Samudra Basu, an avid book lover, working with an IT company in Bangaluru feels modern lifestyle has stolen the time one spent for leisure activities like reading. The new audiobook app has brought back the love for literature in his life.

This audiobook mobile phone app, launched recently, contains narration by professional voice-over artists, background music and foley sound effects.

Power Talking Books, the first Bengali audiobook app from India, according to its makers, was released for android platform through Google Play.

Eminent Bengali writers such as Binod Ghosal, Himadri Kishore Dasgupta, Indranil Sanyal, Krishnendu Mukhopadhyay and Saikat Mukhopadhyay, who were present at the inauguration, agreed that with declining interest in reading books, and increased interest in being glued to mobile phones, a mobile phone app that ‘tells stories’ to people is an excellent innovation to bring the busy young generation back to literature.

The app, which has look and feel of popular movie viewing apps, is free to download. Short stories are available for free.  To hear novels and short story collections, the user must pay an annual subscription of Rs 200.

The app has the works of some of the most popular contemporary Bengali writers such as Sunil Gangopadhyay, Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay, Suchitra Bhattacharya, Sukanto Gangopadhay, Tridib Kumar Chattopadhay, Ullas Mallick, Himadri Kishore Dasguspta, Binod Ghosal, Caesar Bagchi , Abhijit Sukul, Indranil Sanyal, Krishnendu Mukhopadhyay, Sayantani Putatunda, Prachet Gupta, Abhijnan Roychoudhury, Sourv Mukhopadhyay and Saikat Mukhopadhyay.

Lagnajita Sen, working with a hospital in Thiruvananthapuram says, she is a bookworm who would buy Bengali books every week when she was based in Kolkata, Binod Ghosal being her favourite writer. She faced difficulty locating the latest released titles being away from Kolkata, till she came across the app. She is now able to enjoy Bengali stories by her favourite writers even though she is two thousand kilometres away from her hometown.

As the number of downloads are increasing every day, and new content is being added to the app, it is showing signs of being a trending app, said Power Publishers.