How do I find out if an audiobook has been published on CD?

September 5, 2013 8:29 AM

I'm looking for ways to find out if a specific book has been published in audiobook format, either on CD or as a digital audio file.

I have a very long commute (2h 30m round trip), during which I like to listen to audiobooks. I have an annual subscription to Audible, which I supplement with audiobooks I take out from my county's public library system. Once I decide I want to "read" a specific book, I'll first check if my county library has it, then I'll check Audible. In the rare case that both the library and Audible do not have the audiobook I want, I will check Paperback Swap.

My car has a CD player (where I put library "books") and an AUX jack (where I plug in my iPhone for the Audible app for those books). The county public library does occasionally have digital copies of books, but they use a system called OverDrive, which I find does not play nicely with my iPhone. (Also: it links into a statewide system and often I can only "check out" an audiobook file if no one else in my entire state has it checked out.) So, I only take out audiobooks from the library if they're on CD, and I skip OverDrive titles entirely.

I'm looking for John Irving's "The Hotel New Hampshire." My county's public library only seems to have the book in dead tree format. This may be okay as I might have some rare down time alone over an upcoming weekend that I can spend reading a printed book, but I don't know for sure if that will happen. Audible does not have the book. Paperback Swap only lists a cassette tape version of the audiobook, and no members have a copy. Even if they did, I'd have to go digging for my old Walkman and jack that into my car's AUX jack.

I'd also like to look for two books by Matt Ruff: "Fool on the Hill" and "Sewer, Gas, Electric: The Public Works Trilogy".

Is there some way I can go to a website and perform a search to the effect of: Has "Title of Book" by Joe Author ever been published on CD or as a digital file, and if so, where can I find it?

posted by tckma to Writing & Language (5 answers total)

You can always search Amazon to find out if an audio book exists at all (and to get publisher info/ ISBN).
Whether it's available may be a different story.
posted by mdrew at 8:39 AM on September 5, 2013

Response by poster: That's a good idea (of the "duh, why didn't I think of that?" type). Amazon has listings for two versions on audio CD in what appears to be German. Alas, I do not speak German.

Is it possible that Amazon doesn't have a list of all the possible formats?

Is there an ISBN database I could search? (If so, I can't imagine that Amazon wouldn't be using it, but there is a slight chance of that.)
posted by tckma at 8:52 AM on September 5, 2013

Best answer: You can also use Worldcat to check the collection of libraries worldwide to see if they have a copy. There's an option on the left to search only for audiobooks. If worldcat doesn't have a record of something, it probably doesn't exist (or, to put it another way, your odds of getting a copy are too low to spend much time on it).

It looks like an English audiobook of The Hotel New Hampshire only exists in cassette format (and no library in MD has a copy), and that no audiobooks exist for the Ruff books.
posted by crazy with stars at 9:09 AM on September 5, 2013 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: WorldCat is nice, thanks!

I found this, but no copies anywhere in MD. How is a "recording for the blind and dyslexic" any different than a regular audiobook?
posted by tckma at 9:21 AM on September 5, 2013

Best answer: Well, "Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic" is a publisher of recorded books (I used to do some reading for them). They have some special features, such as announcements of each page (usually with some small tone, so that academic readers, say, can jump to a particular page) and explicitly describing all maps and figures (as a blind reader would need), but I think neither of those would interfere with listening to a simple novel. On the other hand, if some students needed the book quickly, they might have recorded it with a number of different narrators, since they mostly use volunteer labor, so that could be something that bothers you or at least takes some getting used to. Doesn't cost much to borrow one and find out! :)
posted by acm at 9:32 AM on September 5, 2013