How to get lots of free audio books that talk your language (out loud)

A growing source for audio books - for free - is the Gutenberg library. All of these audio books, 22,000 or more of them, are of two types - human read and computer generated voice. They are prepared for you to download to your computer in four main formats - "Ogg Vorbis." "Speex Audio," MP3 Audio," and "MP4 Apple iTunes Audiobook." There is, thus, an audio book in a format that can be used on almost any computer system and, from there, burned onto CD or DVD for further PC use or for use in tabletop and automobile CD/DVD player systems.

Here are just a few of the many, many audiobooks available for your downloading from the Gutenberg library collection:

"Call of the Wild" (Jack London), "Alexander the Great" and "Peter the Great" (Jacob Abbott), "Aesop's Fables" Volumes 1 through 12" (Aesop 620-563 BC), "Anderson's Fairy Tales" (Hans Christian Anderson), "Beowulf" and "Book of Esther" (Anonymous), "The Essays of Francis Bacon," "The Key of Gold - 23 Czech Folk Tales" (Joseph Bandis), The many "Oz..." stories (L. Frank Baum), and "History of the United States, Volumes 1 and 2" (Charles H. Beard)

In a directory of free audio books I read that there are 22,000 of them available for downloading on the Gutenberg library Web site. If you have lots and lots of time on your hands, you may choose to count the number of audio books available for downloading from the Gutenberg library, but I would suggest that you use some of that large amount of time to actively download the audio books you want to have on your computer or on removable CDs or DVDs. Audio books are added on a daily basis.

Not only are there plenty of audio books there already, but they are ready for your downloading in a variety of languages. I have not yet found one speaking in "gibberish," but there may be one in there thus far hidden from my view. Other than that, take your pick.

When I download audio books I ordinarily set up an appropriately named folder in my download space on the hard drive or on a removable flash drive that I use exclusively for book downloading. The audio book files are generally large, but their sizes vary with both the size of the original published paper-page book and with the audio formatting of the download materials. For example, a compressed MP3 file of a book may be 200 megabytes in size, but as an MP4 file it may be only 40 megabytes. Each format produces files of different sizes.

If I am dealing with a compressed file, I ask my computer to "expand" that file within the original folder or one created for that purpose, With individual, uncompressed, files, I stick those into an appropriately-named folder one at a time, purposely keeping them in "book order," chapter by chapter. Not all books are in "zip" compression form. When they are "zipped" they take far less downloading time.

My particular computer system enjoys dealing with the MP4 "Apple iTunes audiobooks," and that is nice for me because those files are also reasonably smaller in size, too.

When I get my "book" inside of the folder set up to hold it on my computer, I burn that folder and its book onto a removable CD or DVD, either by itself or in the company of other downloaded audio books.

As it was when I started fooling around with graphics programs, I am no expert (or even an "advanced novice" in this interesting and useful area of "talking books"). Even so, I am having fun with downloading and using them - and of course, it is even more fun because they cost me just a little bit of time to do the downloading and a few pennies for the CD/DVD disks and their little plastic covers used to keep folks like me from spilling peanut butter on the disks when they are on the desk or in the car.

Happy listening and learning, Good Friends. If what you find in the way of audio books does not suit your fancy, consider the alternative - GusTheRedneck singing for you with no orchestra behind him for a masking effect. If you fuss about this article and I find out about it, I may send you a personalized singing CD to teach you a well-deserved lesson.