audio books australia

If you are planning on traveling any time soon, rest assured you will have some time to kill. Few things can take you away from those never ending lines or long flights, train, and bus rides like a good story. Reading a book is one of the great pastimes for travelers en route to their destination. Walk though the terminal of any airport and you are bound to see dozens of travelers scanning page after page of text from the latest bestseller. I too, used to be a die-hard paper and hardback book reader. That was until I listened to my first audio book. I tried an audiobook on a vacation after much persuasion from my husband who was already a longtime fan. I was tired of craning my neck and reading by cabin light on long flight. I started to take note the he was listening to his book while comfortably reclined with his eyes closed. On bumpy car and bus rides, I had to put my books and magazines away because of motion sickness. All the while, my husband was looking out the window, soaking in the sights and listening to a good story at the same time. So I thought it was time to give my tired eyes a vacation too, and I haven’t turned back since. Audiobooks allow you to pass the time relaxing listening to the latest bestseller, catching up on the classics, or even learning a new language while you are en route to your final destination. Audiobooks have some great advantages over traditional books. For one thing, listening is a passive activity, so there’s no need to don reading glasses and constantly scan the pages. You can simply slip on your headphones, sit back and remove yourself from the traveling fray of the airport or train station. I have found that one the most enjoyable aspects of audiobooks is that they are read by a narrator, who is often times a professional actor. This tends to bring a little more life to the story, as the narrator will often create different voices for the many characters within the story. Also, if you are trying to brush up on a foreign language, it helps to hear the language as it is spoken by a native, as opposed to trying to discern pronunciation from text. Another great advantage is the size and transportability of audiobooks. If you download the material to your iPod or MP3 player, you can literally carry hundreds of books on a device no bigger than a deck of cards. This means that if the story that you are listening to is not quite what you expected, you can move on to a new book, or even review one of your favorites almost instantly.

Tracy Hogg who died from cancer on November 25 2004 aged 44, built a career as an expert in child-care and was nicknamed "the baby whisperer" for her ability to placate unruly infants. Although British, she made her name in the eclectic state of California, where she was hired as a maternity nurse and adviser by many Hollywood stars, among them Jodie Foster, Cindy Crawford, Jamie Lee Curtis and Calista Flockhart; even Arnold Schwarzenegger is said to have sought her counsel. The Yorkshire-born Dr Dolittle of the nursery always addressed her employers as "love" or "duck". It was a Hollywood producer who first referred to her as "the baby whisperer" - a reference to the book and film The Horse Whisperer, about a racehorse trainer with an uncanny ability to communicate with animals. She once said: "I've looked after so many thousands of babies, I can understand their language. And I teach new parents to understand their baby too. I also get babies on a routine, so that after three weeks they're sleeping through the night." Her fee for three weeks as a maternity nurse was more than ,000. If there was nothing particularly original about Tracy Hogg's approach to baby care, she had, according to her web site, "an uncanny ability to understand what babies need by listening to their cries and tuning in to their body language." This ability had probably been sharpened by earlier work she had undertaken with disabled children, who often lack verbal communication skills. Tracy Hogg was born to a large dairy-farming family near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, in August 1960. As a child she enjoyed accompanying her grandfather as he made his rounds at a local mental hospital, where he was head nurse. She attended the Doncaster School of Nursing. specialising in children with severe mental and physical disabilities. She underwent further training at Great Ormond Street, at the Children's Hospital in Leeds, and also did a stint with the World Health Organisation in India. At St Catherine's Hospital, Doncaster, she looked after children with learning difficulties. In 1992 she moved to America with her second husband, a car dealer, leaving her two young daughters from her first marriage in the care of their grandmother. This led some to question her parenting abilities, but Tracy Hogg wanted her children to continue their education in England, and the girls joined her during the holidays. Soon after arriving in Los Angeles, she was asked to help out a family with a new-born baby. The mother was Marilu Henner, who starred in the television sitcom Taxi. After that, reports of Tracy Hogg's skills spread by word of mouth. She went on to open a baby supplies store and set up an internet site, describing herself as "a British-trained nurse, lactation educator, and newborn consultant". In addition to working with individual clients, she organised classes for parents and trained child-care workers. In 1997 she produced an audio-tape for breast-feeding mothers which was designed to induce relaxation and reduce anxiety.