Amazon made a splash last week in unveiling its mp3 store. With this effort, Amazon is going head to head with Apple and its popular iTunes music store. iTunes has more songs on offer and is familiar to millions of iPod owners, but Amazon aims to bring people aboard by offering DRM-free songs with a more flexible pricing scheme. Amazon’s DRM-free mp3s can be transferred to as many devices you want, while iTunes songs are more limited.
This is no doubt of interest to many music fans, but I was curious to see if Amazon would extend its expertise in more literary realms to this new audio offering. So far the selection of “spoken word” content is fairly limited – it can be found under the “Miscellaneous” heading. Amid quite a bit of comedy, however, there are some gems here and there for those that enjoy the occasional audio book, though you won’t be finding any bestsellers here. Among the intriguing items I spotted, are some historical, literary and cultural artifacts:
- The Ultimate Orson Welles (including the famous War of the Worlds radio hoax
- Speaking Personally… by Aldous Huxley
- Che Guevara Speaks
- Four Inaugural Addresses by Franklin D. Roosevelt; See also: The Best Of The Speeches (1960 – 1963) by John F. Kennedy; Campaign ’56: Sounds of an Election Year
- The Lenny Bruce Originals, Volume 2
- Allen Ginsberg (including a track called “First Party At Ken Keasey’s“; See also: Howl
- Anthology of American Literature by Neal Pollack & Pine Valley Cosmonauts
- British War Broadcasting 1938-45 (Pt 1); See also: Dunkirk & The Battle Of France & Flanders 1939-40
- Buckminster Fuller Speaks His Mind (a six-disk set); See also: Fuller’s The Clock is Stopping: The Human Scenario
- Casablanca – The 1943 Radio Production starring Humphrey Bogart
- The Daemon Lover and the Lottery by Shirley Jackson
- Dionysus by Jim Morrison
- The Exciting History of the Alaska Gold Rush
- Futurism And Dada Reviewed 1912-1959
- Good Morning, Vietnam (not the movie)
- The Great Carl Sandburg: Songs of America
- The Historic Second Declaration of Havana: Feb. 4, 1962 by Fidel Castro
Lots more in there too.