Uranium Wars: A Free Audio Chapter

≡ Category: Audio Books, Science |Comments

Just a quick fyi: Audible.com is giving away a free chapter (in audio) from a new book, Uranium Wars: The Scientific Rivalry that Created the Nuclear Age (preview it on Amazon here). Written by Amir Aczel, a skilled popular science writer, the book takes a close look at the scientists who discovered the destructive potential [...]

Good “Reads” On Audible (with Freebie Possibilities)

≡ Category: Audio Books, Books, Literature |Comments

A quick note: Audible has recently launched a series called the Audible Modern Vanguard (more details here) that brings groundbreaking works and authors into unabridged audio for the first time. Here, you’ll find works by Paul Auster (one of my faves), Saul Bellow, John Cheever, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, and William Kennedy.
There are some good “reads” [...]

The Future of Content Delivery

≡ Category: Amazon Kindle, Audio Books, Books, Podcast Articles and Resources |Comments

This podcast (get it here) presents the thoughts of Scott Sigler–media maven, NY Times Bestselling Author of INFECTED and CONTAGIOUS (both available free as podcasts), podiobook dynamo, and social networking mastermind–on none other than ”how will people read books in the near future?”
In this repodcast of his keynote speech at this year’s Balticon conference, Scott talks about [...]

Chris Anderson @ Google

≡ Category: Audio Books, Books, Google |Comments

Chris Anderson, the author of Free: The Future of a Radical Price (download a free audio file of the book here) is making the rounds, promoting his new book. Of course, it was only natural that Anderson (also the author of The Long Tail and editor-in-chief of Wired) should pay a visit to Google, a company that [...]

Never Mind Amazon, Get Your Free Orwell Here

≡ Category: Audio Books, Books |Comments

The whole mini-controversy surrounding Amazon’s deletion of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindle accounts reminded me of something. Over at the Internet Archive, you can find 1984 available as a free audio book. And, nicely, the recording is professionally done. You can download the full zip file here. Or alternatively you can get the individual mp3 files, or [...]

Update: How to Get “Free” Anywhere

≡ Category: Audio Books, Business, Economics |Comments

Ok, sorry to belabor this. Earlier today, I mentioned that you could download the audiobook of Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price at Audible for no cost. It turns out that the Audible offer isn’t available to a worldwide audience. It may just be available to US residents. The good news is that [...]

Now Download Free Audiobook of Chris Anderson’s “Free”

≡ Category: Audio Books, Business, Economics |Comments

A quick update: Yesterday, I mentioned that you can grab on Google Books and Scribd a free e-book of Chris Anderson’s latest work, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Today, I discovered that you can also download an audiobook version of Free over at Audible.com. It will cost you nothing. But you will need to [...]

James Joyce Reading from Finnegans Wake

≡ Category: Audio Books, Literature |Comments

On Bloomsday (June 16), BoingBoing featured a rare audio recording of James Joyce reading from Finnegans Wake (mp3). It’s a bit intriguing to hear his voice and accent. Also, we came across another Joyce recording, where, this time, he’s reading Anna Livia Plurabelle, another section of the same novel. For kicks, you can catch an animated [...]

Stephen Colbert Reads Joyce’s Ulysses

≡ Category: Audio Books, Books |Comments

Every June 16 is Bloomsday, which commemorates James Joyce’s Ulysses (get free audio of the text here). In Dublin and around the world, celebrations usually include a reading of Joyce’s classic. Last year, in New York City, one high-profile event featured Stephen Colbert reading the part of Leopold Bloom, the character around which the sprawling novel [...]

Sedaris Reads “Solution to Saturday’s Puzzle”

≡ Category: Audio Books, Comedy |Comments

Not long ago, we featured David Sedaris reading “Of Mice and Men,” a comic bit from his newish book, When You are Engulfed in Flames. Now, we give you another funny (also live) reading from the same book. The story is called “Solution to Saturday’s Puzzle,” and you can get it as an mp3 here.
Related Content:
David [...]

Writing in the Digital Age: It’s All About the Platform

≡ Category: Audio Books, Books, e-books |Comments

A couple of weeks ago, crime writer Seth Harwood wrote a very popular piece here – How I Sold My Book by Giving It Away. Now he’s back and telling us about the new challenge of writing in the digital age. Take it away Seth (and check out his new book JACK WAKES UP )…
The [...]

Listen to 1800 Free Audio Books on Your iPhone

≡ Category: Apple, Audio Books, iPhone |Comments

The iPhone just got a bit smarter. Thanks to this new, free app, you can listen to 1800 free audio books on your Apple device. The app lets you listen to public domain audio books from the great Librivox (whose works, read by volunteers, also appear in our Free Audio Books collection). The ad-supported software is straightforward [...]

How I Sold My Book by Giving It Away

≡ Category: Audio Books, Books, Most Popular |Comments

Today we’re featuring a piece by Seth Harwood, an innovative crime fiction writer who has used the tools of Web 2.0 to launch his writing career. Below, he gives you an inside look at how he went from podcasting his books to landing a book deal with Random House. If you want to learn more [...]

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

≡ Category: Audio Books, Literature |Comments

From The Internet Archive: “Recorded here is the complete, original story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as penned by Fitzgerald in the early 1920s, published originally in Colliers and finally collected in the popular Tales of the Jazz Age.” You can download and listen to this Fitzgerald story here. Multiple formats are available. We’ve also  added [...]

Crime Fiction: Download and Listen

≡ Category: Audio Books |Comments

Seth Harwood is bringing crime writing into the new world of Web 2.0. Since 2006, Harwood has been podcasting his own crime fiction, including a book called Jack Wakes Up, which you can download (for free) via iTunes, RSS Feed, or MP3. (Random House will be releasing Jack Wakes Up in print next month for [...]

Seth Godin’s Tribes: Download the Free Audio Book

≡ Category: Audio Books, Business |Comments

The audio book version of Seth Godin’s latest book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, can be downloaded for free from Audible.com. Godin is the best-selling author of entrepreneurial business books and writes a popular blog on “marketing, respect, and the ways ideas spread.” In print, the book usually costs $13.57 and runs 160 [...]

Audio Book FYI

≡ Category: Audio Books |Comments

A quick fyi: We’ve spent some time beefing up our collection of Free Audio Books. The collection now features over 250 works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, all of which can be downloaded to your computer or mp3 player for free.
Among the new additions you’ll find some media from The New Yorker Magazine, including a series of mp3’s [...]

Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book,” Watch A Chapter A Day

≡ Category: Audio Books, Books, Sci Fi, Video - Arts & Culture |Comments

Sci-fi author Neil Gaiman has the right idea. After making his well-known novel American Gods freely available online last year, he has gone the extra mile again in releasing his new novel, The GraveYard Book. In brief, he has just kicked off a nine day book tour, and each day he’s reading a chapter that [...]

Jonathan Franzen Reads

≡ Category: Audio Books, Literature, Video - Arts & Culture |Comments

In a quick three minutes, you can watch the sometimes cocky author of The Corrections read from an essay on bird watching, courtesy of BigThink.com, where you can also find more videos with intellectual heft.
For more thoughtful video, also see our YouTube playlist and the related collection: Intelligent Life at YouTube: 70 Educational Video Collections.

Subscribe [...]

George Orwell’s 1984: Download Free Audio Book Version

≡ Category: Audio Books, Literature |Comments

I first posted this one during the dead of summer, so it seemed worth revisiting this now that we’re all a bit more focused ….
Over at the Internet Archive, you can find George Orwell’s classic, 1984, available as a free audio book. As you’ll see, the recording is professionally done. You can download the full [...]

The Decline and Fall of the Roman (and American?) Empire: A Free Audiobook

≡ Category: Audio Books |Comments

Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – It’s a major work of the Enlightenment, a book that shaped how we moderns write history (and, for that matter, how we aspire to write in the English language), and it’s now available as a free podcast thanks to Librivox. Or at least [...]

Craphound: Download Cory Doctorow’s Short Story via Free MP3 (and other Goodies)

≡ Category: Audio Books |Comments

Here’s a free audio version of Craphound, the first short story published by Cory Doctorow, who is otherwise known for his new book, Little Brother, and for his work on the very popular BoingBoing blog. (As an fyi, you can find an alternative reading of the same story here.)
Looking for more free downloads? Try the [...]

Download Paul Coelho’s Bestseller, “The Alchemist,” for Free on iTunes

≡ Category: Audio Books, Books |Comments

The Alchemist has sold more than 65 million copies and been translated into 56 languages. A huge bestseller, in short. Here it is unabridged and free. I am not sure how long this offer will last. So I would grab it sooner than later — and while you’re at it, don’t forget to look through [...]

George Orwell’s 1984: Download Free Audio Book Version

≡ Category: Audio Books, Literature |Comments

Here’s a quick one while I am away on some unexpected business…
Over at the Internet Archive, you can find George Orwell’s classic, 1984, available as a free audio book. As you’ll see, the recording is professionally done. You can download the full zip file here. Or alternatively you can get the individual mp3 files, or [...]

Scott Sigler’s Infected: Free via Podcast, $16.47 on Amazon

≡ Category: Audio Books |Comments

Horror/sci-fi fans, here you go… Scott Sigler’s new and very well-reviewed thriller, Infected, can be downloaded for free via podcast (iTunes – Feed – Web site). Or you can get it in hardback for $16.47, which I’m not discouraging you from doing.
With the links above, you can download more free books from Sigler. But, I [...]

20 Poems for National Poetry Month (Free Audio Downloads)

≡ Category: Audio Books |Comments

Right in time for National Poetry Month (here in the US), Don from Classic Poetry Aloud (iTunes – Feed – Web Site) has highlighted mp3s of classic poems. You can download them for free. And we’ve also added them to our growing Free Audio Books Collection. Many thanks to Don for the great work.

Arnold, Matthew [...]

Listening to Famous Poets Reading Their Own Work

≡ Category: Audio Books, Literature |Comments

Today, we have a guest feature by Don from Classic Poetry Aloud (iTunes – Feed – Web Site), a place where you can find a great lineup of poetry podcasts. We welcome other guest contributors. So, if you’re interested, just email us. Take it away (and thanks) Don…
The internet has given poetry new scope and [...]

James Joyce’s Ulysses: A Free Audiobook

≡ Category: Audio Books |Comments

This is a book that needs no introduction, but we will give it a short one anyway. Published in serial format between 1918 and 1920, James Joyce’s Ulysses was initially reviled by many and banned in the US and UK until the 1930s. Today, it’s widely considered a classic in modernist literature, and The Modern [...]

A Slew of New Audiobooks (for Free)

≡ Category: Audio Books |Comments

Librivox is on a roll lately. Since December, the provider of free, public domain audiobooks has released a number of classic works on audio. Below, we’ve listed some of the highlights, which we’ve also included in our AudioBook Podcast Collection. (Here, you’ll also find free audiobooks by other providers.) For Librivox’s complete catalogue, click here.

2 [...]

Pulp Fiction Audio Tales

≡ Category: Audio Books |Comments

Here’s one for fans of horror, sci-fi and hardboiled fiction. Well Told Tales (iTunes – Feed – Web Site) brings you a series of “audio tales” from the pulp tradition. Each story runs somewhere between 15 and 35 minutes, and they’re produced with an eye towards quality. The makers of this podcast select good short [...]

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    Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best cultural and educational media. He finds the books you want, the classes you need, and plenty of enlightenment in between.