This article talks about 4 websites to get free public domain audiobooks. These websites include a vast collection of audiobooks which is well categorized across various categories like genres, author, year, etc.. You can choose to browse them on the criteria of your choice. Apart from just browsing and listening to the audiobooks, you can also choose to download them for offline use. The public domain audiobooks are available for download across different formats suitable for your PC, iPhone/iPad, Android, and eBook readers.
Note: Public domain audiobooks are those audiobooks for which either the copyright has expired or no one holds the copyright. It means they’re available for the public to read, share, and distribute.
1. LibriVox:
LibriVox is one of the most popular and reliable sources of getting free public domain audiobooks. The website has the categorization of all the audiobooks on the basis of title, author, genre/subject, and language. The homepage lists the latest released audiobooks while the rest can be browsed by choosing the preferred category. For each of the listed books, you will find the relevant information like book name, author name, author’s date of birth and death, download link, and the file size.
For the selected book, the website shows a summary along with the name of chapters, duration, and the name of the reader. The reader is the person who has read the book while recording the audio. There are also links for downloading the audiobook as ZIP file, subscribe to iTunes, RSS feed, and download torrent.
2. Loyal Books:
Loyal Books (earlier Books Should Be Free) is another website with a really wide collection of public domain audiobooks. On the homepage, you will see the listing of all the popular audiobooks and on the right side, you will see the listing of the categories Genre, Popular Genre, and Languages.
For each of the selected books, the website shows the summary of the plot of the book. At the bottom, there are links for listening/download individual chapters of the book. You can also choose to download audiobook as mp3, iTunes Podcast, iPhone/iPod M4b audiobook, and RSS feed. There are also book reviews as well as list of recommended books.
3. Legamus:
Legamus is more of like a blog instead of a fully fledged website. All the free public domain audiobooks are listed as a different blog post. For each book, it mentions the book name, author name, total running time, language, reader name, the name of each episode with duration, and an option to download.
There is an option called All Recordings which shows the listing of all the available audiobooks. In the listing, you can easily check the language, book name, author name, duration, reader name, and date of publication on the website.
4. PublicAudioBooks.com:
The last website in the list is PublicAudioBooks.com. This website lets you search for audiobooks on the basis of Top 10, Classics, Children, Fiction, and Non-fiction. For all the books, it shows a brief summary, author name, the list of characters, publishing year, and link to full textbook and audiobook. For the audiobook, you’ve to pick the chapter first. You can also choose to download all of the chapters at once instead of listening to them individually.
These are the 4 websites to get free public domain audiobooks. Check them and don’t forget to tell me which one you liked the most.
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