I used to have the television on while I worked at my computer, more for company than anything else, during the five hours a day my house is empty of bickering children. Then I discovered the plethora of book related podcasts and vodcasts available online so now I spend my days listening to author interviews or people chatting about books. While I have to admit sometimes it’s terribly distracting, depending on how interesting the person talking is, I’ve never had any success listening to anything while my children are home because the interruptions are just too frequent. These aren’t things I need to watch, since usually it’s not much more than someone shifting slightly uncomfortably in a chair, so I can simply let them run in the background while I continue to work.
There isn’t any one video/audio I listen to without fail, I tend to surf around and see what interests me on a particular day. Here are a mix I browse regularly…
Book Bloggers: Dear Bitches, Smart Women , BookLust, Bookrageous , Books on the Nightstand, BookBanter, Girls in the Stacks, Book Club Girl, SUVUDU, Book Guys Show, BookLounge.ca , The Bat Segundo Show, The Readers, The Manic Mommies Book Club
Barnes & Noble has a mix of interviews, reviews, readings, trailers and more
Home grown: First Tuesday Book Club, The Book Show, For the Love of Books, The Circle Book Club, Sydney Writers Centre , The Wheeler Centre
If you have a literary bent then the BBC World Book Club , NYTimes , Guardian and New York Book Review podcasts will interest you
AbeBooks hosts ShelfSound which makes available a daily round up of book podcast
The other week I discussed book trailers and provided a list of publishers at YouTube. If you browse those you will also find a great collection of interviews to watch and listen to.
A couple of weeks ago I even posted my own audio of my chat with author, Malla Nunn
So tell me – do you listen to /watch bookish podcasts/vodcasts? Do you have any recommendations?
Recommendations:
From Terri: The Creative Penn Blog
From Mari: Hachette Books Archive ; Slate’s Audio Book Club
From Marg: Galactic Suburbia ; The Writer and the Critic; Coode Street PodCast ; The Next Chapter ; Writers and Company
Book’d Out 
I tend to have the TV on, too; your idea of listening to podcasts sounds good. I’m probably the last person on earth, though, who doesn’t have an iPod! I’m sure I’ll get one at some point….
Thanks for the links!
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You don’t need an ipod Laurel, you can download iTunes and listen to them and many don’t need any special software at all – just press play 🙂
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I tend to have a podcast or Audiobook on while working on my computer now. I think there are some great podcasts out there. But we need more home grown ones. I can think of a few but not many.
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I can’t do audio books – people speak too slowly for me 🙂
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That would be a problem
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Hi Shelleyrae and thanks for visiting my blog also. Thanks for all the valuable audio links. I love Joanna Penn’s podcasts at The Creative Penn blog. They are mostly interviews about writing, epublishing and social media for writers.
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You are welcome Terri. Thanks for the suggestion
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Listen to the literary ones you mentioned, book club girl too. Hachette used to talk to authors as well, very good author chats (archived on iTunes).
I also enjoy Slate’s book club – interesting perspective (uber smart journalists/authors discussing a book… )
I hope you had a wonderful Sunday!
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Thanks for the recs Mari !
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I’m not very good at listening to things, but I’d love to try some of these out. Thanks for the suggestions, I’ve bookmarked this page!
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A couple more Aussie podcasts with a spec fic feel are Galactic Suburbia, The Writer and the Critc and the Coode Street Podcast. I also listen to the ABC show Books and Arts Daily and there are a coupel of Canadian podcasts I enjoy too – The Next Chapter and Writers and Company. For non bookish podcasts I listen to the BBC History Magazine podcast and Witness, also from the BBC, This American Life and Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
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Thanks for the great recommendations Marg!
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I had no idea all these options were available Shelleyrae. I’ve heard a lot about book related online radio stations but haven’t ever tuned into one. I’m going to check a couple out this week- thanks for the heads up!
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You are welcome Jayne!
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