Free Audiobooks for Halloween

One of the great advances in enjoying literature in recent years is the audiobook. Pop in a tape or a CD, or load some MP3 files onto your MP3 player, and you can fill up time that would have been wasted in a commute with books ranging from the classics to recent best-sellers.

In fact, the only thing better than a good audiobook is... If you have been reading my Halloween articles, you know where I am going. I have already given you a list of free classical music for Halloween (here), 100 (actually, 101) free movies for Halloween (here), and a whole world of free old time radio (here). Most recently, I have given you a list of two dozen writers of spooky tales whose Halloween-appropriate books can be found on line for free (here).

So,for me the only thing better than a good audiobook is a good free audiobook. There is an amazing web site that allows you not only to download over 2,500 free audiobooks but also lets you volunteer to create free audiobooks.

Free audiobooks for Halloween from Librivox

Librivox (here) does indeed offer over 2,500 free audiobooks recorded by volunteers, and it also offers you (either alone or with your club, class, church, or family) the chance to volunteer to read aloud (more info). Since 2005, they have grown to an output of some fifty or more audiobooks a month. You can download their audiobooks, then enjoy them from your computer, burn them to CD or dump them to your MP3 player. Their listings are limited to works that are out of copyright, so, you will not find works by Anne Rice or Stephen King.

I am repeating my original list of twenty-four authors of scary books and stories (here) with links to listings of their free audiobooks on Librivox. Notice that two of them do not yet have a listing. Maybe that will inspire you go give us all a treat by recording some of their works. Learn how (here).

Find your free audiobooks for Halloween at Librivox

E.F. Benson [Librivox]
Ambrose Bierce [Librivox]
Algernon Blackwood [Librivox]
Robert W. Chambers [Librivox]
Charles Dickens [Librivox]
Lord Dunsany [Librivox]
Nikolai Gogol [Librivox]
Nathaniel Hawthorne [Librivox]
Lafacadio Hearn - nothing at Librivox; don't you want to volunteer?
W. W. Jacobs [Librivox]
Henry James [Librivox]
J. Sheridan Le Fanu [Librivox]

Find more free audiobooks for Halloween at Librivox

Matthew Gregory Lewis - nothing at Librivox; don't you want to volunteer?
H. P. Lovecraft [Librivox]
Arthur Machen [Librivox]
Charles Maturin [Librivox]
Oliver Onions [Librivox]
Edgar Allan Poe [Librivox]
Thomas Peckett [Preskett] Prest [Librivox]
Ann Radcliffe [Librivox]
Saki (H. H. Munro) [Librivox]
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [Librivox]
Bram Stoker [Librivox]
Horace Walpole [Librivox]

Free audio books at AudiobooksForFree.com - a note

I used to be a member of AudiobooksForFree.com. Although pleased with their products, I cannot include them in this list of free audiobooks. On their website, you will find a variety of ways to purchase their intriguing variety of MP3 audiobooks. You can join (as I did) and download as many audiobooks as you wish, or you can purchase/download individual titles. You can purchase an MP3 player or external hard drive with the books loaded, or you can buy them on discs.

And, yes, you can download them for free, but the free MP3 files (at 8 kbps) are, as they say themselves, "bearable quality." Do check the site, and perhaps even download some of these free "bearable" audiobooks, but to enjoy them, you are going to have to purchase, and so, although I am letting you know about this site, I am not including links to titles on it.

You may want to check these articles:

"Classical Music for Halloween: Fifty Pieces" (here)
"100 Halloween Movies for Free" (here)
"War of the Worlds: Free Old Time Radio for Halloween" (here)
"Free Books for Halloween" (here)