Want a good book for a long car ride? Like to listen to fiction while doing your laundry?
Check out these tips for finding free audiobooks on the web and in local libraries.
Audiobooks available in the library:
Audiobooks (on cd and cassette) in Lilly
These books are in Locked Media–bring the call number to the Lilly desk.
Audiobooks in Ford library
These have a 1-week loan period.
Audiobooks outside of Duke’s libraries
For more extensive collections, check out your local public libraries:
Chapel Hill residents (requires a Chapel Hill Public Library card):
Download audiobooks from the NC Digital Library here.
Durham residents (requires a Durham County Library card):
Download audiobooks from Overdrive here.
You may need to contact the library for your ‘PIN’, but it should be the last 4 digits of the telephone # you used to get your library card.
**Unfortunately, these downloadable books are not compatible with iPods.**
Both Chapel Hill & Durham also have collections of Books on CD & cassette on-site.
Free audiobooks are available from the following sites. These include mostly books that are in the public domain (published before 1923, roughly): librivox.org, audiobooks.org, and Project Gutenberg.
There’s always the option of podcasts, too! Like this ‘podiocast’ site for serialized fiction: podiobooks.com. Free podcasts (and not-so-free audiobooks) are also available from commercial sites like, iTunes, Audible.com and Amazon.
Written by Hannah Rozear
Comment: If you have the time you can burn the disks on your computer and and label each disk 1, 2, 3 and so on,then loadon your mp3 player and then you can listen off your mp3 player so the whole family doesn’t haven’t to listen also
audio books always have been a great way for me to understand things. Driving in the car, learning as i go has always been easier. Thanks for this information.
I agree with John, audio books makes it convenient to learn in the car. Also helpful for putting on the ipod and listening to it while on the train or going for a run.
One of my favorite things about audiobooks is that you can enjoy a book with out getting car sick. I don’t know what it is with me and reading a book in the car but it always happens. I also like audio books because if you have them on your ipod you can take them anywhere. Plus it’s a lot easer carrying my ipod around with 3 audiobooks on it then carrying 3 books
I don’t even try to read in the car. Definitely makes me dizzy. Much easier to close your eyes, put your head back, and listen to a good audiobook.