Whether you love Apple products or think they are abominations, it's hard to beat iPods when it comes to audiobooks. They remember your place, support chapters and even offer speed variations on playback. Thanks to programs like Banshee and Amarok, syncing most iPod devices (especially the older iPod Nanos, which are perfect audiobook players) is simple and works out of the box.

The one downside with listening to audiobooks on iPods is that they accept only m4b files. Most audiobooks either are ripped from CDs into MP3 files or are downloaded as MP3 files directly. There are some fairly simple command-line tools for converting a bunch of MP3 files into iPod-compatible m4b files, but if GUI tools are your thing, Audio Book Creator (ABC) might be right up your alley.

ABC is a very nice GUI application offered by a German programmer. The Web site is http://www.ausge.de, and although the site is in German, the program itself is localized and includes installation instructions in English. The program does require a few dependencies to be installed, but the package includes very thorough instructions. If you want to create iPod-compatible audiobooks, ABC is as simple as, well, ABC!