distort 'em as much as you please." Twain, who rather liked Kipling, later wrote of their meeting: "Between us, we cover all knowledge; he covers all that can be known and I cover

2507-795: A year in retail value. In 1996, the Audio Publishers Association established the Audie Awards for audiobooks, which is equivalent to the Oscar for the audiobook industry. The nominees are announced each year by February. The winners are announced at a gala banquet in May, usually in conjunction with BookExpo America . With the spread of the Internet to consumers in the 1990s, faster download speeds with broadband technologies, new compressed audio formats and portable media players,

2616-431: Is a UK charity providing a subscription-free service of unabridged audiobooks for people with sight problems, dyslexia or other disabilities, who cannot read print. They have a library of over 8,550 fiction and non-fiction titles which can be borrowed by post on MP3 CDs and memory sticks or via streaming. Listening Books is a UK audiobook charity providing an internet streaming, download and postal service to anyone who has

2725-620: Is a UK charity which offers a Talking Books library service. The audiobooks are provided in DAISY format and delivered to the reader's house by post as a CD or USB memory stick. There are over 30,000 audiobooks available to borrow, which are free to print disabled library members. RNIB subsidises the Talking Books service by around £4 million a year. Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling FRSL ( / ˈ r ʌ d j ər d / RUD -yərd ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)

2834-606: Is because Audiobooks are primarily seen as an avenue for self-improvement and education, rather than entertainment. Audiobooks are being released in various Indian languages. In Malayalam , the first audio novel, titled Ouija Board, was released by Kathacafe in 2018. In the Korean publishing sector, since the audiobook business began in 2000, it has disappeared due to its failure to achieve meaningful results. Nearly 20 years later, interest in mobile has increased in 2019, but there are still tasks to be solved. First, Audiobook lacked

2943-436: Is described in the section on the 1970s). The final year that cassettes represented greater than 50% of total market sales was 2002. Cassettes were replaced by CDs as the dominant medium during 2003–2004. CDs reached a peak of 78% of sales in 2008, then began to decline in favor of digital downloads. The 2012 survey found CDs accounted for "nearly half" of all sales meaning it was no longer the dominant medium (APA did not report

3052-600: Is not easy. I have known a certain amount of bullying , but this was calculated torture – religious as well as scientific. Yet it made me give attention to the lies I soon found it necessary to tell: and this, I presume, is the foundation of literary effort." Trix fared better at Lorne Lodge; Mrs Holloway apparently hoped that Trix would eventually marry the Holloways' son. The two Kipling children, however, had no relatives in England they could visit, except that they spent

3161-407: Is the largest of its kind in the world. Founded in 2002, Bookshare is an online library of computer-read audiobooks in accessible formats for people with print disabilities. Founded in 2005, LibriVox is also an online library of downloadable audiobooks and a free non for profit organisation developed by Hugh McGuire. It has public domain audiobooks in several languages. Calibre Audio Library

3270-491: Is when commuting with an automobile or while traveling with public transport, as an alternative to radio or music. Many people listen as well just to relax or as they drift off to sleep. A recent survey released by the Audio Publishers Association found that the overwhelming majority of audiobook users listen in the car, and more than two-thirds of audiobook buyers described audiobooks as relaxing and

3379-628: The Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore and The Pioneer in Allahabad . The former, which was the newspaper Kipling was to call his "mistress and most true love", appeared six days a week throughout the year, except for one-day breaks for Christmas and Easter. Stephen Wheeler, the editor, worked Kipling hard, but Kipling's need to write was unstoppable. In 1886, he published his first collection of verse, Departmental Ditties . That year also brought

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3488-768: The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) and Library of Congress Books for the Adult Blind Project established the "Talking Books Program" ( Books for the Blind ), which was intended to provide reading material for veterans injured during World War I and other visually impaired adults. The first test recordings in 1932 included a chapter from Helen Keller 's Midstream and Edgar Allan Poe 's " The Raven ". The organization received congressional approval for exemption from copyright and free postal distribution of talking books. The first recordings made for

3597-437: The Audio Publishers Association established the term "audiobook" as the industry standard. Spoken word recordings first became possible with the invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison in 1877. "Phonographic books" were one of the original applications envisioned by Edison which would "speak to blind people without effort on their part." The initial words spoken into the phonograph were Edison's recital of " Mary Had

3706-797: The Audio Publishers Association , a professional non-profit trade association, was established by publishers who joined to promote awareness of spoken word audio and provide industry statistic. Time-Life began offering members audiobooks. Book-of-the-Month club began offering audiobooks to its members, as did the Literary Guild . Other clubs such as the History Book Club , Get Rich Club, Nostalgia Book Club, Scholastic club for children all began offering audiobooks. Publishers began releasing religious and inspirational titles in Christian bookstores. By May 1987, Publishers Weekly initiated

3815-695: The Connecticut River – from Carrie's brother Beatty Balestier and built their own house. Kipling named this Naulakha , in honour of Wolcott and of their collaboration, and this time the name was spelt correctly. From his early years in Lahore (1882–87), Kipling had become enamoured with the Mughal architecture , especially the Naulakha pavilion situated in Lahore Fort , which eventually inspired

3924-766: The English Channel . Although Kipling did not much care for his new house, whose design, he claimed, left its occupants feeling dispirited and gloomy, he managed to remain productive and socially active. Kipling was now a famous man, and in the previous two or three years had increasingly been making political pronouncements in his writings. The Kiplings had welcomed their first son, John , in August 1897. Kipling had begun work on two poems, " Recessional " (1897) and " The White Man's Burden " (1899), which were to create controversy when published. Regarded by some as anthems for enlightened and duty-bound empire-building (capturing

4033-754: The Gazette ' s larger sister newspaper, The Pioneer , in Allahabad in the United Provinces , where he worked as assistant editor and lived in Belvedere House from 1888 to 1889. Kipling's writing continued at a frenetic pace. In 1888, he published six collections of short stories: Soldiers Three , The Story of the Gadsbys , In Black and White , Under the Deodars , The Phantom Rickshaw , and Wee Willie Winkie . These contain

4142-492: The Gazette . "My month's leave at Simla, or whatever Hill Station my people went to, was pure joy – every golden hour counted. It began in heat and discomfort, by rail and road. It ended in the cool evening, with a wood fire in one's bedroom, and next morn – thirty more of them ahead! – the early cup of tea, the Mother who brought it in, and the long talks of us all together again. One had leisure to work, too, at whatever play-work

4251-491: The Jungle Books and also corresponding with many children who wrote to him about them. The writing life in Naulakha was occasionally interrupted by visitors, including his father , who visited soon after his retirement in 1893, and the British writer Arthur Conan Doyle , who brought his golf clubs, stayed for two days, and gave Kipling an extended golf lesson. Kipling seemed to take to golf, occasionally practising with

4360-466: The Monroe Doctrine ). This raised hackles in Britain, and the situation grew into a major Anglo-American crisis , with talk of war on both sides. Although the crisis eased into greater United States–British co-operation, Kipling was bewildered by what he felt was persistent anti-British sentiment in the U.S., especially in the press. He wrote in a letter that it felt like being "aimed at with

4469-781: The Shot tower walked up and down with his traffic." In the next two years, he published a novel, The Light That Failed , had a nervous breakdown , and met an American writer and publishing agent, Wolcott Balestier , with whom he collaborated on a novel, The Naulahka (a title which he uncharacteristically misspelt; see below). In 1891, as advised by his doctors, Kipling took another sea voyage, to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and once again India. He cut short his plans to spend Christmas with his family in India when he heard of Balestier's sudden death from typhoid fever and decided to return to London immediately. Before his return, he had used

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4578-493: The William Gibson novel Neuromancer . An audio first production is a spoken word audio work that is an original production but not based on a book. Examples include Joe Hill , the son of Stephen King , who released a Vinyl First audiobook called Dark Carousel in 2018. It came in a 2-LP vinyl set, or as a downloadable MP3, but with no published text. Another example includes Spin, The Audiobook Musical (2018),

4687-413: The oaks , who had held themselves in reserve, buckled on their dull and bronzed cuirasses and stood it out stiffly to the last blown leaf, till nothing remained but pencil-shadings of bare boughs, and one could see into the most private heart of the woods." In February 1896, Elsie Kipling was born, the couple's second daughter. By this time, according to several biographers, their marital relationship

4796-509: The telegram to propose to, and be accepted by, Wolcott's sister, Caroline Starr Balestier (1862–1939), called "Carrie", whom he had met a year earlier, and with whom he had apparently been having an intermittent romance. Meanwhile, late in 1891, a collection of his short stories on the British in India, Life's Handicap , was published in London. On 18 January 1892, Carrie Balestier (aged 29) and Rudyard Kipling (aged 26) married in London, in

4905-838: The "thick of an influenza epidemic, when the undertakers had run out of black horses and the dead had to be content with brown ones." The wedding was held at All Souls Church in Langham Place , central London. Henry James gave away the bride. Kipling and his wife settled upon a honeymoon that took them first to the United States (including a stop at the Balestier family estate near Brattleboro, Vermont ) and then to Japan. On arriving in Yokohama , they discovered that their bank, The New Oriental Banking Corporation , had failed. Taking this loss in their stride, they returned to

5014-669: The 19th century for people of British origin living in India] and so too would their son, though he spent the bulk of his life elsewhere. Complex issues of identity and national allegiance would become prominent in his fiction." Kipling referred to such conflicts. For example: "In the afternoon heats before we took our sleep, she (the Portuguese ayah , or nanny) or Meeta (the Hindu bearer , or male attendant) would tell us stories and Indian nursery songs all unforgotten, and we were sent into

5123-492: The Blind , founded in 1955. Actors from the municipal theater in Münster recorded the first audiobooks for the visually impaired in an improvised studio lined with egg cartons. Because trams rattled past, these first productions took place at night. Later, texts were recorded by trained speakers in professional studios and distributed to users by mail. Until the 1970s recordings were on tape reels, then later cassettes. Since 2004,

5232-719: The CD format. According to the National Endowment for the Arts ' study, "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America" (2004), audiobook listening increases general literacy. Audiobooks are considered a valuable tool because of their format. Unlike traditional books or a video program, one can listen to an audiobook while doing other tasks. Such tasks include doing the laundry, exercising, weeding and similar activities. The most popular general use of audiobooks by adults

5341-533: The Copybook Headings " (1919), " The White Man's Burden " (1899), and " If— " (1910). He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story. His children's books are classics; one critic noted "a versatile and luminous narrative gift". Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom's most popular writers. Henry James said "Kipling strikes me personally as

5450-602: The European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with." Rudyard Kipling was born on 30 December 1865 in Bombay in the Bombay Presidency of British India , to Alice Kipling (born MacDonald) and John Lockwood Kipling . Alice (one of

5559-625: The Pacific, "I had left the innocent East far behind.... Weeping softly for O-Toyo.... O-Toyo was a darling." Kipling then travelled through the United States, writing articles for The Pioneer that were later published in From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel . Starting his North American travels in San Francisco, Kipling went north to Portland, Oregon , then Seattle , Washington, up to Victoria and Vancouver , British Columbia, through Medicine Hat , Alberta, back into

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5668-469: The South Transept of Westminster Abbey . Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed with the political and social climate of the age. The contrasting views of him continued for much of the 20th century. Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: "[Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of

5777-687: The Talking Books Program in 1934 included sections of the Bible; the Declaration of Independence and other patriotic documents; plays and sonnets by Shakespeare; and fiction by Gladys Hasty Carroll , E. M. Delafield , Cora Jarrett , Rudyard Kipling , John Masefield , and P. G. Wodehouse . To save costs and quickly build inventories of audiobooks, Britain and the United States shared recordings in their catalogs. By looking at old catalogs, historian Matthew Rubery has "probably" identified

5886-472: The U.S., back to Vermont – Carrie by this time was pregnant with their first child – and rented a small cottage on a farm near Brattleboro for $ 10 a month. According to Kipling, "We furnished it with a simplicity that fore-ran the hire-purchase system. We bought, second or third hand, a huge, hot-air stove which we installed in the cellar. We cut generous holes in our thin floors for its eight-inch [20 cm] tin pipes (why we were not burned in our beds each week of

5995-879: The US to Yellowstone National Park , down to Salt Lake City , then east to Omaha, Nebraska and on to Chicago, then to Beaver, Pennsylvania on the Ohio River to visit the Hill family -- Mrs. Edmonia 'Ted' Hill, "eight years older than [him, who had] become Kipling's closest confidante, friend and sometimes collaborator" in British India, and her husband, Professor S. A. Hill, who [had] taught Physical Science at Muir College in Alhallabad. From Beaver, Kipling went to Chautauqua with Professor Hill, and later to Niagara Falls , Toronto, Washington, D.C., New York, and Boston. In

6104-584: The United States. Caedmon Records was a pioneer in the audiobook business. It was the first company dedicated to selling spoken work recordings to the public and has been called the "seed" of the audiobook industry. Caedmon was formed in New York in 1952 by college graduates Barbara Holdridge and Marianne Roney. Their first release was a collection of poems by Dylan Thomas as read by the author. The LP 's B-side contained A Child's Christmas in Wales , which

6213-512: The audio content is preloaded and sold together with a hardware device. In 1955, a German inventor introduced the Sound Book cassette system based on the Tefifon format where instead of a magnetic tape the sound was recorded on a continuous loop of grooved vinylite ribbon similar to the old 8-track tape . Even though the original Tefifon upon which it was based ran at 19 CPS and could hold

6322-561: The audiobook industry in the United States". Caedmon used LP records, invented in 1948, which made longer recordings more affordable and practical, however most of their works were poems, plays and other short works, not unabridged books due to the LP's limitation of about a 45-minute playing time (combined sides). Listening Library was also a pioneering company, it was one of the first to distribute children's audiobooks to schools, libraries and other special markets, including VA hospitals. It

6431-487: The bungalow marks a site merely close to the home of Kipling's birth, as it was built in 1882 – about 15 years after Kipling was born. Kipling seems to have said as much to the dean when visiting J. J. School in the 1930s. Kipling wrote of Bombay: Mother of Cities to me, For I was born in her gate, Between the palms and the sea, Where the world-end steamers wait. According to Bernice M. Murphy, "Kipling's parents considered themselves ' Anglo-Indians ' [a term used in

6540-480: The course of this journey he met Mark Twain in Elmira, New York , and was deeply impressed. Kipling arrived unannounced at Twain's home, and later wrote that as he rang the doorbell, "It occurred to me for the first time that Mark Twain might possibly have other engagements other than the entertainment of escaped lunatics from India, be they ever so full of admiration." As it was, Twain gladly welcomed Kipling and had

6649-466: The digital download figures for 2012, but in 2011 CDs accounted for 53% and digital download was 41%). The APA estimates that audiobook sales in 2015 in digital format increased by 34% over 2014. The resurgence of audio storytelling is widely attributed to advances in mobile technologies such as smartphones , tablets , and multimedia entertainment systems in cars, also known as connected car platforms. Audio drama recordings are also now podcast over

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6758-518: The dining-room after we had been dressed, with the caution 'Speak English now to Papa and Mamma.' So one spoke 'English', haltingly translated out of the vernacular idiom that one thought and dreamed in." Kipling's days of "strong light and darkness" in Bombay ended when he was five. As was the custom in British India, he and his three-year-old sister Alice ("Trix") were taken to the United Kingdom – in their case to Southsea , Portsmouth – to live with

6867-523: The farm and adjoining Forest, some of the time with Stanley Baldwin . In January 1878, Kipling was admitted to the United Services College at Westward Ho! , Devon, a school recently founded to prepare boys for the army. It proved rough going for him at first, but later led to firm friendships and provided the setting for his schoolboy stories Stalky & Co. (1899). While there, Kipling met and fell in love with Florence Garrard, who

6976-543: The father served as Principal of the Mayo College of Art and Curator of the Lahore Museum . Kipling was to be assistant editor of a local newspaper, the Civil and Military Gazette . He sailed for India on 20 September 1882 and arrived in Bombay on 18 October. He described the moment years later: "So, at sixteen years and nine months, but looking four or five years older, and adorned with real whiskers which

7085-471: The first British-produced audiobook as Agatha Christie 's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd , read by Anthony McDonald in 1934. Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFBD, later renamed Learning Ally ) was founded in 1948 by Anne T. Macdonald, a member of the New York Public Library 's Women's Auxiliary, in response to an influx of inquiries from soldiers who had lost their sight in combat during World War II . The newly passed GI Bill of Rights guaranteed

7194-428: The first dawnings of The Jungle Books came to Kipling: "The workroom in the Bliss Cottage was seven feet by eight, and from December to April, the snow lay level with its window-sill. It chanced that I had written a tale about Indian Forestry work which included a boy who had been brought up by wolves. In the stillness, and suspense, of the winter of '92 some memory of the Masonic Lions of my childhood's magazine, and

7303-410: The following criteria: AudioFile sponsors the SYNC Audiobooks for Teens, a "free summer program for teens 13+." The program provides subscribers with two free and complete audiobook downloads paired thematically each week during its summer season. The season varies in length from 10-16 weeks. The audiobook files are delivered via the OverDrive Media Console . Audiobooks An audiobook (or

7412-523: The four noted MacDonald sisters ) was a vivacious woman, of whom Lord Dufferin would say, "Dullness and Mrs Kipling cannot exist in the same room." John Lockwood Kipling, a sculptor and pottery designer, was the Principal and Professor of Architectural Sculpture at the newly founded Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art in Bombay. John Lockwood and Alice met in 1863 and courted at Rudyard Lake in Rudyard, Staffordshire , England. They married and moved to India in 1865 after John Lockwood had accepted

7521-420: The internet. In 2014, Bob and Debra Deyan of Deyan Audio opened the Deyan Institute of Vocal Artistry and Technology, the world's first campus and school for teaching the art and technology of audiobook production. In 2018, approximately 50,000 audiobooks were recorded in the United States with a sales growth of 20 percent year over year. U.S. audiobook sales in 2019 totaled 1.2 billion dollars, up 16% from

7630-418: The largest had a catalog of 200 titles. Some abridged titles were being sold in bookstores, such as Walden Books , but had negligible sales figures, many were sold by mail-order subscription or through libraries. However, in 1984, Brilliance Audio invented a technique for recording twice as much on the same cassette thus allowing for affordable unabridged editions. The technique involved recording on each of

7739-436: The local Congregational minister and even playing with red-painted balls when the ground was covered in snow. However, winter golf was "not altogether a success because there were no limits to a drive; the ball might skid two miles (3.2 km) down the long slope to Connecticut river ." Kipling loved the outdoors, not least of whose marvels in Vermont was the turning of the leaves each fall. He described this moment in

7848-406: The mail, allowing instead instant download access from online libraries of unlimited size, and portability using comparatively small and lightweight devices. Audible.com was the first to establish a website, in 1998, from which digital audiobooks could be purchased. Another innovation was the creation of LibriVox in 2005 by Montreal-based writer Hugh McGuire who posed the question on his blog: "Can

7957-536: The market during the multiple energy crises of the decade. In the early 1970s, instructional recordings were among the first commercial products sold on cassette. There were 8 companies distributing materials on cassette with titles such as Managing and Selling Companies (12 cassettes, $ 300) and Executive Seminar in Sound on a series of 60-minute cassettes. In libraries, most books on cassette were still made for blind and disabled people, however some new companies saw

8066-619: The mood of the Victorian era ), the poems were seen by others as propaganda for brazen-faced imperialism and its attendant racial attitudes; still others saw irony in the poems and warnings of the perils of empire. Take up the White Man's burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go, bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait, in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild— Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child. — The White Man's Burden There

8175-649: The most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known." In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature , as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and several times for a knighthood , but declined both. Following his death in 1936, his ashes were interred at Poets' Corner , part of

8284-450: The net harness a bunch of volunteers to help bring books in the public domain to life through podcasting ?" Thus began the creation of public domain audiobooks by volunteer narrators. By the end of 2021, LibriVox had a catalog of over 16,870 works. The transition from vinyl, to cassette, to CD, to MP3CD, to digital download has been documented by Audio Publishers Association in annual surveys (the earlier transition from record to cassette

8393-430: The new technology of LPs, but also increased governmental funding for schools and libraries beginning in the 1950s and 60s. Though spoken recordings were popular in 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 vinyl record format for schools and libraries into the early 1970s, the beginning of the modern retail market for audiobooks can be traced to the wide adoption of cassette tapes during the 1970s. Cassette tapes were invented in 1962 and

8502-565: The offerings have been recorded in the DAISY Digital Talking Book MP3 standard, which provides additional features for visually impaired users to both listen and navigate written material aurally. Audiobooks in India started to appear somewhat later than in the rest of the world. Only by 2010 did Audiobooks gain mainstream popularity in the Indian market. This is primarily due to lack of previous organized efforts on

8611-443: The office, so that it was almost dangerous to approach him." The anecdote continues: "In the hot weather when he (Kipling) wore only white trousers and a thin vest, he is said to have resembled a Dalmatian dog more than a human being, for he was spotted all over with ink in every direction." In the summer of 1883, Kipling visited Simla (today's Shimla ), a well-known hill station and the summer capital of British India. By then it

8720-573: The opportunity for making audiobooks for a wider audience, such as Voice Over Books which produced abridged best-sellers with professional actors. Early pioneers included Olympic gold medalist Duvall Hecht who in 1975 founded the California-based Books on Tape as a direct to consumer mail order rental service for unabridged audiobooks and expanded their services selling their products to libraries and audiobooks gaining popularity with commuters and travelers. In 1978, Henry Trentman,

8829-513: The other of family discord. By the early 1890s, the United Kingdom and Venezuela were in a border dispute involving British Guiana . The U.S. had made several offers to arbitrate, but in 1895, the new American Secretary of State Richard Olney upped the ante by arguing for the American "right" to arbitrate on grounds of sovereignty on the continent (see the Olney interpretation as an extension of

8938-436: The part of publishers and authors. The marketing efforts and availability of Audiobooks has made India as one of the fastest growing Audiobooks markets in the world. The lifestyle of urban Indian population and one of the highest daily commute time in the world has also helped in making Audiobooks popular in the region. Business and Self Help books have widespread appeal and have been more popular than fiction/non-fiction. This

9047-456: The performance. If a mistake is made the recording is stopped and the narrator reads it again. With recent advancements in recording technology, many audiobooks are also now recorded in home studios by narrators working independently. Audiobooks produced by major publishing houses undergo a proofing and editing process after narration is recorded. Narrators are usually paid on a finished recorded hour basis, meaning if it took 20 hours to produce

9156-528: The popularity of audiobooks increased significantly during the late 1990s and 2000s. In 1997, Audible pioneered the world's first mass-market digital media player , named " The Audible Player ", it retailed for $ 200, held 2 hours of audio and was touted as being "smaller and lighter than a Walkman ", the popular cassette player used at the time. Digital audiobooks were a significant new milestone as they allowed listeners freedom from physical media such as cassettes and CMP3sas which required transportation through

9265-604: The position as Professor at the School of Art. They had been so moved by the beauty of the Rudyard Lake area that they named their first child after it, Joseph Rudyard. Two of Alice's sisters were married to artists: Georgiana to the painter Edward Burne-Jones , and her sister Agnes to Edward Poynter . A third sister, Louisa, was the mother of Kipling's most prominent relative, his first cousin Stanley Baldwin , who

9374-645: The post-production services. The overall cost to produce an audiobook can vary significantly, as longer books require more studio time and more well known narrators come at a premium. According to a representative at Audible, the cost of recording an audiobook has fallen from around US$ 25,000 in the late 1990s to around US$ 2,000- US$ 3,000 in 2014. Audiobooks are distributed on any audio format available, but primarily these are records, cassette tapes, CDs, MP3 CDs , downloadable digital formats (e.g., MP3 (.mp3), Windows Media Audio (.wma), Advanced Audio Coding (.aac)), and solid state preloaded digital devices in which

9483-572: The previous year. In addition to the sales increase, Edison Research's national survey of American audiobook listeners ages 18 and up found that the average number of audiobooks listened to per year increased from 6.8 in 2019 to 8.1 in 2020. The evolution and use of audiobooks in Germany ( Hörbuch , "book for listening") closely parallels that of the US. A special example of its use is the West German Audio Book Library for

9592-623: The rest." Kipling then crossed the Atlantic to Liverpool in October 1889. He soon made his début in the London literary world, to great acclaim. In London, Kipling had several stories accepted by magazines. He found a place to live for the next two years at Villiers Street , near Charing Cross (in a building subsequently named Kipling House): "Meantime, I had found me quarters in Villiers Street , Strand , which forty-six years ago

9701-529: The rights to his six volumes of stories for £200 and a small royalty, and the Plain Tales for £50; in addition, he received six-months' salary from The Pioneer , in lieu of notice. Kipling decided to use the money to move to London, the literary centre of the British Empire . On 9 March 1889, he left India, travelling first to San Francisco via Rangoon , Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. Kipling

9810-424: The round cylinders were limited to about 4 minutes each making books impractical; flat platters increased to 12 minutes but this too was impractical for longer works. "One early listener complained that he would need a wheelbarrow to carry around talking books recorded on discs with such limited storage capacity." By the 1930s close-grooved records increased to 20 minutes making possible longer narrative. In 1931,

9919-579: The scandalised Mother abolished within one hour of beholding, I found myself at Bombay where I was born, moving among sights and smells that made me deliver in the vernacular sentences whose meaning I knew not. Other Indian-born boys have told me how the same thing happened to them." This arrival changed Kipling, as he explains: "There were yet three or four days' rail to Lahore, where my people lived. After these, my English years fell away, nor ever, I think, came back in full strength." From 1883 to 1889, Kipling worked in British India for local newspapers such as

10028-419: The stay with horror, and wondered if the combination of cruelty and neglect that he experienced there at the hands of Mrs Holloway might not have hastened the onset of his literary life: "If you cross-examine a child of seven or eight on his day's doings (specially when he wants to go to sleep) he will contradict himself very satisfactorily. If each contradiction be set down as a lie and retailed at breakfast, life

10137-541: The subsequent hearing and the resulting publicity, Kipling's privacy was destroyed, and he was left feeling miserable and exhausted. In July 1896, a week before the hearing was to resume, the Kiplings packed their belongings, left the United States and returned to England. By September 1896, the Kiplings were in Torquay , Devon, on the south-western coast of England, in a hillside home (Rock House, Maidencombe) overlooking

10246-541: The title of his novel as well as the house. The house still stands on Kipling Road, three miles (4.8 km) north of Brattleboro in Dummerston, Vermont : a big, secluded, dark-green house, with shingled roof and sides, which Kipling called his "ship", and which brought him "sunshine and a mind at ease". His seclusion in Vermont, combined with his healthy "sane clean life", made Kipling both inventive and prolific. In

10355-416: The two channels of each stereo track. This opened the market to new opportunities and by September 1985, Publishers Weekly identified twenty-one audiobook publishers. These included new major publishers such as Harper and Row, Random House, and Warner Communications. 1986 has been identified as the turning point in the industry, when it matured from an experimental curiosity. A number of events happened:

10464-416: The winter I never can understand) and we were extraordinarily and self-centredly content." In this house, which they called Bliss Cottage , their first child, Josephine, was born "in three-foot of snow on the night of 29th December, 1892. Her Mother's birthday being the 31st and mine the 30th of the same month, we congratulated her on her sense of the fitness of things..." It was also in this cottage that

10573-405: Was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times in the 1920s and 1930s. Kipling's birth home on the campus of the J. J. School of Art in Bombay was for many years used as the dean's residence. Although a cottage bears a plaque noting it as his birth site, the original one may have been torn down and replaced decades ago. Some historians and conservationists take the view that

10682-454: Was added as an afterthought. The story was obscure and Thomas himself could not remember its title when asked what to use to fill up the B-side —but this recording went on to become one of his most loved works, and launched Caedmon into a successful company. The original 1952 recording was a selection for the 2008 United States National Recording Registry , stating it is "credited with launching

10791-639: Was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British India , which inspired much of his work. Kipling's works of fiction include the Jungle Book duology ( The Jungle Book , 1894; The Second Jungle Book , 1895), Kim (1901), the Just So Stories (1902) and many short stories, including " The Man Who Would Be King " (1888). His poems include " Mandalay " (1890), " Gunga Din " (1890), " The Gods of

10900-400: Was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established. Also, badly-treated children have a clear notion of what they are likely to get if they betray the secrets of a prison-house before they are clear of it." Alice took the children during spring 1877 to Goldings Farm at Loughton , where a carefree summer and autumn was spent on

11009-479: Was boarding with Trix at Southsea (to which Trix had returned). Florence became the model for Maisie in Kipling's first novel, The Light That Failed (1891). Near the end of his schooling, it was decided that Kipling did not have the academic ability to get into Oxford University on a scholarship. His parents lacked the wherewithal to finance him, and so Kipling's father obtained a job for him in Lahore , where

11118-457: Was favourably impressed by Japan, calling its people and ways "gracious folk and fair manners". The Nobel Prize committee cited Kipling's writing on the manners and customs of the Japanese when they awarded his Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907. Kipling later wrote that he "had lost his heart" to a geisha whom he called O-Toyo, writing while in the United States during the same trip across

11227-401: Was founded by Anthony Ditlow and his wife in 1955 in their Red Bank, New Jersey home; Ditlow was partially blind. Another early pioneering company was Spoken Arts founded in 1956 by Arthur Luce Klein and his wife, they produced over 700 recordings and were best known for poetry and drama recordings used in schools and libraries. Like Caedemon, Listening Library and Spoken Arts benefited from

11336-622: Was in one's head, and that was usually full." Back in Lahore, 39 of his stories appeared in the Gazette between November 1886 and June 1887. Kipling included most of them in Plain Tales from the Hills , his first prose collection, published in Calcutta in January 1888, a month after his 22nd birthday. Kipling's time in Lahore, however, had come to an end. In November 1887, he was moved to

11445-660: Was no longer light-hearted and spontaneous. Although they would always remain loyal to each other, they seemed now to have fallen into set roles. In a letter to a friend who had become engaged around this time, the 30‑year‑old Kipling offered this sombre counsel: marriage principally taught "the tougher virtues – such as humility, restraint, order, and forethought." Later in the same year, he temporarily taught at Bishop's College School in Quebec , Canada . The Kiplings loved life in Vermont and might have lived out their lives there, were it not for two incidents – one of global politics,

11554-410: Was not until the 1980s that the medium began to attract book retailers, and then book retailers started displaying audiobooks on bookshelves rather than in separate displays. The term "talking book" came into being in the 1930s with government programs designed for blind readers, while the term "audiobook" came into use during the 1970s when audiocassettes began to replace phonograph records . In 1994,

11663-459: Was primitive and passionate in its habits and population. My rooms were small, not over-clean or well-kept, but from my desk I could look out of my window through the fanlight of Gatti's Music-Hall entrance, across the street, almost on to its stage. The Charing Cross trains rumbled through my dreams on one side, the boom of the Strand on the other, while, before my windows, Father Thames under

11772-516: Was the first organization to produce and deliver spoken-word recordings of written journalistic and literary works via the Internet to serve people with visual impairments. About 40 percent of all audiobook consumption occurs through public libraries, with the remainder served primarily through retail book stores. Library download programs are currently experiencing rapid growth (more than 5,000 public libraries offer free downloadable audiobooks). Libraries are also popular places to check out audiobooks in

11881-532: Was the practice for the Viceroy of India and government to move to Simla for six months, and the town became a "centre of power as well as pleasure". Kipling's family became annual visitors to Simla, and Lockwood Kipling was asked to serve in Christ Church there. Rudyard Kipling returned to Simla for his annual leave each year from 1885 to 1888, and the town featured prominently in many stories he wrote for

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