Use Smart Playlist in iTunes to Improve Audiobook Experience

I have a terrible memory and like to listen to audiobooks on my iPod. So as you may guess, I sometimes lose track of where I left off when I stopped listening last. While the iTunes software is good at bookmarking the stop-off point within a file, I tend to forget which file I was listening to. So to solve the problem, I use the smart playlist feature within iTunes.

The book I am currently listening to, Anansi Boys by Neil Gaimen, has 19 MP3 files. I setup a smart playlist filtering by "Album is Anansi Boys" and "Playcount is 0". I sort by chapter number and am ready to go.

Instead of listening to the book from the Audiobook section, I listen from the Smart Playlist. When I finish a file and move to the next one, the read file is removed from the list (not from the iPod though) and I know each time to listen to the topmost file.

I hope this is helpful to you since it has made my audiobook experience much better.