Echo is a voice command device which connects to the internet and provides you information when asked but now Amazon Echo reads to you using the voice of Alexa.
Echo can receive voice commands that ask it to play music, search for the weather forecast or play and audiobook. Audiobooks come through Amazon’s service Audible at which you can subscribe to for a monthly fee.
Books made into audio files are usually read by actors, who give them their professional interpretation. Alexa reading your books will be completely different, with no kind of “drama” or interpretation of the text, but more robotic. However, the service is completely free of charge. The only thing you will have to do is tell Alexa to read [insert book title here]. Of course, the books must be Kindle books.
Alexa receives the same commands when reading books as when playing any audio file. You can ask the service to pause, resume, read forward or go back. There is one drawback compared to books in the Audible service: with Alexa you can’t specify a certain chapter to read, more like you will have to manually skip to the chapter you were looking for. There are very few titles which Alexa can’t read as they are not supported.
The trend of audiobooks is quite new, although it has its roots deeply in the past. After all, before writing we used to simply tell stories. When we were little we liked to listen to our grandparents stories and if not some of us did have audiobooks with stories to listen on vinyl, cassettes and later CDs.
Now audiobooks are not just for kids, but also for grownups. The main reason is that people constantly complain about not having enough time for reading…or anything else for that matter. Therefore, instead of having their hands and eyes busy, they only listen, while they perform other tasks.
It is a much simple way of “reading” a book and the experience is quite good as long as a professional is reading for you. A robot reading for you might be somewhat different, but not necessarily bad so you could give it a try especially since the service is free.
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