There are three free audiobook selections you can grab today, all three of which can be played on your Kindle (or PC or most MP3 players). The first one also includes the ebook, for those that like to read along as they listen.
Hard Times ($19.95 Amazon), by Charles Dickens, narrated by Simon Prebble, is the freebie this month from
Tantor Audio. While you are there, it might be time to stock up on a few other audiobooks, as you can use coupon code
AUG11 to get $40 off $80 in audiobooks (and purchases over $80 are apparently half price, for the amount over $80). You'll need an account at Tantor, even for the free download, but once you are logged in, the red banner above the title that says
Log in to download! will change and you click it to start the download. It is a fairly large download (325MB ZIP file, which includes the ebook and MP3 files for the audio), so if you have problems, I'd try again later at night or during the weekend. It looks like
Learn Out Loud also has the free download (but I don't know if it comes with the ebook and they are not having the same sale).
Book Description
Full of suspense, humor, and tenderness, Hard Times is a brilliant defense of art in an age of mechanism and a blistering portrait of Victorian England as it struggles with the massive economic turmoil brought on by the Industrial Revolution.
...
Red brick, machinery, and smoke-darkened chimneys. Reason, facts, and statistics. This is the world of Coketown, the depressed mill town that is the setting for one of Charles Dickens's most powerful and unforgettable novels.
The highest priority for Thomas Gradgrind, head of the Gradgrind model day school, is his version of education---feeding the mind while starving the soul and spirit. Inflexible and unyielding, he places conformity above curiosity and sense over sentiment...only to find himself betrayed by the very standards that govern his own unhappy life.
Hard Times is Dickens's scathing portrait of Victorian industrial society and its misapplied utilitarian philosophy. And Thomas Gradgrind is one of his most richly dimensional, memorable characters. Filled with the details and wonders of small-town life, Hard Times is also a daring novel of ideas---and ultimately a celebration of love, hope, and the limitless possibilities of the imagination.
The Ghosts of Ragged-Ass Gulch, by Bill Pronzini, narrated by Nick Sullivan, is free over at
Audible. Strangely enough, AudioGO is the publisher on this one, but I don't even see it on their website (but see below for a freebie from them).
Book Description
Ravaged by time and abandoned by the people who once flocked there in search of golden nuggets, Ragged-Ass Gulch is a ghost town. What’s left is a small, proud, and close pack of people who aren’t looking for change. But change seems to be afoot as several mysterious fires plague the town. That’s where the Nameless Detective comes in….
AudioGO is hosting a new free download everyday, on their
Comedy Page (click on the brown box on the right side that says
Get Your Free Daily Comedy Download). Today, it is
Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off, Series 1, Part 1: Sudan ($3.95 Amazon), but the selection will change every weekday, thru Aug 29. You'll need an account at AudioGo, but you should be able to register from any country and get the download. No credit card info should be needed, so long as you stick to their free selections.
Book Description
Meet Giles Wemmbley Hogg. 2ms, 2gs. Traveller, backpacker, ethnologist, fearless investigator of cultural diversity, connoisseur of all Eastern and Mystic philosophies, and upper middle-class student ponce from Budleigh Salterton.
In his gap year between school and University, Giles travels far and wide along the student trail from Beijing to Bolivia by way of Thailand and the North Pole. Each week, with his trusty portable DAT and his Charterhouse rugby shirt, Giles travels to far-off foreign lands, and records his adventures for the benefit of the Radio 4 listener. And each episode, he makes a thumping great prat of himself.
