You have mentioned braille and audio but what about large print? We have found it very hard to get large print books other than historical romances - not most teen boys idea of a good read. N.B.C.S speaks volumes was excellent but has now gone into melt-down, a victim of its own success, and can produce no more new books for 6 months!

I couldn't agree more about the inaccessibility of new books. Currently I am restricted to cassette books which are available through the local library. However, they are seldom new titles and of course they are limited in number.

I am encouraged by the emergence of e-books but I'm very confused about how it works. From what I've read, there are a number of competing formats and devises on which to play them. Until a clear single winning format appears, I have chosen not to buy e-books. By the way does anyone know whether the book is read to you using something like Jaws, or is it supposed to be a human voice; or is it in fact spoken allowed anyway?

As for the RNIB's Talking book service, well its a good idea in principle but why oh why do you have to use a cumbersome, old fashion, 8 track cartridge style player. What is so wrong with cassette or CD. As I could really do without yet another medium, particularly an antiquated one like that, I have avoided the talking book service.

If anyone knows more about e-books, I would be interested to hear from them.

I fully agree that the choice of books for the visually impaired is restricted.

I find that the choice of books depends on what some of the reader's will read, and the age groups to which the clubs themselves cater. My personal thoughts are that only the young and the elderly are catered for. Where are the Shaun Hutson books? the Robin Cook books, there are plenty of Mills and Boon (yuk) and Westerns?

I ask for Historical Books, and they send me Second World War reminiscences!!!!

There must be a way for the more off beat choices to be available

What a grave disappointment to find that the shortlist will never be shorter for us than it is this year. Why have we been cheated out of cheetah? I'm not sure if E-books is the only answer, although it's obviously a partial solution. Had I known about the Cheetah project before it was swept under the carpet, if there was a book whose synopsis made me interested enough to read it, I may well have done so. I don't think I would have read the books, just because they were booker prize shortlisted though. Does anyone know how long we'll most likely have to wait before any of these books become accessible to us? How can we possibly bring some influence to bear to improve matters here. After the efforts of last year, it seems a pity to have taken such a gigantic retrograde step this year.

It's interesting that you raise the issue of the availability of books in formats visually impaired people can access. I was talking recently to some friends of mine who enjoy listening to audio books as I do, and we were discussing the ridiculous prices being charged by many high-street stores for abridged versions of books in audio format. I am sure you probably know that a 2 tape audio book lasting around 3 hours is likely to cost around £9.99 these days, which is roughly the same price as the unabridged hardback version of the same book! This is disgusting!

The paperback version of the same book might only cost around £6.00. Yes there is the RNIB's talking book library, and local lending libraries offten have or can get hold of a good selection of unabridged audio books, but latest releases are virtually impossible to acquire through these channels.

E-books might be one solution to the problem, but as many of them are only available in the PDF format, they aren't terribly accessible, even with the latest JFW plugins and so on.

So, what's the answer? Well, I believe that the government should shoulder some of the responsibility here, mainly because of their wonderful new Disability Discrimination Act, which so far doesn't seem to have achieved a whole lot for blind and partially sighted people.

I think that either major book stores and other stockists of audio books should be encouraged to sell abridged spoken-word cassettes at paperback prices and unabridged versions at hardback prices to registered blind and partially sighted consumers, or they should provide a carefully controlled returns system, which would enable blind people to buy audio books and listen to them, and then return them if they can be re-sold good as new. If the book has been damaged in any way, then no refund would be granted of course.

There would obviously need to be some kind of registration process involved in order for this to work, but since most major book stores have database systems already in place which hold information about many customers, I see no reason why such a registration system couldn't be implemented.

But it all comes down to money, because someone is going to have to subsidise the book stores.

I seem to remember that the national lottery generates a huge revenue, most of which mysteriously disappears in to dumb and totally pathetic schemes like millennium domes and so on, so I'm sure the necessary cash could be found from somewhere. And remember too, that VI people aren't the only ones who buy or listen to audio books, even though we may constitute a majority market. Also, if a blind person buys a book and likes it, they probably won't return it, and the store won't have to pay out a refund.

Some might argue that such a system could mean that books could be copied and then returned, but let's face it, this almost certainly happens anyway.

Lastly, I heard a rumour that someone might be starting up an audio book library on the Internet, which will enable people to download mp3 versions of certain books for no charge, and others for very low cost. For no charge at all, apart from an annual subscription, a person would be able to stream an audio book directly off the Internet chapter by chapter, which would also keep their computer's harddrive free of huge audio files. I think this could be a really good idea if it works, what do other people think?

What makes you think e-books will exclude the blind? I managed to persuade one publisher to provide me with an academic text on floppy disk, something they could all do easily, and the difference between this and books on audio was amazing. I could scan it for particular words using the find function on my computer and I could cut and paste quotes when doing assessments. It is far better, for students anyway, than audio or this stupid DAISY that the RNIB are pissing around with. If anything we should be encouraging the promotion of e-books as even those without computers could benefit. Braille copies could be produced from the disks and distributed to those without computers. Maybe I'm missing some vital point somewhere and if I am please tell me.

Every Booker prize nominated novel I've read has been turgid, plotless or otherwise unreadable, so it really is no hardship to be denied the drudgery of attempting them again.