UKH

My shiny new insy winsy teeny weeny van sadly does not take my mp3 player, lacking CD's I've been listening to Radio 4 and found I particularly enjoyed the science programs.

So I'm thinking I should find some interesting audio books to listen to. I only really do longer journeys, mostly on my own and it's nice to have something to occupy my brain with for the time.

Anyone got some recommendations of interesting, er, 'reads'.

Also recommendations of good places to get audiobooks from without restrictive DRM, I'm likely to put them on my phone but in the mean time am using CD's.

I've looked at audible but that says you can only burn each to CD once. Unfortunately I am a master CD destroyer and am lucky to get two listens out of a disc before it has become too scratched to listen to (largely due to not taking much care of them when I'm driving, as I'm more concerned about the driving part rather than carefully re-inserting a cd into a case, so tend to just chuck the CD onto the (usually slightly muddy) chair next to me to worry about when I stop, by which time it's usually too late, although my old cd drives may also have played a part), so I'd rather be able to burn it multiple times to account for my incapability to look after a disc. I'm sure the DRM can be stripped, but doesn't that make it just as illegal as using a pirate version in the first place? Just thought I'd investigate if there are any alternatives without the DRM before I just suck it up and try not to destroy CD's (/strip the DRM when I ultimately fail).

In reply to Jaffacake:
I enjoyed. They are not exactly in depth science but it goes deeper than most books.

Bill bryson - History of nearly everything.
Forgotten the author - 13 things that don't make sense.

In reply to cap'nChino:

Hmm, a history of nearly everything is 19 hours! That should keep me going for a while! I'll try audible as there's the offers on and see how it goes, thanks.

Happy to take any other suggestions!

In reply to Jaffacake:

The In Our Time archive....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/in-our-time/archive/

In reply to lowersharpnose:

My god there are hundreds.

And that looks like the program I caught a couple of times on BBC 4 and thought 'oooh, that was interesting' which started this whole thing off, thanks!

In reply to Jaffacake:

They should keep you going.

A few random good ones:

Agincourt
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y25q

The Origins Of Life
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y29f

Ediacara Biota
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lh2s3

Calculus
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mrfwq

In reply to Jaffacake: if you have an ipod or mp3 player etc, you can down loud some good science podcasts and listen at your leisure .

In reply to Jaffacake:

since you mention radio 4, have a look at their podcasts

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/podcasts/

Depending on your tastes you could also look at Bath Uni podcast series.

http://www.bath.ac.uk/podcast/

podcasts have really come on in leaps and bounds, lots of good stuff out there (itunes is handy for being able to sort through them though).
Havent really bothered with audio books on the grounds the podcasts keep me busy.

In reply to dissonance: Track down anything by Richard Feynman.

If you're feeling particulary brave bit torrrent his lecutres on phyiscs - litterally hundreds of the things and absolutely facinating (and largely up to date, basic phyics hasn't moved on that much since the 60's). If you want a gentle introdcution try "Surely you're joking mr Feynman".

By all accounts the guy was a bit of a legend (in addition to being the cleverest guy in the room).

If you fancy some more current affairs type science / maths download Radio 4s More or Less podcast and the american equivlent "Planet Money" (search for NPR Planet Money on itunes)

In reply to Jaffacake: Would second the In our Time podcasts, also Infinite Monkey Cage and also The life scientific all on BBC podcasts

In reply to Jaffacake: The Naked Scientist podcast is pretty good as well as all the other podcasts that seem to have spawned from it.

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/

In reply to Jaffacake:

You can get all the In Our Time podcasts as a job lot on bitorrent

Simon

In reply to ewanjp:

+1 A dab hand with the bongos too