Friday, March 09, 2007

Download Free Books On Tape (or volunteer to create 'em for others)

Check out LibriVox, whose tag line is acoustical liberation of books in the public domain. The idea is that volunteers record public domain books for others to download free. There are hundreds of titles--fiction, drama, non-fiction, and poetry--many of them household names.

A couple weeks ago, I downloaded Treasure Island and have just started listening. Since it's an all-volunteer effort, I'm sure the quality is hit-and-miss amoung the books. But you can't beat the price, and the whole project is an exciting one.

Over the past couple years, I've listened to some wonderful books on tape, all of which, up to now, I had to pay for. The great titles--meaning wonderful stories, well-read--include Moby Dick, Crime and Punishment, 1984, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and the first four Harry Potter novels. Don't bother with anything abridged, by the way.

Even if you have to pay for the stuff, I can't recommend the experience highly enough. It's one of the few opportunities you have in life to buy time (listening while driving), and it allows you to get your 'reading' in even when your eyes are too tired to function.

No comments:

A Short Story (and more to come) at Amazon

Agendas: a short story