Top 15 Best (Free) Audiobook Providers and Services

An AUDIOBOOK is a recording of a text being read. A reading of the complete text is noted as "unabridged", while readings of a reduced version, or abridgement of the text are labeled as "abridged".

Spoken audio has been available in schools and public libraries and to a lesser extent in music shops since the 1930s. Many spoken word albums were made prior to the age of videocassettes, DVDs, compact discs, and downloadable audio, however often of poetry and plays rather than books. It was not until the 1980s that the medium began to attract book retailers, and then book retailers started displaying audiobooks on bookshelves rather than in separate displays.

Audiobook Resources

• 11 Audiobooks to Lighten the Mood This Dreary Winter - TIME Magazine.
• 17 Best Places to Download Free Audiobooks in 2024 - "Get thousands of free audiobooks at OverDrive, LibriVox, Digitalbook.io, and other websites."
• AUDIOBOOK - Wikipedia.
• AUDIOBOOKs: the rise & rise of the books you don't read - "Audiobooks are having a moment. As they soar in popularity, they are becoming increasingly creative - is the book you listen to now an artform in its own right, asks Clare Thorp."
• How our brains work when we love a book or audiobook - "Empathy and imagination help us to engage when we enjoy a book or an audiobook - but why do we feel so sad when we come to the end? Howard Timberlake survives the post-book blues."
• Spotify Makes a Bet on Audiobooks - "The streaming service that transformed the music industry is expanding into audiobooks, and will offer more than 300,000 titles on a pay-per-book model."
• Why AI audiobook narrators could win over some authors & readers, despite the vocal bumps - "Apple and Google’s AI turn in a booming market may sound less than human and raise the ire of voiceover actors, but it has cost benefits."

Top 15 Best (Free) Audiobook Providers

• 224 Places For Free Audio Books Online - Gizmo's Freeware.
• 550 FREE AUDIO BOOKS - Open Culture.
• AMAZON.COM: DOWNLOADABLE AUDIOBOOKS - as of February 21, 2024: 50,000+ results.
• AUDIBLE.COM - "Listen to a Best Seller on your iPod or MP3 player!" Provider of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming. Audible sells audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers.
• Audiobooks on the App Store on iTunes - Apple.
• AUDIOBOOKS.NET - "Stream and Download Audiobooks to your iPhone, iPad, Android, or PC. Get a Free Audiobook!""
• AUDIOBOOKS.ORG - "Free Audio Books."
• AUDIOBOOKSFORFREE.COM - "MP3, iPOD and DVD audiobooks (adventures, detectives, horrors, classics, children, non-fictions, philosophy, etc.) for you to download and enjoy."
• FREE CLASSIC AUDIOBOOKS - "Digital Narration for the 21st Century."
• Hoopla Digital - "Enjoy thousands of movies, TV shows, videos, music and audiobooks that library card holders can borrow from their public library."
• LIBRIVOX - "Free public domain audiobooks." LibriVox audiobooks are free for anyone to listen to, on their computers, iPods or other mobile device, or to burn onto a CD.
• Loyal Books - "7,000+ Free Audio Books & eBooks Downloads."
• OPEN CULTURE - "The best free cultural & educational media on the web." Download 550 great books for free.
• OverDrive - "eBooks, audiobooks and videos for libraries." OverDrive libraries add to their collections from a catalog of over 2 million eBooks, audiobooks, and videos. Start exploring to see what's out there.
• Project Gutenberg - "Browse By Category: Audio Book, human-read."
• Scribd - "Scribd Selects Audio. Hand-picked favorites from our editors. Browse scribd selects audio· Top Audiobooks. What's trending, bestsellers, award-winners & more."
• THE GREAT COURSES - Audio & Video Lectures from The World's Best Professors - Amazon.com. As of May 9, 2022 the company offers more than 1,000 results, which span more than 10,000 hours of content across several subject categories: business and economics, fine arts, music, ancient and medieval history, modern history, literature and English language, philosophy and intellectual history, religion, science, mathematics, social sciences, and better living.