I think someone already raised this, but I cannot find it the thread.  Just in case, though, I'll post anew. 

I've been using FeBe audiobooks for a while.  They have good variety in titles, and getting better all the time.  Japan is (very, very slowly) coming around to putting contemporary fiction on audiobook. 

In any case, FeBe is now far more user friendly.  They now have an app for iphones, etc., that allows for much easier download and listening.  No more converting file formats and such. 

I'm 50 now and have been waiting for this for a LOOOONG time.  By the time I die, I suppose there will be a wide variety of good stuff to listen to to speed me on my way..... 

Cheers out there to all you youngsters -- you're lucky to be young at the right time.  Now get off Facebook and get back to work! 

Eric

Have you tried using this service from outside Japan? Seems like it could be amazing.

Yes, I live in Pittsburgh. It is an AMAZING resource for reinforcing Japanese painlessly. I've bought about 10 of the FeBe audiobooks, and about half of those have been quite good. I've just downloaded a translated a translation of Frost at Christmas by RD Wingfield -- it is a well-read 19 hours long for less than $20 US. As I said in the original post, now that they have their own player app, the service is particularly easy to use. And since they allow a US credit card, it is much simpler to set up and use than my Japanese itunes account.

Here is the link to the homepage: http://www.febe.jp/mypage. Enjoy!

Eric

They have also done a translation of the Hobbit, as well as one or two interesting histories and the books behind a couple of popular recent Japanese movies and TV shows. FeBe is really starting to rock. I've thought about giving up my day job to be their US agent -- I'd love it they got more popular titles. Kawabata Yasunari is great and all, but it takes too much patience. I'd much rather listen to a translated Grisham novel, or whatever the Japanese equivalent is....

Sorry for all the posts. Here is the link to the Wingfield book:

http://www.febe.jp/product/229093

Thanks for this! I saw some books that might hold my interest. I was recently thinking about how I really need to work on my listening skills again, so this would be perfect if I can find something good.

Does it includes some kind of text version of the book as well, or is it strictly audio? I'm fine with either, but I'd rather know what I'm getting myself into if I do buy something.

I don't think FeBe itself provides text, but it is straight audiobook, so most of the books are available for purchase. I have done that with a few, though I never really followed up with that approach for long.

Usually, I let it wash over me the first time. I get parts and don't get other parts. On the second listen, I tend to have the story down pretty well, and if I go through it again, I still find myself picking up individual points that may have been misssed. I find, though, that the big delta is between the first and second listen. As I said, if you find a book that pulls you along, it is painless study. Please post if you try it and like it. I'm a HUGE fan of audiobooks, whether English or Japanese.

Though not FeBe, you can listen to some Aozora Bunko stories on this site: Aozora Roudoku. This site just has the audio and you can download the mp3 file by right clicking the mp3 button/word.

Google search of story title usually leads to the Aozora site with the text. It doesn't have all the stories (not that I checked every story but I couldn't find the well known 「吾輩は猫である」for example) but at least what it has is a start! Just like FeBe, I'm hope there will be more audiobooks.

If you have the Perfect Dark P2P client that a lot of Japanese people use you can do a search for NHK ラジオ第２ 朗読 and find a lot of .mp3s of past radio show audiobook recordings.

I ended up buying 世界から猫が消えたなら since I remember being interested in it before and I think I had started reading it online at one point since it was freely distributed before. Print version had the final chapter I think, though.

The sped up version is kind of hilarious. Here's a short 12 second sample clip if anyone is curious: http://picosong.com/EXcc/
It's exactly 2x the original version and doesn't sound all that great in my opinion. Luckily, you can download both versions at the same time. They also give you the choice of 128kbps and 64kbps, and if you want to download the books as one whole file or separate files (zipped and/or individually).

Note: I'm looking in a lot of places, but it appears that you can NOT delete your credit card info from your profile. That makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable to be honest, so I might email support later or just close my account in the future. On the plus side, the files are DRM-free, watermark-free MP3 files so you don't have to worry about losing your ability to playback the files once you download them, so I very well might go ahead with the "delete account" plan eventually.

FeBe is terrific. I just signed up for an account with a US credit card, and found they have novels from 池井戸潤、author of ようこそ、我が家へ。 I found one selection (オレたち花のバブル組) that also has a Kindle edition.

Thanks for the rec, OP. Everyone else, keep posting your favorite finds!

The Jun books are good. If you're into it, the reading of Three Kingdoms is quite good -- and an economical way to get a lot a listening for a modest price. 青天の霹靂 has been made into a movie and looks interesting. The Ikebukoro series treats Tokyo's underside in an interesting way. I think it was firsts a TV series and then turned into books, but the first couple are good. If you're into history, 海賊とよばれた男 was interesting -- a bit of hagiography, but not bad.

I've had an account with FeBe for probably 1.5 years and never had an issue with credit card. They're a good group, and have become far more user friendly. The number and type of titles seems to be evolving nicely too. It's nice to see audiobooks finally getting off the ground in Japan.

---

Not on FeBe, but one of the best read books are the first two novels of Harry Potter. I'm not a big Potter fan, but the Japanese reader was fantastic -- great voices. Unfortunately, only available on CD, but you can order from amazon japan.

The Hobbit is also now available from FeBe. Another 18 hours of listening for about $12. To avoid the self-help and English study books, I usually search on 現代小説 or 海外文学, or occasionally 歴史. Happy listening!

i searched for six japanese writers that i like and found only one (whose work i could find for free, anyway).

I just bought The Hobbit from FeBe on the basis of the sample. Can't really go wrong at those prices (< £6)

Not exactly about FeBe, but I decided to give buying an ebook off the Japanese Kinokuniya website a shot, and it worked perfectly with my US VISA credit card. I didn't give my address or anything when I signed up, but I did select 東京都 for my location. It doesn't seem to matter, though. At any rate, I figured I'd post about it in case someone else wanted an ebook copy to go with whatever audiobooks they buy. I purchased it through the website, but it looks like you can also purchase books through the app after you login using your account for the Japanese Kinokuniya website.

I figure this way I can double check what I don't catch and it'll give me something to focus on while listening.

(2016-01-08, 7:47 pm)Roketzu Wrote: If you have the Perfect Dark P2P client that a lot of Japanese people use you can do a search for NHK ラジオ第２ 朗読 and find a lot of .mp3s of past radio show audiobook recordings.

May I ask, how far back are the past radio show audiobook recordings that are available on Perfect Dark? I'm looking for some of the past recordings from the beginning of 2012 onward.

(2016-01-10, 9:01 pm)zx573 Wrote: Not exactly about FeBe, but I decided to give buying an ebook off the Japanese Kinokuniya website a shot, and it worked perfectly with my US VISA credit card. I didn't give my address or anything when I signed up, but I did select 東京都 for my location. It doesn't seem to matter, though. At any rate, I figured I'd post about it in case someone else wanted an ebook copy to go with whatever audiobooks they buy. I purchased it through the website, but it looks like you can also purchase books through the app after you login using your account for the Japanese Kinokuniya website.

I figure this way I can double check what I don't catch and it'll give me something to focus on while listening.

Woah, really? Can you use the ebook without getting the Kinoppy app? Did you need to use a proxy to buy it?
The Kinoppy app isn't available on the US Play Store, so it would be great if I could buy ebooks from there & then convert them to mobi format to put on my Kindle..

(2016-01-10, 11:58 pm)eslang Wrote:

(2016-01-08, 7:47 pm)Roketzu Wrote: If you have the Perfect Dark P2P client that a lot of Japanese people use you can do a search for NHK ラジオ第２ 朗読 and find a lot of .mp3s of past radio show audiobook recordings.

May I ask, how far back are the past radio show audiobook recordings that are available on Perfect Dark?  I'm looking for some of the past recordings from the beginning of 2012 onward.

The earliest on there is from June 2013.

(2016-01-11, 5:00 am)Roketzu Wrote: The earliest on there is from June 2013.

Thank you, I appreciate your response.

Is the 40 GB hard drive space (cache unity) still a requirement?

Do you happen to know whether 英語で読む村上春樹 series are available as well?

Any recommendations for audiobooks on FeBe? I've only really bought the 夢をかなえるゾウ 1 + 2 series. It's hard sifting through the self-improvement crap

(2016-01-11, 3:38 am)Bokusenou Wrote:

(2016-01-10, 9:01 pm)zx573 Wrote: Not exactly about FeBe, but I decided to give buying an ebook off the Japanese Kinokuniya website a shot, and it worked perfectly with my US VISA credit card. I didn't give my address or anything when I signed up, but I did select 東京都 for my location. It doesn't seem to matter, though. At any rate, I figured I'd post about it in case someone else wanted an ebook copy to go with whatever audiobooks they buy. I purchased it through the website, but it looks like you can also purchase books through the app after you login using your account for the Japanese Kinokuniya website.

I figure this way I can double check what I don't catch and it'll give me something to focus on while listening.

Woah, really? Can you use the ebook without getting the Kinoppy app? Did you need to use a proxy to buy it?
The Kinoppy app isn't available on the US Play Store, so it would be great if I could buy ebooks from there & then convert them to mobi format to put on my Kindle..

You need the Kinoppy app to use it on cellphones, but if you get the APK from the internet (use at your own risk) then it might work. If you have an iOS device then it's simple to get Japanese apps from the iTunes store, but Google's Play Store is a pain.

I was curious about the format they use for the ebooks, it looks like it's an encrypted XML-based format called XMDF that was created by Sharp. I don't think you're going to have much luck converting them to another format without going through an indirect method. When I searched, I saw a bunch of blog posts about how people used automated screen captures to screenshot and save all of the pages in their books and then stitch them up into the format of their choice.


@TheVinster: Go to 文芸・落語 > 現代小説. Cuts out all of the self-improvement crap if you're looking for *just* audiobooks of novels.

(2016-01-11, 9:31 am)zx573 Wrote:

(2016-01-11, 3:38 am)Bokusenou Wrote:

(2016-01-10, 9:01 pm)zx573 Wrote: Not exactly about FeBe, but I decided to give buying an ebook off the Japanese Kinokuniya website a shot, and it worked perfectly with my US VISA credit card. I didn't give my address or anything when I signed up, but I did select 東京都 for my location. It doesn't seem to matter, though. At any rate, I figured I'd post about it in case someone else wanted an ebook copy to go with whatever audiobooks they buy. I purchased it through the website, but it looks like you can also purchase books through the app after you login using your account for the Japanese Kinokuniya website.

I figure this way I can double check what I don't catch and it'll give me something to focus on while listening.

Woah, really? Can you use the ebook without getting the Kinoppy app? Did you need to use a proxy to buy it?
The Kinoppy app isn't available on the US Play Store, so it would be great if I could buy ebooks from there & then convert them to mobi format to put on my Kindle..

You need the Kinoppy app to use it on cellphones, but if you get the APK from the internet (use at your own risk) then it might work. If you have an iOS device then it's simple to get Japanese apps from the iTunes store, but Google's Play Store is a pain.

I was curious about the format they use for the ebooks, it looks like it's an encrypted XML-based format called XMDF that was created by Sharp. I don't think you're going to have much luck converting them to another format without going through an indirect method. When I searched, I saw a bunch of blog posts about how people used automated screen captures to screenshot and save all of the pages in their books and then stitch them up into the format of their choice.


@TheVinster: Go to 文芸・落語 > 現代小説. Cuts out all of the self-improvement crap if you're looking for *just* audiobooks of novels.

I actually find the Google Japanese App Store more convenient.  You need a VPN but after that it's easy.  For Apple your phone seems to be tied to one account which makes switching between the US and Japanese one difficult in order to have all your apps all at once.    If this is not the case anymore, let me know.  Also I have seen cases where Apple will ban your account if it discovers you are overseas.

(2016-01-11, 5:18 am)eslang Wrote:

(2016-01-11, 5:00 am)Roketzu Wrote: The earliest on there is from June 2013.

Thank you, I appreciate your response.  

Is the 40 GB hard drive space (cache unity) still a requirement?

Do you happen to know whether 英語で読む村上春樹 series are available as well?

Nothing came up when I did a search unfortunately.  I believe the space requirement is still required to get the program working, and if you want to download a lot it will require even more space be dedicated to the cache. Mine is currently at 141 GB.

(2016-01-11, 10:15 am)Roketzu Wrote: Nothing came up when I did a search unfortunately.  I believe the space requirement is still required to get the program working, and if you want to download a lot it will require even more space be dedicated to the cache. Mine is currently at 141 GB.

Thank you once again, for taking the time and trouble to do a search for it on PD.  

I'll have to clear up some space before raiding the NHK ラジオ第２ 朗読 since one of my external HDD crashed.