Download 20 Popular High School Books Available as Free eBooks & Audio Books

in Audio Books, Books, e-books, K-12, Literature | September 26th, 2011

Every year, thou­sands of Amer­i­can high school stu­dents read a com­mon selec­tion of great nov­els — clas­sics loved by young and old read­ers alike. Today, we have select­ed 20 of the most pop­u­lar books and high­light­ed ways that you can down­load ver­sions for free, most­ly as free audio books and ebooks, and some­times as movies and radio dra­mas. You will find more great works — and some­times oth­er dig­i­tal for­mats — in our twin col­lec­tions: 600 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices and 550 Free Audio Books. So please give them a good look over, and if we’re miss­ing a nov­el you want, don’t for­get Audible.com’s 14 day tri­al. It will let you down­load an audio book for free, pret­ty much any one you want.

1984 by George Orwell: Read Online
Although pub­lished in 1949, 1984 still cap­tures our imag­i­na­tion gen­er­a­tions lat­er because it offers one of the best lit­er­ary accounts of total­i­tar­i­an­ism ever pub­lished. And it’s sim­ply a great read.

Ani­mal Farm by George Orwell: Read Online — Free Ani­mat­ed Movie
Orwell’s 1945 alle­gor­i­cal novel­la took aim at the cor­rup­tion of the Sovi­et Union and its total­i­tar­i­an rule. The short book, which almost nev­er saw the light of day, appears on the Mod­ern Library’s list of the 100 Best Nov­els of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

Brave New World by Aldous Hux­ley: eText — Free Radio Drama­ti­za­tion (by Hux­ley him­self)
Lit­tle known fact. Hux­ley once taught George Orwell French at Eton. And, years lat­er his 1931 clas­sic, Brave New World, is often men­tioned in the same breath with 1984 when it comes to great books that describe a dystopi­an future.

Franken­stein by Mary Shel­ley - Free ebook — Free Audio Book (MP3) — Radio Dra­ma ver­sion (1938) — Movie
Mary Shel­ley start­ed writ­ing the great mon­ster nov­el when she was only 18 and com­plet­ed it when she was 21. The 1823 goth­ic nov­el is arguably one of your first works of sci­ence fic­tion.

Heart of Dark­ness by Joseph Con­rad: Free eBook — Free Audio Book (iTunes) — Radio Drama­ti­za­tion by Orson Welles (MP3)
More than 100 years after its pub­li­ca­tion (1902), Con­rad’s novel­la still offers the most canon­i­cal look at colo­nial­ism and impe­ri­al­ism. So pow­er­ful was its influ­ence that Orson Welles dra­ma­tized it in 1938, and the book also famous­ly inspired Cop­po­la’s Apoc­a­lypse Now in 1979.

Plays by William Shake­speare

No descrip­tion need­ed. None giv­en.

Romeo and Juli­et — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (MP3s)

Mac­Beth — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (iTunes)

Ham­let — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (MP3s)

Julius Cae­sar — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (MP3s)

Note: You can find The Com­plete Works of Shake­speare here: Free eBook – Free ver­sion for the iPad

Pride & Prej­u­dice by Jane Austen – Free eBook — Free Audio Book (iTunes)
Jane Austen’s 1813 nov­el remains as pop­u­lar as ever. To date, it has sold more than 20 mil­lion copies, and, every so often, it finds itself adapt­ed to a new film, TV or the­ater pro­duc­tion. A must read.

The Adven­tures of Huck­le­ber­ry Finn by Mark Twain — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (iTunes)
When you think Huck­le­ber­ry Finn, you think Great Amer­i­can Nov­el. It was con­tro­ver­sial when it was first pub­lished in 1884, and it remains so today. But nonethe­less Twain’s clas­sic is a peren­ni­al favorite for read­ers around the world.

The Call of the Wild by Jack Lon­don — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (iTunes)
The Call of the Wild, first pub­lished in 1903, is regard­ed as Jack Lon­don’s mas­ter­piece. It’s “a tale about unbreak­able spir­it and the fight for sur­vival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.”

The Cru­cible by Arthur Miller - Free Audio Book from Audible.com
Arthur Miller’s 1952 play used the Salem witch tri­als of 1692 and 1693 to offer a com­men­tary on McCarthy­ism that tar­nished Amer­i­ca dur­ing the 1950s. Today, The Cru­cible occu­pies a cen­tral place in Amer­i­ca’s lit­er­ary canon.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Stein­beck — Free Audio Book from Audible.com
This 1939 nov­el won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and lat­er helped Stein­beck win the Nobel Prize for Lit­er­a­ture in 1962. It’s per­haps the most impor­tant book to give lit­er­ary expres­sion to the Great Depres­sion.

The Great Gats­by by F. Scott Fitzger­ald – Free eBook — Free Audio Book from Audible.com
It’s the clas­sic por­trait of the Jazz Age, a tale of deca­dence and excess. And today The Mod­ern Library has called Fitzger­ald’s 1925 mas­ter­piece the 2nd best nov­el of the last cen­tu­ry.

The Odyssey by Homer – Free eBook — Free Audio Book
The West­ern lit­er­ary tra­di­tion begins with Home­r’s epic poems The Ili­ad (etext here) and The Odyssey, both writ­ten some 2800 years ago. It has been said that “if the Ili­ad is the world’s great­est war epic, then the Odyssey is lit­er­a­ture’s grand­est evo­ca­tion of every­man’s jour­ney through life.” And that just about gets to the heart of the poem.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hem­ing­way - Free Audio Book from Audible.com
It was Hem­ing­way’s last major work of fic­tion (1951) and cer­tain­ly one of his most pop­u­lar, bring­ing many read­ers into con­tact with Hem­ing­way’s writ­ing for the first time.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (iTunes) — Free Movie
This Civ­il War nov­el won what Joseph Con­rad called “an orgy of praise” after its pub­li­ca­tion in 1895, and inspired Ernest Hem­ing­way and the Mod­ernists lat­er. The nov­el made Stephen Crane a celebri­ty at the age of 24, though he died only five years lat­er.

The Scar­let Let­ter by Nathaniel Hawthorne – Free eBooks – Free Audio Book — Movie
Though set in Puri­tan Boston between 1642 and 1649, Hawthorne’s mag­num opus explores “the moral dilem­mas of per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty, and the con­sum­ing emo­tions of guilt, anger, loy­al­ty and revenge” that were rel­e­vant in 1850 (when the book was pub­lished). And they remain so today.

To Kill a Mock­ing­bird by Harp­er Lee — Free Audio Book from Audible.com
Harp­er Lee’s 1960 nov­el takes an inci­sive look at atti­tudes toward race and class in the Deep South dur­ing the 1930s. It won the Pulitzer Prize a year lat­er.

Note: We list­ed Audible.com as an option when books were still under copy­right.

Mean­while, edu­ca­tors don’t miss our col­lec­tion of Free Cours­es. It fea­tures many free Lit­er­a­ture cours­es, includ­ing cours­es on Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture.

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David’s Diary: The New David Sedaris App for Apple & Android

in Books, Comedy, iPad | September 21st, 2011

A lit­tle David Sedaris on your mobile device? Yes, please!

Last week, Hachette Dig­i­tal released David’s Dairy, a new app that brings six ani­mat­ed short films inspired by David Sedaris’ diary to your Apple and Android devices. The films are short — most run about 45 sec­onds. They’re char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly quirky and art­ful­ly designed. And the com­plete app costs runs only $1.99. But, at min­i­mum, you get the longest video in the col­lec­tion here for free and then this:

Bonus Mate­r­i­al: In our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books, you will find two read­ings by David Sedaris. Here they go:

  • “The Mouse and the Snake” from Squir­rel Seeks Chip­munk: A Mod­est Bes­tiary — Free MP3
  • “Solu­tion to Saturday’s Puz­zle” from When You Are Engulfed in Flames - Free MP3

And, you can always down­load a com­plete David Sedaris book (in audio) by tak­ing advan­tage of Audible.com’s Free Tri­al offer.

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Kenneth Branagh Stars in Radio Dramatization of Epic Soviet Novel, Life and Fate (Free Audio)

in Audio Books, Books, Literature | September 19th, 2011

Le Monde has called Life and Fate “the great­est Russ­ian nov­el of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry,” and Mar­tin Amis once described its author, Vasi­ly Gross­man, as “the Tol­stoy of the USSR.” Now, if you haven’t read the nov­el, you can begin to under­stand the rea­son for all of the high praise.

Start­ing this week, the BBC will air an eight-hour drama­ti­za­tion of the mas­ter­piece that offered a sweep­ing account of the siege of Stal­in­grad, one of the blood­i­est bat­tles of World War II. Although orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten in 1959, the book was offi­cial­ly cen­sored in the Sovi­et Union until 1988 because, in the esti­ma­tion of the appa­ratchiks, it threat­ened to do more harm to the USSR than Paster­nak’s Doc­tor Zhiva­go.

Ken­neth Branagh and David Ten­nant star in the 13-episode series that will be broad­cast from 18 to 25 Sep­tem­ber on Radio 4. You can access the audio files online or via iTues, RSS Feed, and oth­er for­mats here.

For more drama­ti­za­tions of lit­er­ary clas­sics, please vis­it:

Aldous Hux­ley Reads Dra­ma­tized Ver­sion of Brave New World

HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds Nar­rat­ed by Orson Welles

Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

50 Clas­sic Russ­ian Films (Includ­ing Tarkovsky’s Finest) Now Online

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Richard Dawkins Introduces His New Illustrated Book, The Magic of Reality

in Books, K-12, Science | September 16th, 2011

We told you about the book ear­li­er this year, and now it’s just about here. Set for release on Octo­ber 4th, The Mag­ic of Real­i­ty will be unlike any book writ­ten by Richard Dawkins before. It is illus­trat­ed for starters, and large­ly geared toward young and old read­ers alike. Per­fect, he says, for any­one 12 and up. When it comes to the struc­ture and gist of the book, Dawkins does a pret­ty good job of explain­ing things. So let’s let the video roll…

Note: If you’re will­ing to tweet about the book, you can view the first 24 pages of The Mag­ic of Real­i­ty here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Richard Dawkins on the Awe of Life & Sci­ence

Richard Dawkins Plays the Piano: “Earth His­to­ry in C Major”

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Las Calles de Borges: A Tribute to Argentina’s Favorite Son

in Books, Literature | September 9th, 2011

In the win­ter of 2010, Ian Ruschel paid homage to the Argen­tin­ian writer Jorge Luis Borges, shoot­ing Buenos Aires: Las Calles de Borges in the streets of Argenti­na’s cap­i­tal. This evoca­tive lit­tle film, shot with a Canon 5D, weaves in footage of Borges talk­ing about “the task of art,” which comes from the 1998 doc­u­men­tary, Buenos Aires, meine Geschichte by Ger­man Kral. Also don’t miss Jorge Luis Borges: The Mir­ror Man, anoth­er doc­u­men­tary (47 min­utes) that’s “part biog­ra­phy, part lit­er­ary crit­i­cism, part hero-wor­ship, part book read­ing, and part psy­chol­o­gy.”

Bonus: We have trav­el writer Paul Ther­oux read­ing Borges’ short sto­ry “The Gospel Accord­ing to Mark,” cour­tesy of The New York­er. The audio file is oth­er­wise list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

via Curios­i­ty Counts

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William S. Burroughs Reads His First Novel, Junky

in Audio Books, Books, Literature | September 8th, 2011

burroughsjunkypaperbacks

Six years before he pub­lished his break­through nov­el, Naked Lunch (1959), William S. Bur­roughs broke into the lit­er­ary scene with Junky (some­times also called Junkie), a can­did, semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal account of an “unre­deemed drug addict.” It’s safe to say that the book would­n’t have seen the light of day if Allen Gins­berg had­n’t tak­en Bur­roughs under his wing and edit­ed the man­u­script. The book, orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished under the pseu­do­nym “William Lee,” was dis­trib­uted by Ace Books, a pub­lish­ing house that tar­get­ed New York City sub­way rid­ers. You can lis­ten to Bur­roughs, the famous beat writer, read­ing a three-hour abridged ver­sion of the text over at UBUWeb. Also see the playlist on YouTube.

H/T @maudnewton

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The Great Gatsby and Waiting for Godot: The Video Game Editions

in Books, Literature, Video Games | September 7th, 2011

Some genius­es have tak­en two lit­er­ary clas­sics and reworked them as retro video games. The Great Gats­by Game, obvi­ous­ly based on the clas­sic by F. Scott Fitzger­ald, reworks the game in vin­tage Nin­ten­do Style. The clip above gives you a lit­tle pre­view, but you can always play the game right here. Then, for a lit­tle more absur­dist fun, the Wait­ing for Godot Game awaits you. The game, sport­ing a throw­back 70s look, requires you to down­load a plu­g­in — one we can’t vouch for. So may just want to watch this YouTube clip. You’ll get the schtick pret­ty quick.

By the way, you can read both clas­sics online — Find The Great Gats­by here, and Wait­ing for Godot here. Both are list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Jack Kerouac Reads from On the Road (1959)

in Books, Literature | September 7th, 2011


Jack Ker­ouac wrote On the Road in three very short weeks in 1951. But then it took six years for the book, famous­ly writ­ten on a long scroll, to reach the read­ing pub­lic in 1957. Short­ly after its pub­li­ca­tion, crit­ics were at least quick to rec­og­nize what the book meant. One New York Times review­er called it “the most beau­ti­ful­ly exe­cut­ed, the clear­est and the most impor­tant utter­ance yet made by the gen­er­a­tion Ker­ouac him­self named years ago as beat.” Anoth­er saw in the nov­el “a descrip­tive excite­ment unmatched since the days of Thomas Wolfe.” 54 years lat­er, those ear­ly reviews have with­stood the prover­bial test of time. These days, Mod­ern Library and TIME place the nov­el on their lists of the 100 great­est nov­els.

And now onto our vin­tage clip of the day — Jack Ker­ouac, the man him­self, appear­ing on The Steve Allen Show in 1959, first field­ing some ques­tions, then read­ing from his beat clas­sic.

Bonus: Yale’s course, The Amer­i­can Nov­el Since 1945, fea­tures two lec­tures ded­i­cat­ed to On the Road. More on that here.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jack Kerouac’s On The Road Turned Into Google Dri­ving Direc­tions & Pub­lished as a Free eBook

William S. Bur­roughs on the Art of Cut-up Writ­ing

Jack Kerouac’s On the Road Turned Into an Illus­trat­ed Scroll: One Draw­ing for Every Page of the Nov­el

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