Welcome to the internet 2020

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See also https://librivox.org for free public domain audiobooks.

Also, most public libraries have extensive audiobook and ebook archives, and there are apps that bring all that content straight to your phone. If you live somewhere that has library access, you can greatly and easily expand your access to books, new and old through that method.

If you are looking for free german audio books, checkout

- https://www.vorleser.net/

For a free conversion tool, checkout

- https://github.com/sandreas/m4b-tool

- https://github.com/gonzoua/AudioBookBinder

- https://github.com/yermak/AudioBookConverter

If anyone is looking for some free modern genre fiction, I can highly recommend the Worm audiobook: http://audioworm.rein-online.org/

It's longer than the entire Games of Thrones series, plenty of content there. It is a fan created recording and the early parts are a bit rough, but gets more professional over time and eventually becomes extremely polished.

This is a sample (standalone, relatively spoiler free since this is 100% flashback) chapter from the sequel story Ward. Read Worm first but this specific chapter can be read by itself. http://parahumanaudio.com/podcast/gleaming-9-x/

Does anyone else have an issue with audiobooks as literature? Like, if I'm not able to control the pace at which I'm paying attention, it's problematic. I can't guarantee I'll pay 100 percent attention to noise that otherwise would almost be background to me. Regardless, the selection here is pretty bad-ass.

I considered whitelisting the website on uBlock but then I noticed 25+ different blocked requests (that number usually explodes after whitelisting too). Is this really necessary?

If your favourite book isn't available as an audiobook, give us a try:

https://auditus.cc

What do you use to listen to audio books files? Some normal audio player is rather cumbersome, due to missing progress tracking.

Cool site, but for myself, I will stick with Audible because of the convenience. I have probably spent about $1000 on Audible books and I feel like that has been a good value, over many years.

Some advantages I have experienced:

When I read James Joyce "Ulysses" several years ago, it was somewhat difficult to follow the narrative. I then listened to it as an audio book with a half a dozen good actors reading the parts and the book came to life for me.

I have some arthritis in my hands, and any time not using a keyboard, holding a physical book, or an eBook reader helps.

When I am working in the yard, cleaning up the kitchen, etc. it is good to listen to a book.

The one thing that bothers me is the possibility of losing a large investment in Kindle and Audible books if I ever lost my Amazon account. I mitigate this somewhat by buying some eBooks and audio books on Google Play and on Apple's store. --> don't put all of your eggs in one basket.

Not what I expected to see: Iggy Pop reads Edgar Allan Poe

http://www.openculture.com/2015/08/iggy-pop-reads-edgar-alla...

I prefer TTS machine generated voice than non professional readers such as librivox, so for me it's either a professional reader or TTS.

Do these free audio books collection also has transcripts? I want to use them to train my Speech to text model.

How do we know they're great? There's no review section like on Audible or Librivox.

Is there an app on iOS that indexes ubuweb, I noticed Junky read by Burroughs there which would be a fascinating listen, but it comes in lots of pieces and consuming it on the run seems somewhat tricky

Was surprised to see the free books in Audible, turns out that this is free only if you sign up and you only get one book, which is pretty misleading

So, what software/app do you guys use to consume audiobooks? I haven't found a decent one that works with external downloads.

First link I click on is a dud (Asimov, Isaac - "The Last Question" ) due to copyright claims. Not a great start tbh.

This is great! thank you

Why is this sorted by author name ? Site is very spammy and unusable

I think this (pre-recorded) audio book thing is a short-term phenomenon that's creating an economic distortion. Recording audio books requires extra labor, but not much (how many person-hours does it take to record War and Peace compared to person-hours spent by each publisher publishing a new edition, even assuming the use of an existing translation?). Yet Audible rakes in huge amounts of cash by charging a premium (particularly popular titles) for audiobooks over regular ebooks. Sometimes it's because they get famous people to read books, which is a blatant cash grab by the voice artist and/or by Audible. You could find 10 people who have better reading voices than any particular famous person, unless your only objective is to hear your favorite famous person read a book, any book.

Also, subscription plans are designed around most people not using them fully, and not optimizing their purchases.

Soon enough neural net TTS + ebooks will be nearly equivalent, and doesn't cost any more than the base ebook. Plus TTS allows synchronizing between print and speech which you can't get between ebooks and audiobooks; i.e. it would be nice to read in print, then switch to TTS while commuting or working out, then back to print.

I love audiobooks for forcing me to keep going through material. I’ll reread sections often in print. Not being able to do so as easily with audiobooks helps me by keeping me going through material. Sometimes it’s the difference between having a “click” and not. Or keeps me going when my attention might otherwise slip by reading too much into something that’s not there.

If it feels like audiobooks aren’t having an impact on you then I’d suggest trying to relisten to them and not treat them as a once-through.

Is there something inherent in literature that requires it to be visually consumed? Yes, it's too easy to let one's mind wander while listening to an audiobook but I find it helps to have a group/book club with which to discuss the book afterward.

One significant negative of audiobooks is that I tend to listen while doing "active but mindless" activities (mowing the lawn, commuting, cleaning my office, doing dishes/chores) which means I'm not in a position to stop and take notes in the margin or in a notebook. To really absorb a work and make it your own I think you need to take notes and summarize the main points of each chapter, in your own words, after finishing each chapter.

That said, listening-only is far better than having no exposure to these great works. Would I would love even more is to have commentaries or Joe-Rogan-Style recorded discussions about the books by academics so I could read the book, listen to discussions about the book, then read the book again with these critiques in mind.

No, it's actually better for me. I come from the unfortunate generation in USA that grew up with "hooked on phonics" .... as a result, my reading skills are utterly abhorrent.

Audio books impose a strict pace on me; I have no choice but to keep up. Personally, I like also being able to speed them up. My brain accommodates the new transmission rate just fine after some time. So, what would normally be unintelligible becomes a really low-effort way for me to ingest content.

For me, background noise creeps in when I'm trying to read by sight. It can be exhausting.

My 2¢

Not too long ago I finally gave podcasts a try. For a while I was hooked. Most importantly, in Spotify it was trivially easy to increase the speed from 1x to 1.25x and 1.5x. After a while, for certain sections I could listen at 2x and still understand everything, and it was much more engaging! As long as I could control the playback speed, I think I could get into audio books, too (though I haven't yet. My commute is short...)

It's like anything else; it takes practice. For my first months of regular audiobooking I had to reread sections pretty regularly. Five years in I listen between 1.6x and 2.6x, depending on the subject and reader, and almost never have to reread anything (unless something taxing pops up suddenly and I don't pause immediately). Over 100 of the books I read last year were audio.

A much shorter answer: yes, it's possible. Before getting into a serious self-study of literature I highly recommend reading and studying this book first: https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...

I do find that audio books do set a pace that's slower than normal reading. But often my mind takes off with it and enables a richer experience than I'd have if I read at my normal speed.

However many audio book players allow you to control playback speed. I do find the occasional voice actor that's just too fast or slow for my comfort.

For over two decades I have listened to audiobooks while painting - excellent activities to pair.

not really. i'm absolutely addicted to audiobooks[0][1] -- to the point where 95% of all books i consume are audiobooks.

it took me a while to get "used" to them but now i can easily focus on them while doing chores (washing the dishes, walking the dog).

[0]https://i.imgur.com/w1EiD66.jpg

[1]https://i.imgur.com/oFj5fvX.jpg