San Diego Math Circle

Audiobooks

Audio Books

There is a lot that is justifiably negative about audio books. There is a great difference between immersing one's self in a piece of great literature and listening to a reading of the same work. THIS IS NOT WHY THIS CATEGORY IS HERE. Think about how much time students and parents spend schlepping about Southern California in the family automobile ... sure, students will read - they all seem to be voracious readers - and there's a certain amount of family banter, but a well-chosen audiobook CD can make the drive to school (or to math circle) an engaging experience in itself. The following are a handful of audiobooks that are largely compilations of brief-subjects that mesh with those 10-15 min drives that seem to happen every day. You might be surprised how much your students will look forward to driving somewhere:

"Don't Know Much About" series, by Kenneth C. Davis - Each book is a collection of brief explanations cued by prompting question. The question and answer style adapts well to the audiobook format. The books are targeted at a general audience that really does not "know much about" the subject. This has the benefit of making the audiobook rendering none too complex to understand and accessible in particular to younger students. Generally speaking the ABRIDGED editions are probably the better choice when both ABRIDGED and UNABRIDGED versions are available.  Unabridged editions make virtually no adjustments to the fact that the material is being delivered in audio form, which can make for difficult listening; abridged forms are often shortened, but the abridging generally makes the content more accessible for listening.

Don't Know Much About History - Updated and Revised Edition [UNABRIDGED] (Audio CD), by Kenneth C. Davis (Author), Jeff Woodman (Narrator)

Don't Know Much About Mythology [ABRIDGED] (Audio CD) by Kenneth C. Davis

Don't Know Much About Geography: Everything You Need to Know About the World but Never Learned [ABRIDGED] (Audio CD), by Kenneth C. Davis

Don't Know Much About the Civil War [ABRIDGED] (Audio CD) by Kenneth C. Davis

"The Intellectual Devotional" series. As audiobooks, this "series" had only one member at the present time, but there is more than one such book in print so more audio editions may be forthcoming. The "Intellectual Devotional" puts a secular twist on the idea of the religious devotional books that have been around forever. The "Intellectual Devotional" takes a single short subject for each day of the year, and in book form, devotes one page to each subject - the idea being that in the course of a year, with only a few minutes committed each day, one can profitable broaden or deepen one's knowledge in various intellectual subjects.

The Intellectual Devotional: American History (Audio CD) by David S. Kidder (Author), Noah D. Oppenheim (Author), Jeff Woodman (Narrator), Helen Litchfield (Narrator)

Poetry -as an art flowing freely between written prose and music, poetry is one of those literary forms that sometimes benefits from being heard from the lips of an effective interpreter. There are a number of audiobook poetry collections that can be found, some of them including readings of poems by the original authors themselves, which can be illuminating. Poetry is one form of book that should not be abridged!

Spoon River Anthology [UNABRIDGED] (Audio CD) by Edgar Lee Masters (Author), Edward Asner (Author), Patrick Fraley (Narrator)

5000 Words

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