Regretfully, I’ve never been as avid a reader as I now wish I’d been, and I think I should have been. Reading has always taken me more effort than most, it seems.

I don’t know how many people out there are like me, but I suspect there are many around my age range (late thirties, early forties). People like me grew up surrounded by the computer revolution, starting with TV and quickly moving to video games and a flood of gorgeous movies – which also were suddenly available at home with the advent of the VHS tape.

It was the beginning of a constant barrage of visual and audible media. But it was only a contributing factor to my lack of desire in reading and in books. There were a lot of other parts which summed up to the total struggle I had in gaining any desire to read.

But every once in a while something in the new techologies which are now part of our daily lives rises above the din to make it possible for people like me to play catch up a little bit and hopefully make it a bit easier to fall in love with something as I never did.

I’m sure many of you have heard of, or use regularly, iTunes U, made available through Apple. I’ve been delving in to it over time to see what gems might be lying around in there. If you haven’t heard of it, it is a resource of growing and inestimable value. It is a place where you can find educational resources – typically audio ones – which you can use to study in your off time. And best of all… FOR FREE!

And what do I mean by “off time”? How many hours to you spend commuting to and from work? How many hours do you spend doing other things like working out or doing chores around the house or running errands? How many things do you do during the day where you’ve found that you have time to turn on your MP3 listening device and use it to fill the time?

This is where iTunes U really shines. In particular, I ran across a resource that I now understand many others know about, but I’m pretty certain many others don’t. It is simply a glorious example of what is available in the iTunes U catalog.

The University of South Florida (USF) has made available a program called “Lit2Go”. What is it? Classic literature made available directly online to read in your browser, but also in PDF (for printing) and MP3 format. Have you ever wanted to read (for the first time, or second, or whatever Nth time it may be for you) stories like:

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (or Tom Sawyer)
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
• Alice in Wonderland
• Treasure Island
• Wuthering Heights
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Peter Pan
• Oliver Twist
• The Last of the Mohicans
• Hamlet
• Dracula
• David Copperfield

…and many more. Unbelievable! Because you can simply download the MP3s for free and listen to them in your off time. Just put them on your iPod or MP3 listening device and you’re off and running. Or you can drop them into iTunes and burn audio CDs for your car.

Anyway, this is a free resource, and we gain nothing by sharing it. But you could gain much. Don’t miss out on this. You have no reason not to. You certainly can’t beat the price.

You can visit Lit2Go directly at the USF website, or visit it through iTunes (search for Lit2Go in iTunes and go to the University of South Florida link to find the Lit2Go link).

There’s much more to be had at iTunes U. If you find any other worthy resources there, be sure to post them in the comments here for others.

By Ted R

Posted in Blogroll