I'm aware of the "free audiobooks" thread we have stickied to this forum, but I'm looking for something more. For example professional audio books that would go along with a book I might buy from Kinokuniya (e.g. 永遠の０). I've already ready this book but just an example. Recently I purchased 「虹の岬の喫茶店」, so that's pretty fresh and I haven't really gotten into it yet.

Honestly I'm not sure how I'll use audio books in my studies, but I can definitely use it as an alternative to how I study news. So perhaps I might listen to a page and once something comes up I can see what my text says, then keep repeating the page until I understand everything said. Anybody here use audio books, and in what way?

Most importantly, and my reason for making this topic, is where to get Japanese audio books? I quick search of audio books in Japanese yields a site called Febe. Seems promising and if you go to a given book you can listen to it being read. Prices seem reasonable at around 1200円 per book. Digigi also seems like an option but mostly focused on... well I'm not sure really. Every time I walk into a Japanese bookstore I feel like they have a ton of those books about improving yourself and that kind of crap? I have no idea. They just don't seem to have many novels.

And if something like Febe is a suitable site (which it seems to be), would it be possible to purchase audio books with my credit card? Or do they have a lot of limitations.

I'd be interested in buying audio books too. I'm sort of between N3 and N2 level and navigating Japanese sites is still a pain for me. I used to use audio books for German and they're really helpful. I can happily listen to them over and over but reading a book over and over was a chore. An audio book would help a lot with the kanji barrier too.

Well I bought a couple of audiobooks off of Febe. I didn't have to lie about where I lived either. Actually, they didn't even ask my address. I arbitrarily picked two books.

もし高校野球の女子マネージャーがドラッカーの『マネジメント』を読んだら

and

海賊とよばれた男　上

I had no idea what would be good. I figured if it seemed like it were written for younger audiences then the vocabulary wouldn't be as challenging. I just started listening to the 1st one.. it's about a girl who wants to be the manager of the baseball club at school (why?). The cartoon girl on the cover was cute heh. And, again, I figured the language would be easier. It's surprisingly easy to follow. I like the narrator's voice. I don't know if I'll really like the story or not but even if not I'm enjoying listening to a Japanese audiobook with a nice narrator.

They offer some sort of premium account but I didn't go for that. If I end up getting addicted I'll take a look. I might also look for other sites but this one is nice. Thanks for posting.

Thank you for testing it out. So you just used your standard card and everything? Was the charge to your account 1:1 in terms of the current exchange rate, or did it add any additional fees?

As for the 2nd book that's from a trending author (I would say) as of right now. I read a book of his titled 「永遠の０」 which is about a kamikaze pilot and his experiences before becoming one in the war. So I'm going to assume that one will be more focused towards a young adult or older and the vocabulary will reflect as much.

Seems like these could get expensive, however, so if you want to consider trading maybe that's an option. If that's the case you can contact me via email.

I was thinking of using audio books for listening practice. But since audio books are just an audio transcription of written text, I thought something more conversational would be more appropriate. Like listening to news casts. I may rethink it though.

Thank you for bringing this up! I've been an Audible subscriber for almost two years now and recently started to think I should really listen to some Japanese audiobooks, so FeBe! seems perfect. I noticed no Murakami, which I think would be good to listen to given his not-so-difficult and conversational writing style. But through browsing the 現代小説 section I see they have what look like some good alternatives -- and it's great you can listen to a sample, just like on Audible.

Regarding suitable material, I don't think newscasts will give you more conversational listening material, but the opposite. Audiobooks with lots of dialogue would be ideal -- if of course you can first find such books. One way to get around this would be to read (eh, listen) to books you're familiar with translated into Japanese. Here's FeBe's category for that: 海外文学. Seems to be mostly classic ones, like Agatha Christie books, though, in which case you may be better off with the free audiobook list. (Although professionally done ones can make a world of difference to listen-ability!)

And oh, just in case anyone was wondering, being a "manager" of a h.s. baseball team doesn't have the same meaning as in English -- think of it more like "equipment/ball girl" (and indeed these "managers" seem to be exclusively girls).

Want to do a bump on this, as I've recently downloaded another audiobook from FeBe and would like more. The problem with the bestseller lists is that they're always full of self-improvement bullshit. Does anybody have recommendations for good audio books I can purchase within a good price range?

I really like FeBe but, yeah, it just has a ton of nonsense.