Books Shoppe

Welcome to Books Shoppe. Reading, like prayer and like thinking, is the personal side of human nature. Ever since Gutenburg made possible the ability to expand the written word to multitudes of people, reading has been a primary stimulus to the evolution of civilization from agrarian to industrial and now to the service/Internet age.

With the advent of Internet and websites such as YouTube, people are reading less and getting information via the spoken word rather than actually reading.

Brief Interruption. Need a Vacation? Click here…

The advance of eBooks and eReaders is keeping the printed word alive a bit longer (it will never die…  just dimish IMHO), but the more sophisticated eBooks now have the ability to stream video directly from the Intenet.

For now – curling up in a nice comfy chair by a rolling fire in the fireplace is about as close to heaven on earth as one can get, but like all things – the only thing constant thing is change…

We’ll have an ecomerce section to the website soon, in which you will be able to purchase regular paper books, as well as the new digital books. Thank you for supporting Books Shoppe.

From Bookstores to Online Bookstores; the Business of Books is No More so Simple

The word book store brings in to our mind, the picture of racks filled with books with many people moving around in search of their favourite authors. They bring out the fragrance of books which takes us to another world. The world of letters, the world of feelings, the world of emotions.

Why does a person read? It has always been difficult question to answer. Different persons have different feelings from reading. While some read for mere pleasure, some read to gather information. Some search the books for any relevant topic that is the need of the time. But of course, every one has a reason for it. No doubt, books have played a role in building a man.

Without the habit of reading, a man will remain uncultured and uncivilised similar to an animal. Abraham Lincoln, the former president of the United States of America, has once commented on the books that some books are there to chew, some to eat, some to digest while some books are just to taste. It could be simply understood by going through the books kept in the shelves in a book stall. Divided in to a variety of categories, you can find, thousands of books kept arranged giving out the fragrance of pages. Just go near and smell it. Yes you could feel it. Each page and each book will give you the fragrance of different topics that may make you ecstatic. Here comes the word of Abraham Lincoln. The importance of books may vary from person to person and his preference may change from another. There may be craps and trashes to epics and legends that may play different role in life of a voracious reader.

Just have a glance on the near by book shop and you can find some really interesting visuals there. Some people while love to intake the fragrance of books, others love to just pen the books and have a glance at the lines. Of course, many come for a particular author or title. Interestingly there are big groups who have no time to search and spend for books. They come for a particular title, availability of which they check at the counter and get it no time. Of course, all fall into the category of book lovers.

From where had the idea of book stores began from? Clearly no idea. May be dates back to centuries. The concept of book shops really groomed in the post First World War period bringing a new air into the mind of book lovers.

Later part of the century witnessed a revolution in this concept around the world, bringing new brand names exclusively into it. Today, there are giant brands in this field that cater the books dealing with wide topics around the world reaping heavy profits. The concept of book selling is no more a small business but it involves millions of dollars with new business plans and operational methodology.

With the arrival of internet and online shopping things have taken a new turn. The trend in internet online marketing is online bookstores whereby the book lovers can order books by sitting in home itself. This reduces the effort of searching the shop, visiting there and selecting the title, which is much time consuming. The user will have to just open the net and browse through various online marketing sites and there waits for him huge collection of literature that could rarely be found in the near by stores.

The user will have to no more hurry through the catalogues as enough time is available. He will have to click and book for his chosen books on his favourite topics and can avail it in mail with in a limited period of time.

While wide options like online bookshops are available with wide range of books around the globe, why do one waste time moving, and roaming in the shops where only limited collection are available.

Audio Books – from LP to MP3

Audio books are a great way to use ‘empty’ time. Load an audio book into your MP3 player or iPod – you can find audio books for just about any interest, from novels to business books and audio books about self-improvement to even the bible or the coran. You can find them 24 hours a day, just by clicking a few buttons on your computer and an internet shop delivers the contents for your iPod or MP3 player conveniently to you.

Even if they have only become very popular again recently, the concept of audio books goes back about eighty years! Initially books on tape or on LP’s were produced for the blind. Here’s a short look back in history:

Already in the 1920’s, the Royal National Institute for the Blind in England (RNIB) initiate research to find the best way to produce audio books for blind soldiers that were the result of the World War I battles. They finally decide to produce audio books on LP’s and the first ones were made in 1926. To play them they were put on the old fashioned LP players that had to be cranked by hand and delivered the sound through the big horn. This was a great development for the blind, but was hardly used by normal consumers. So these audio books from RNIB remained a niche product and never reached the masses.

The concept was successful and in 1936 the Royal National Institute for the Blind launched the ‘Talking Book Service’. The first two books they produced were:’The murder of Roger Ackroyd’ (Agatha Christie) and ‘Thyphoon’ (Joseph Conrad). Because the records could only hold 25 minutes of spoken text, an average audio book had to be recorded on an average of ten records.

During WWII, the studio used by the RNIB was bombed, and one month later a replacement studio was bombed as well, destroying much needed equipment to continue the production. The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), who had started to produce audio books in the USA sent replacement parts and equipment to London so that the production could be taken up again.

The old fashioned LP’s were replaced by modern LP’s and finally cassettes, making listening to audio books more convenient. Sony’s Walkman made it possible to take your audio book with you and listen on the go. This is when audio books started to be bought by the general consumers. The next step was to produce these listening books on CD, making them even more convenient.

Over the last few years the audio book technology has made a quantum leap: Digital MP3 files can be packed onto a player that weighs only a few grams and runs on a set of batteries for many hours. The most popular player is without doubt the Apple iPod, but there are many other MP3 players on the market that have helped to make listening to content on the go very popular.

Finding an audio book is as easy as typing an address into your internet browser, consulting the catalog of the audio book shop and then downloading your audio book within minutes. No more need to visit your local library or book shop. If you want to shop at 3 am – no problem, the shop is open 24 hours!

One shop that offers a wide variety of audio books is the AudioBooksCorner Store. High quality audio books from publishers like BBC, Hachette and many others cover a wide variety of topics. Best selling authors offer their books as audio books and the well known foreign language courses by Pimsleur are available for download too.