Comments on: Where to find free audiobooks?

Question: Where to find free audiobooks?

gnutron — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:41:49 -0800

Please recommend some good sources for downloading free/cheap audiobooks.

By: unformatt

unformatt — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:56:10 -0800

Not free, but maybe cheap

By: amf

amf — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:00:00 -0800

Previously. Also, AudioBooksForFree.com.

By: jaimev

jaimev — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:01:39 -0800

Perhaps your local library has NetLibrary's eAudioBooks.

By: Kadin2048

Kadin2048 — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:05:48 -0800

Personally I don't think Audible is very cheap. (For new books they want as much as a hardcover copy!)

I'm interested in anyone who might have a good source, too, but I haven't found much and I've looked a bit. Best resource I found was the local library's collection of Books-on-CD. (Of course, don't keep the files around after you've returned the CD...that would be illegal.)

The Gutenberg Project has a page devoted to free audiobooks, that you should check out. I haven't tried any of them, though, so I can't speak for the quality.

They link to these guys:
http://www.audiobooksforfree.com/
Looks a little low-budget, but they say no computerized text-to-speech! They seem to let you download for free, and offer other options (MP3s on CD, etc.) for cost. Probably worth supporting or otherwise donating if you use them, since that bandwidth bill must be bad.

On preview -- amf and jaimev beat me to it.

By: mimo

mimo — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:38:26 -0800

Librivox. Public domain books, read by volunteers.

By: bartleby

bartleby — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:40:06 -0800

These folks have a few good things for free - if you like, you can subscribe:
http://www.thoughtaudio.com

And there is also LibriVox:
http://www.librivox.org
which is sort of the open-source audiobook -
Only books in the public domain, read by volunteers, recordings themselves are also public domain.

LibriVox usually has one volunteer do a few chapters and another do the next few. Which can be a bonus when done well (an example from memory is White Fang - the mix of male, female, Canadian voices, etc. worked so well with the story I'd think it was done purposefully) and a grace when you get to a voice you don't like - it will only be a few chapters before you're hearing another voice).

By: !Jim

!Jim — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:47:05 -0800

Podiobooks has free e-books in podcast form. You can use something like DownThemAll (firefox extension) to download all the podcasts at once (or maybe there's an easier way to do it, I dunno).

By: JJ86

JJ86 — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:07:55 -0800

I second jaimev's suggestion of your local library. I have had great success with my library.

By: JDHarper

JDHarper — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:17:41 -0800

Seconding podiobooks.com. It's all absolutely free (although you are encouraged to donate). Lots of good sci-fi in there.

By: mattbucher

mattbucher — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:31:08 -0800

ThoughtAudio
ManyBooks has some audio

See also

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 11:13:16 -0800

Hey that podiobooks is pretty cool. Just subscribed to Black Jack Justice and it's teh awesome.

By: Chuckles

Chuckles — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:50:24 -0800

Thanks to OmieWise, I've been listening to readings from Disciplined Minds from the Unwelcome Guests archive (starts on episode 176). Only one book, but pretty interesting.