11 sites to download audiobooks for free

Finding opportunities to read in this fast-paced world can be a bit much, even for bookworms. When you’re dividing 24 hours of your time every day for work, school, family, friends, and other hobbies you might have, you’ll find that there is little to none left for you to do some old-fashioned reading, but audiobooks can offer some respite. The best part? You can download audiobooks for free.

Audiobooks have been around since the 1980s. It has increasingly gotten more popular amongst busy multitaskers, who prefer to listen to audiobooks than read physical books or on their Kindle while commuting.

If you’re among those who find it easier to listen than to read, don’t forget to visit these websites to download audiobooks for free and save some cash.

Many schools are even turning to audiobooks and e-learning content to educate its students. Source: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP

Here’s where you can download audiobooks for free

Scribl 

To find newly released books, head over to Scribl. Scribl is unique as many of the audiobooks on the site are read by the authors themselves. These free audiobooks are provided in a serialised form, so you can listen to small chunks that fit into your commute.

Storynory

Audiobooks aren’t just for adults, but for kids too! If you have a child that loves to listen to fairy tales and stories, check out Storynory, which houses a large collection of classics written by authors like Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kiping. Storynory also has a collection of original selections that might pique their interest.

Lit2Go 

All of Lit2Go’s titles are rated using a readability score (Flesch-Kincaid scoring system). You can download audiobooks for free. It is also easily to do so – they are sorted by grade level, from kindergarten through 12th grade. 

Spotify

If you didn’t know already, Spotify has an audiobooks playlist where you can listen to audiobooks for free. Should you not want to listen to them with ads, you can pay a small fee of  US$9.99 a month — or US$4.99 a month if you’re on a student plan in the US. 

ThoughtAudio

ThoughtAudio should appeal to a specific kind of reader. The catalogue of books is focused on classic literature and philosophical titles. Only 100 titles or so can be found on this site, and some audiobooks come with a PDF transcript you can download for reference. 

Several of Kindle’s latest models allow you to download audiobooks for free and listen to them while reading them as an e-book. Source: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a nonprofit digital library that has curated and catalogued millions of books, music, software, websites, and other online media. More than 20,000 audiobooks can be downloaded here. 

Loyal Books

Loyal Books is another public domain where you can download audiobooks for free. Here, you can find options such as John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Return of Sherlock Holmes”. What makes Loyal Books stand out is that you can submit reviews and see what other people had to say about what they have read.

Open Culture

At Open Culture, over 1,000 free audiobooks are up for grabs. The simple interface helps even the most digitally-challenged download audiobooks for free. All audiobooks and their authors are arranged in alphabetical order, from “Aesop’s Fables” to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”. 

Mindwebs

Mindwebs is a unique site where over 150 of the most classic science fiction short stories are narrated in a haunting, old-time radio fashion. You’ll find free science fiction audiobooks from authors like Ursula K. Le Guin, Kurt Vonnegut, and H.G. Wells, among others.

Overdrive

Its website notes that Overdrive works with more than 76,000 public libraries, K-12 schools, colleges and universities, and corporations in 94 countries worldwide.

Unlike many public domain audiobook sites, Overdrive gives you access to contemporary books, including titles that are on The New York Times’ bestseller list. It is also available as a mobile app for both iOS and Android.

LibriVox

You can download audiobooks for free at LibriVox – it is a large database of more than 16,000 audiobooks in the public domain. All audiobooks are read by voice actor volunteers worldwide.

You can search by title, subject, or author in several languages. You can then listen to audiobooks by chapter on the website or download the complete audiobook in a zip file.