Are free, serialised podcasts of great novels available for download from anywhere on the web?

June 2, 2008 8:40 PM

Are free, serialised podcasts of great novels available for download from anywhere on the web?

I do a lot of very tedious driving, and would love to listen to podcasts of novels the way I used to listen to audio books. My initial Googling around has yielded a lot of admirable projects where people seem to be serialising their own writing, but I'm really looking for fantastic readings of (for example) Hesse, Hemingway, Orwell, Woolf, Eliot, Lawrence, Huxley...you get the drift - diverse, established works.

Does such a thing exist?

posted by lottie to media & arts (8 comments total)

Librivox: http://www.librivox.org

Variable reading skills but some very good readers.
posted by PatoPata at 8:58 PM on June 2

Librivox has free recordings and some great novels, but the readings can be spotty as it's all volunteer. If you're like me, and it messes with your mind to change readers every chapter, just bite the bullet and buy a subscription to Audible.
posted by katydid at 11:00 PM on June 2

Gutenberg also has ebooks. Some of them are machine read though.
posted by philomathoholic at 11:35 PM on June 2

There's also booksshouldbefree, which I found when looking for this one site I was found a long time ago.
posted by philomathoholic at 11:43 PM on June 2

(Last post, I promise.) If you don't like audible, emusic has audiobooks too now.
posted by philomathoholic at 11:48 PM on June 2

Classic Tales Podcast
Biography Podcast
Great Speeches in History Podcast
re: katydid: Yes, Librivox can be spotty, but I've gotten used to it. I recommend at least giving it a try (it's free) before you decide to pay for something in lieu of.
posted by keith0718 at 1:34 AM on June 3

Podiobooks has a lot, but they're mostly independent authors. I "read" the 7th Son trilogy through Podiobooks, and I really enjoyed it. Probably not all of the books on there are quite as good, but I know there are some gems.
posted by joshrholloway at 9:39 AM on June 3

NetLibrary is an online audiobook system that is often connected with public libraries. I would check with your local library to see if this, or something similar, is available. It's free and has a large collection of classic and recent bestselling books.
posted by bristolcat at 10:57 AM on June 3