Free Your Ears with Librivox

Audiobook fans (with Internet access) rejoice! You can now download free audio books to listen to on your computer or burn to CDs. (The files are probably a bit large for your portable device; but if you have the memory, go to town!)


There are tons of sites on the Internet that say they offer free audio books. Some offer one book free a month, and you pay for the rest. Some force you to subscribe to their service. Some just don't work at all. Librivox.org is the real deal. (That is all you need to type into your browser's address bar, no www or http:// needed). Started in 2005, Librivox makes use of volunteer readers who read works that are considered public domain (When an author copyrights their work, the copyright only lasts for so long. Right now almost anything written before 1923 is considered public domain. Anyone can use a public domain text in any way they want to). The volunteer readers record themselves reading a chapter or a short story or a whole novel, and Librivox makes that recording available for free online. Some works even have multiple editions recorded.


Alcott, Wodehouse, Burroughs, Verne, Gaskell, Dickens, Austen, Twain, Baldwin...the list of authors goes on and on. There is Science Fiction (Andre Norton) and Mystery (Wilkie Collins) and Children's Fiction (L. Frank Baum's OZ books, Lucy Maude Montgomery, and Frances Hodgson Burnett). Librivox even has collections of short works by various authors. You can search by author or title or genre or reader or language.


Once you fall in love with the site...you can even volunteer. Your voice reading your favorite classic novel will the be preserved for all of posterity to download and enjoy!