Où sont les audiobooks d'antan?
August 5, 2012 6:40 PM Subscribe
Where are the audiobooks in French? There are thousands of books on audible in Spanish, but none in French.
Criteria for my search:
- I want high-quality audio, so free sites are probably out.
- I am not interested in 'learn to speak french' books.
- I'd be interested primarily in classic fiction and poetry from the eighteenth century through the modern day.
- It would be nice if I didn't have to sign up for a monthly subscription.
Are there no publishers of French audiobooks? Is it that the wacky French language police have decreed a name for audiobooks other than 'audiobook' and so my searches are failing for that reason?
I am in the US and I have a PC and IOS devices.
Criteria for my search:
- I want high-quality audio, so free sites are probably out.
- I am not interested in 'learn to speak french' books.
- I'd be interested primarily in classic fiction and poetry from the eighteenth century through the modern day.
- It would be nice if I didn't have to sign up for a monthly subscription.
Are there no publishers of French audiobooks? Is it that the wacky French language police have decreed a name for audiobooks other than 'audiobook' and so my searches are failing for that reason?
I am in the US and I have a PC and IOS devices.
Response by poster: It appears to work and better still allows an option to buy audiobooks without a subscription, which is nice. I hadn't thought of trying to switch domains to find them - you'd think that audible would direct people doing searches for french audiobooks to the other domain.
posted by winna at 7:04 PM on August 5, 2012
posted by winna at 7:04 PM on August 5, 2012
You can also try Books Should Be Free for a selection of classic literature in the public domain that's available in audio/French format.
posted by bookmammal at 7:12 PM on August 5, 2012
posted by bookmammal at 7:12 PM on August 5, 2012
Best answer: Amazon France also has a livres audio section - I would not bet too big on it working outside France - but you may find that you can search for your titles here and then also find them on Amazon.com
>you'd think that audible would direct people doing searches for french audiobooks to the other domain.
It looks like audible is one of those sites - like Google - which re-directs to a domain name matching the appropriate country by default. Here in France it goes to the .fr variant. I suspect this is a case of regional licensing triumphing over ease of use.
posted by rongorongo at 1:18 AM on August 6, 2012
>you'd think that audible would direct people doing searches for french audiobooks to the other domain.
It looks like audible is one of those sites - like Google - which re-directs to a domain name matching the appropriate country by default. Here in France it goes to the .fr variant. I suspect this is a case of regional licensing triumphing over ease of use.
posted by rongorongo at 1:18 AM on August 6, 2012
I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "high quality audio". I seem to recall not liking one or two of the librivox recordings I've tried, but for the most part I've enjoyed them.
posted by bfields at 8:53 AM on August 6, 2012
posted by bfields at 8:53 AM on August 6, 2012
Response by poster: I must have been unlucky, because all the free audiobooks I've downloaded sound as if Donald Duck recorded them from inside a closed dumpster. That's what I mean - I don't want terrible sound quality and subpar narration.
posted by winna at 1:13 PM on August 6, 2012
posted by winna at 1:13 PM on August 6, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jedicus at 6:47 PM on August 5, 2012