Librivox Audio Books

Librivox is a website that offers free audiobooks for books in the public domain. This is any book published before 1924. These books have no copyright and are free to the public. All the books on Librivox are read by volunteers. Some of the volunteers sound like professionals and some, well,.....let's just say they can be hard to listen to.

If you don't have a book list of books you would like to listen to it can be hard to know what to search for when you go to Librivox.org. In this post I will share a few books that I have listened to recently and also places to find interesting titles.

When you go to Librivox.org you are able to search for books by author, title, or volunteer reader. If you find a high quality Volunteer Reader on Librivox, you can just click their name and everything that they have read aloud for the site will come up.

When you click on a book you would like to listen to, you have the option of listening to it online or downloading the audio book for offline listening later. You can also turn your screen off while you listen, which is nice for saving battery life on your device. Another nice feature is that you can listen to the audio book in the background while you go to other web pages, (as opposed to YouTube, which requires you to pay a subscription fee to play in the background.)

Here is a list of books I have listened to and links to the audio book on Librivox.org. At the website there is an overview of each book to give you an idea of what the book is about. I am not going to do that here just for time sake.

Five Little Peppers by Margaret Sidney

Did you know that The Five Little Peppers is a series? I didn't know this until I saw the books on Librivox.

Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

I read this as a child and enjoy hearing it again recently.

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin

I never read this book growing up. I am glad I had the chance to listen to it this summer.

Thornton W. Burgess is an author I highly recommend for young children. My five year old likes to listen to his stories on Librivox. He and I both enjoy them very much.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

I haven't finished listening to this book, and therefore, can't give it my stamp of approval. That being said, this recording is superb, and the reader sounds like a professional!

I have been able to find good authors to look up through Lilacs In Springtime blog. I went to her blog and clicked on the Books tag. 

A few authors I found through Sarah at Lilacs In Springtime are:

Amy Le Feurve

I really enjoyed The Carved Cupboard and Bulbs And Blossoms by her.

Grace Livingston Hill

I haven't listened to any of her books. From what I have heard, Grace Livingston Hill wrote good, clean, Christian love stories. I am not one who enjoys love stories, which is why I haven't listened to any of her books. If you like those kind of books you should give them a listen on Librivox.

Pansy

Pansy is the pen name for Isabella MacDonald Alder. She was a prolific writer of Christian fiction. There are numerous of her titles on Librivox.

A few other book lists that I have found helpful are:

Ambleside reading list

Robinson Curriculum reading list

The link for the Ambleside reading list is for a page that is for the Ambleside books that are on Librivox. It is a very handy page. Someone has already gone through the effort of linking all the audio books. You don't have to do your own searches for the recommended authors and titles. You can just click the links and they take you straight to the audio books on Librivox.

The Robinson Curriculum Reading List link takes you to a web page that contains a very long list of books. I like the Robinson Curriculum book suggestions. I find one I'd like to listen to on the list and then go look it up on Librivox. I think all the books on the Robinson book list are in the Public Domain.

And my final recommendation for places to look for ideas for books to listen to on Librivox is:

Lamplighter Publishing

Lamplighter publishes old Christian books that are in the Free Domain. You can search for some of their authors and titles on Librivox.

If you have any old authors with books in the public domain that you would recommend, please share them with the rest of us! I would love to hear any of your suggestions!