The following review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by Joseph Csicsila.

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BOOKS AND MEDIA: Briefly Noted

iPHONE APPS

_The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_, $3.99. _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_,
$4.99. Blackstone Audio iPhone Audiobook Apps. By Folium Partners.


Two new Mark Twain audiobooks developed specifically for the iPhone platform
hit the market recently. Developed and distributed by Folium Partners, the
_Tom Sawyer_ and _Huck Finn_ Blackstone Audio iPhone apps each feature
full-length audiobooks organized by chapter with easy-to-use controls,
intuitive designs, and bonus materials that make their $3.99 and $4.99 price
tags, respectively, feel like a real bargain. The centerpiece of each app is
its unabridged audiobook recording. (The _Huck Finn_ omits the oft-debated
"Raftsmen's Passage," however.) Grover Gardner (who reads _Tom Sawyer_) and
Tom Parker (who reads _Huckleberry Finn_) provide professional readings that
are as pleasurable to listen to as they are unobtrusive. Both apps also
offer miscellaneous content that includes short biographies of Twain,
histories of each text, an assortment of fun quizzes (about such subjects as
American history, Mark Twain, the novels and their principal characters)
that score themselves, and a variety of Sam Clemens's most famous
quotations. One only hopes that with the technology of iPhone network
available to app designers, that Blackstone Audio/Folium Partners continue
to update these apps(with new quizzes, for example) and additional
supplementary features.

For more information please visit:
http://www.blackstoneaudioapps.com

Joseph Csicsila
Eastern Michigan University