I just set up my BARD account. It was actually pretty easy.
They made me swear on my soul I would not allow anyone – and especially anyone without a disability – to use my password and listen to BARD books. I guess I will have to make sure no one is lurking in the bushes under the windows when I listen to my books ! ☺
I have checked out the new offerings. There is a serious range of them. They have everything from last month’s Seventeen magazine to science fiction by Isaac Asimov to a work about the great extinction of the dinosaurs. There is also a load of French language books.
There is a list of popular titles. It looks like my favorite authors are the favorite authors of a lot of other people. Top of the list are Kellerman, Deaver and Patterson. Even better, there are several titles I have not yet read. All together, an excellent collection of stories for me.
I have not yet checked out the professional or reference works. However I would expect the offerings are extensive.
Now I probably missed the directions, but it took awhile for me to figure out how to download a book. I was not able to download from the BARD website. Obviously doing something wrong; or maybe not. I am not sure. I instead went into the BARD app that I had downloaded from the App Store.
I browsed through the titles and put one on my wishlist. When you open your wish list there is an ‘i’ in a circle on the right hand side. Hit the ‘i’ and your book will download. Once it is download, tap on the title and a representation of the player they sent me comes up. Hit the green button and the book starts to play. Sit back and enjoy.
Of course, now comes the not so good part. While BARD looks pretty good to this dedicated consumer of murder mysteries, it may not satisfy the needs of all. If you are a newspaper reader you are out of luck here. There are obviously no local dailies included. Wall Street Journal did not come up on a search and there were only a handful of old articles taken from the New York Times. No ‘scandal sheets’ as they were called at our house when I was young. If you want to know how the yeti is getting along with his alien abductors you will have to look somewhere else.
If you qualify for BARD it appears to be a nice option for those of us who enjoy a good book. Happy listening!
Next: A REALLY GOOD WEEK
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