Living: Odds and Trends

Thinking Man's CB Reading a book without using hands or eyes is made pleasantly possible by a Los Angeles company called Books on Tape. An immediate hit with housewives and commuters who drive to work—not to mention armchair listeners suffering from workaday eye-strain—the audio tomes are cassettes that are rented by mail at prices ranging from $6.50 to $7.50 plus $1.75 mailing charge for a 30-day period. Recorded by professional actors, the tapes for bookworms are grouped arbitrarily in six main categories: Americana (e.g., H.L. Mencken, Ring Lardner), Classics (Henry Thoreau, Mark Twain), Contemporary Fiction (Joseph Wambaugh, Irving Stone), History and...