Free Halloween Audiobooks

Two free Halloween audiobook downloads for you at Tantor Audio; both include an ebook edition with the download. I recommend you go ahead and log in at Tantor before adding them to your cart, as I had a bit of an issue with the 'temporary cart' transferring over after I logged in. Once you have both in your cart, confirm that your order total is $0.00 before clicking to place the order (only the audio downloads are free, not the CD or Audible versions). They are doing things a bit differently with the free download at Tantor this time around - you place a regular order and it ends up on your bookshelf. That way, you can grab it now and download it later if you have any issues (or want to listen to it again next year).

I've included a Kindle link for a free edition, as well, for those that prefer to have the ebook in your library there (but these are most likely scanned editions and may contain formatting or OCR errors).

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus ($20.99 $10.49 Audible; free download at Tantor; free on Kindle), by Mary Shelley, narrated by Simon Vance

Book Description
Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering "the cause of generation and life" and "bestowing animation upon lifeless matter," Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts. However, upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.

Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story but also raises profound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does it mean to be human? What responsibilities do we have to each other? And how far can we go in tampering with Nature?

Dracula ($25.19 $12.59 Audible; free download at Tantor; free on Kindle), by Bram Stoker, narrated by John Lee

Book Description
First published in 1897, Dracula by Bram Stoker has become the standard against which all other vampire stories are compared and the inspiration for countless film and stage adaptations. Indeed, the name "Dracula" has been synonymous with the undead for at least a century, and the original novel still has the power to chill.

Come then to Castle Dracula, hidden in the forbidding peaks of the Carpathian Mountains, where an undying creature of evil casts his sights on unsuspecting England. Voyage on the doomed ship Demeter as it carries a monster out of ancient superstition in search of new life and new blood. Tremble as first one woman, then another succumbs to the unholy thirst of the nosferatu, and as a small band of men and women, horrified by the supernatural forces arrayed against them, risk their lives and their very souls to oppose the evil known only as...Dracula.

14 Free Books from Vook (Kindle)

There are 14 new freebies from Vook today, including the Gluten-Free, Hassle-Free: Planning and Cooking Simple Gluten-Free Meals cookbook. Here's a search to find them all; I'll list them (here) in a bit.

1. Gluten-Free, Hassle-Free: Planning and Cooking Simple Gluten-Free Meals, by Marlisa Brown
2. Route of Death - The Last Sacrifice of WWII, by Bjorn Hagberg and Martin Widman
3. Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
4. The Tale of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter
5. The Poems of Walt Whitman, by Walt Whitman (repeat)
6. Even More Poems, by Walt Whitman (repeat)
7. Dracula, by Bram Stoker (repeat)
8. Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift (repeat)
9. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte (repeat)
10. A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (repeat)
11. The Republic, by Plato (repeat)
12. The Yosemite, by John Muir (repeat)
13. The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, by John Muir (repeat)
14. Walden, by Henry David Thoreau (repeat)

32 Free Books from Vook (Kindle)

Update: 10/2/11 Now free in the US, there are also a couple of extra titles that are US only, which I've added to the end of the list.

There is another batch of free books from Vook in the Kindle store. So far, these are only free for those in the UK, but should be free for US Kindle customers as well, by morning. All are Vook Classics (their own edited and published editions, not scans off of Google).

1. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (US/UK)
2. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (US/UK)
3. The Civilization of China by Herbert A. Giles (US/UK)
4. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (US/UK)
5. The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell (US/UK)
6. The Prince by Machiavelli (US/UK)
7. The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales by Mrs. Alfred Gatty (US/UK)
8. Studies of the Sierra by John Muir (US/UK)
9. Travels in Alaska by John Muir (US/UK)
10. The Yosemite by John Muir (US/UK)
11. The Mountains of California by John Muir (US/UK)
12. The Story of My Boyhood and Youth by John Muir (US/UK)
13. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (US/UK)
14. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (US/UK)
15. The Iliad by Homer (US/UK)
16. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (US/UK)
17. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (US/UK)
18. The Martyr of the Catacombs (A Tale of Ancient Rome) (US/UK)
19. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (US/UK)
20. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (US/UK)
21. The Art of War by Sun Tzu (US/UK)
22. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (US/UK)
23. The Game by Jack London (US/UK)
24. The Republic by Plato (US/UK)
25. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (US/UK)
26. Walden by Henry David Thoreau (US/UK)
27. Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill (US/UK)
28. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (US/UK)
29. The Time Machine by H.G.Wells (US/UK)
30. White Fang by Jack London (US/UK)
31. Ulysses by James Joyce (US only)
32. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy (US only)

Free Audiobooks - Storm Runners and The Cay

It's the final week of Audiobook Sync's summer of free audiobooks and they have lined up two winning selections. I've linked in the info from Amazon for each title (Amazon has the best reviews), then a link below to get your audio copies free. You can't get any titles that have been missed, but once they are loaded into Overdrive (which you will need to install, if you are not already using it for library books), they are yours to keep (there is no expiration date).

Storm Runners ($9.13 Hardcover; $17.49/$12.24 Audible), by Roland Smith, read by Ramón de Ocampo, Bronson Pinchot, Hillary Huber, John Morgan and Samantha Quan.

Book Description
The first in a middle-grade action-adventure series from Roland Smith!

Chase Masters and his father are "storm runners," racing across the country in pursuit of hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. Anywhere bad weather strikes, they are not far behind. Chase is learning more on the road than he ever would just sitting in a classroom. But when the hurricane of the century hits, he will be tested in ways he never could have imagined.

The Cay ($6.99 Kindle; $19.93/$13.95 Audible), by Theodore Taylor, read by Michael Boatman, is a classic children's novel about racism (with, of course, a lesson on why it is wrong).

Book Description
Phillip is excited when the Germans invade the small island of Curaçao. War has always been a game to him, and he’s eager to glimpse it firsthand–until the freighter he and his mother are traveling to the United States on is torpedoed.

When Phillip comes to, he is on a small raft in the middle of the sea. Besides Stew Cat, his only companion is an old West Indian, Timothy. Phillip remembers his mother’s warning about black people: “They are different, and they live differently.”

But by the time the castaways arrive on a small island, Phillip’s head injury has made him blind and dependent on Timothy.

With two great selections today, I'm surprised the site is running so fast (although, I did grab my copies before I let all of you know, so that could change!). In any case, if you can't get thru, be sure to try again tomorrow.

Click HERE to sign up for an account and get the free downloads. Don't forget, you'll also need to install the Overdrive software (there is a link at Sync). In addition, you end up clicking about three pages, for each book, before the audiobook actually downloads. Don't stop so long as you still see a button that talks about your Sync download (or until you see the Overdrive software open up). Once in Overdrive, you'll need to tell it where to save the files (just click OK to use the default location, since Overdrive will keep track of them for you), then again to actually start the download (by default, all parts of the book are downloaded; I would suggest not changing this in the last dialog box, just click on OK to get the download started).

Free Audiobooks - Immortal and Wuthering Heights

Audiobook Sync's summer of free audiobooks continues. First, I've linked in the info from Amazon for each title (Amazon has the best reviews), then a link below to get your audio copies free. You can't get any titles that have been missed, but once they are loaded into Overdrive (which you will need to install, if you are not already using it for library books), they are yours to keep (there is no expiration date).

Two new titles each Thursday, so be sure to check back next week.!

Immortal ($7.99 Kindle; $22.60/$15.82 Audible), by Gillian Shields, read by Emily Durante.

Book Description
Wyldcliffe Abbey School for Young Ladies, housed in a Gothic mansion on the bleak northern moors, is elite, expensive, and unwelcoming. When Evie Johnson is torn away from her home by the sea to become the newest scholarship student, she is more isolated than she could have dreamed. Strict teachers, snobbish students, and the oppressive atmosphere of Wyldcliffe leave Evie drowning in loneliness.

Evie's only lifeline is Sebastian, a rebellious, mocking, dangerously attractive young man she meets by chance. As Evie's feelings for Sebastian grow with each secret meeting, she starts to fear that he is hiding something about his past. And she is haunted by glimpses of a strange, ghostly girl—a girl who is so eerily like Evie, she could be a sister. Evie is slowly drawn into a tangled web of past and present that she cannot control. And as the extraordinary, elemental forces of Wyldcliffe rise up like the mighty sea, Evie is faced with an astounding truth about Sebastian, and her own incredible fate.

Gillian Shields's electrifying tale will dazzle readers with suspense, mysticism, and romance.

Wuthering Heights (free Kindle; $20.97/$14.68 Audible), by Emily Brontë, read by Carolyn Seymour.

Book Description
Wuthering Heights, first published in 1847, the year before the author's death at the age of thirty, endures today as perhaps the most powerful and intensely original novel in the English language. The epic story of Catherine and Heathcliff plays out against the dramatic backdrop of the wild English moors, and presents an astonishing metaphysical vision of fate and obsession, passion and revenge. "Only Emily Brontë," V. S. Pritchett said, "exposes her imagination to the dark spirit." And Virginia Woolf wrote, "Hers...is the rarest of all powers. She could free life from its dependence on facts...by speaking of the moor make the wind blow and the thunder roar."

Click HERE to sign up for an account and get the free downloads. Don't forget, you'll also need to install the Overdrive software (there is a link at Sync). In addition, you end up clicking about three pages, for each book, before the audiobook actually downloads. Don't stop so long as you still see a button that talks about your Sync download (or until you see the Overdrive software open up). Once in Overdrive, you'll need to tell it where to save the files (just click OK to use the default location, since Overdrive will keep track of them for you), then again to actually start the download (by default, all parts of the book are downloaded; I would suggest not changing this in the last dialog box, just click on OK to get the download started).

Free Audiobooks - Chanda's Secrets and Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Audiobook Sync's summer of free audiobooks continues. First, I've linked in the info from Amazon for each title (Amazon has the best reviews), then a link below to get your audio copies free. You can't get any titles that have been missed, but once they are loaded into Overdrive (which you will need to install, if you are not already using it for library books), they are yours to keep (there is no expiration date).

Two new titles each Thursday, so be sure to check back next week.!

Chanda's Secrets ($4.78 paperback; $19.95/$13.96 Audible), by Allan Stratton, read by Suzy Jackson.

Book Description
A girl's struggle amid the African AIDS pandemic.

"As soon as I get back from the shabeen, I go next door to see Mrs. Tafa. I have to ask to use her phone to let our relatives know about Sara. I'm nervous. Mrs. Tafa would like to run the world. Since she can't run the world she's decided to run our neighborhood."

So speaks sixteen-year-old Chanda, an astonishingly perceptive girl living in the small city of Bonang, a fictional city in Southern Africa.

While Mrs. Tafa's hijinks are often amusing, the fact is that Chanda's world is profoundly difficult. When her youngest sister dies, the first hint of HIV/AIDS emerges.

In this sensitive, swiftly-paced story readers will find echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird as Chanda must confront undercurrents of shame and stigma. Not afraid to explore the horrific realities of AIDS, Chanda's Secrets also captures the enduring strength of loyalty, friendship and family ties. Above all, it is a story about the corrosive nature of secrets and the healing power of truth.

Through the artful style of acclaimed author Stratton, the determination and resilience Chanda embodies will live on in readers' minds.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles (free Kindle; $62.99/$44.09 Audible), by Thomas Hardy, read by Anna Bentinck. This is a highly regarded narration of this classic.

Book Description
Etched against the background of a dying rural society, Tess of the d'Urbervilles was Thomas Hardy's 'bestseller,' and Tess Durbeyfield remains his most striking and tragic heroine. Of all the characters he created, she meant the most to him. Hopelessly torn between two men—Alec d'Urberville, a wealthy, dissolute young man who seduces her in a lonely wood, and Angel Clare, her provincial, moralistic, and unforgiving husband—Tess escapes from her vise of passion through a horrible, desperate act.

'Like the greatest characters in literature, Tess lives beyond the final pages of the book as a permanent citizen of the imagination,' said Irving Howe. 'In Tess he stakes everything on his sensuous apprehension of a young woman's life, a girl who is at once a simple milkmaid and an archetype of feminine strength. . . . Tess is that rare creature in literature: goodness made interesting.'

Click HERE to sign up for an account and get the free downloads. Don't forget, you'll also need to install the Overdrive software (there is a link at Sync). In addition, you end up clicking about three pages, for each book, before the audiobook actually downloads. Don't stop so long as you still see a button that talks about your Sync download (or until you see the Overdrive software open up). Once in Overdrive, you'll need to tell it where to save the files (just click OK to use the default location, since Overdrive will keep track of them for you), then again to actually start the download (by default, all parts of the book are downloaded; I would suggest not changing this in the last dialog box, just click on OK to get the download started).

Free Audiobook - Common Sense

FreeAudio.org and Learn Out Loud have banded together to offer a free audiobook edition of Common Sense, by Thomas Paine.

Book Description
Common Sense is perhaps the work single most responsible for the American Revolution. It brought the idea of freedom and liberty down from the intellectuals to the common American colonist. Written by Thomas Paine and published January 10th, 1776, it was the first publication to openly ask for independence from Britain.

When it was released, it was an instant best seller. Most every literate colonist was very familiar with it. In fact, it sold an amazing 600,000 copies to a population of only three million. Of the three million colonists at the time, twenty percent were slaves and fifty percent were indentured servants. For the colonies as a whole, it provided a rallying cry uniting the colonists in the common cause of liberty.

There probably is no other document that served such a vital role in creating American independence than Common Sense. Common Sense was used by Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence and helped George Washington decide for succession. Many of the founding documents rely on it and without it, history would have no doubt played out vastly differently.

If you are at all interested in American history or the cause of freedom, take the time to listen to Common Sense.

Click HERE for the free audiobook from Learn Out Loud (MP3 and MPEG-4).
Click HERE to download the MP3 files directly from FreeAudio.org.

Free Audiobooks - The Last Apprentice and Beowulf

Audiobook Sync's summer of free audiobooks continues. First, I've linked in the info from Amazon for each title (Amazon has the best reviews), then a link below to get your audio copies free. You can't get any titles that have been missed, but once they are loaded into Overdrive (which you will need to install, if you are not already using it for library books), they are yours to keep (there is no expiration date).

Two new titles each Thursday, so be sure to check back next week.!

Beowulf ($8.51 Kindle; $12.59 Audible), by Francis B. Gummere (Translator), read by Rosalyn Landor.

Book Description
The national bestseller and winner of the Whitbread Award. Composed toward the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the classic Northern epic of a hero’s triumphs as a young warrior and his fated death as a defender of his people. The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on, physically and psychically exposed in the exhausted aftermath. It is not hard to draw parallels in this story to the historical curve of consciousness in the twentieth century, but the poem also transcends such considerations, telling us psychological and spiritual truths that are permanent and liberating.

The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch ($7.99 paperback; $21.27 Audible), by Joseph Delaney, read by Christopher Evan Welch. Some of you may have managed to snag the free pre-order on Kindle for this series (it should release August 2, 2011, but is currently MIA in the Kindle store), but even if you didn't, this looks to be a great listen (perhaps one of the best of the free titles planned for this summer).

Book Description
Warning: Not to be listened to after dark.

For years, Old Gregory has been the Spook for the county, ridding the local villages of evil. Now his time is coming to an end. But who will take over for him? Twenty-nine apprentices have tried: some floundered, some fled, some failed to stay alive.

Only Thomas Ward is left. He's the last hope; the last apprentice. Can Thomas succeed? Will he learn the difference between a benign witch and a malevolent one? Does the Spook's warning against girls with pointy shoes include Alice? And what will happen if Thomas accidentally frees Mother Malkin, the most evil witch in the county?

Click HERE to sign up for an account and get the free downloads. Don't forget, you'll also need to install the Overdrive software (there is a link at Sync). In addition, you end up clicking about three pages, for each book, before the audiobook actually downloads. Don't stop so long as you still see a button that talks about your Sync download (or until you see the Overdrive software open up). Once in Overdrive, you'll need to tell it where to save the files (just click OK to use the default location, since Overdrive will keep track of them for you), then again to actually start the download (by default, all parts of the book are downloaded; I would suggest not changing this in the last dialog box, just click on OK to get the download started).

Four Free Books from Copia (EPUB)

There are four new free books from Copia today, all of which should be in EPUB format (you have to download first to your Copia reader app). All are classics, but I don't see a free version on Kindle (three have Rosetta Books editions). If you have any problems with the Buy Now button wanting payment, try adding all four to your cart, then using checkout from the cart - this seems to bypass that screen (and is what I had to do for three of the books; I am also having a problem downloading those three books, but am fairly certain that Copia will straighten it out soon and they are in my library until then).

The Borgias ($1.99 or more, various editions), by Alexandre Dumas (Copia link)

Book Description
CELEBRATED CRIMES Vol I, Part 1: The Borgias

There are dreadful -- perhaps scurrilous -- rumors about the Borgias of renaissance Italy, and here Dumas, author of such classics as THE THREE MUSKETEERS, in his Celebrated Crimes series, dishes up the dirt in all its ugly glory. This book was not written for children. Dumas has minced no words in describing the violent scenes of a violent time. In some instances facts appear distorted out of their true perspective, and in others the author makes unwarranted charges. The careful, mature reader -- for whom the books are intended -- will recognize and allow for this fact.

The House of Dr. Edwardes ($4.49), by Francis Beeding (Copia link)

Book Description
The basis for Hitchcock’s masterpiece Spellbound, Francis Beeding’s The House of Dr. Edwardes is a chilling mystery set in an asylum in France. A study of good and evil that owes some of its brooding, portentous atmosphere to the Gothic fiction of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Beeding’s novel is also a classic page-turner, a gripping work of suspense and intrigue.

Mute Witness ($7.19), by Robert L. Fish (Copia link)

Book Description
A slimy district attorney, an assortment of inept police officers, an underworld boss turned snitch, and the hardboiled lieutenant charged with protecting him until his trial make up the cast of characters of Robert Fish’s hair-raising 1963 novel Mute Witness. For Lieutenant Clancy of the New York Police Department, the assignment of protecting mobster Johnny Rossi soon turns into an investigation into who wants him dead and why. The inspiration for the Steve McQueen film, Bullitt, Mute Witness is a classic.

The Wheel Spins ($4.49), by Ethel White (Copia link)

Book Description
One of the Iris Carr's companions in coach, a sweet old woman, suddenly disappears on long train ride and none of the other passengers has ever even heard of her. Iris's increasingly desperate search uncovers a web of danger and intrigue. Basis of one of Hitchcock's most famous films, THE LADY VANISHES, (1938, England) with British cast headed by Michael Redgrave.

Free Audiobooks - Where The Streets Had A Name and A Passage to India

Audiobook Sync's summer of free audiobooks continues. First, I've linked in the info from Amazon for each title (Amazon has the best reviews), then a link below to get your audio copies free. You can't get any titles that have been missed, but once they are loaded into Overdrive (which you will need to install, if you are not already using it for library books), they are yours to keep (there is no expiration date). The web site is running a bit slow this morning (at least, the script to give you the download link is), so be patient -- it will eventually get past the login portion and display a link.

Two new titles each Thursday, so be sure to check back next week.!

Where The Streets Had A Name ($12.23 paperback; $8.90 Kindle in Australia only; $77.95 Audio CD), by Randa Abdel-Fattah, read by Kellie Jones.

Book Description
Thirteen year old Hayaat is on a mission. She believes a handful of soil from her grandmother's ancestral home in Jerusalem will save her beloved Sitti Zeynab's life. The only problem is that Hayaat and her family live behind the impenetrable wall that divides the West Bank, and they're on the wrong side of check points, curfews, and the travel permit system. Plus, Hayaat's best friend Samy always manages to attract trouble. But luck is on the pair's side as they undertake the journey to Jerusalem from the Palestinian Territories when Hayaat and Samy have a curfew-free day to travel.

But while their journey may only be a few kilometers long, it could take a lifetime to complete. . . .

Humorous and heartfelt, WHERE THE STREETS HAD A NAME deals with the Israel-Palestinian conflict with sensitivity and grace and will open a window on this timely subject.

A Passage to India ($8.71 paperback; $0.00 Kindle; $26.30 Audible), by E. M. Forster, read by Sam Dastor.

Book Description
Among the greatest novels of the twentieth century and the basis for director David Lean’s Academy Award-winning film, A Passage to India tells of the clash of cultures in British India after the turn of the century. In exquisite prose, Forster reveals the menace that lurks just beneath the surface of ordinary life, as a common misunderstanding erupts into a devastating affair.

Eager to know the "real" India, a group of English tourists develops a friendship with the cultivated Dr. Aziz. The veneer of trust and mutual affection is shattered during a trip to the Marabar caves, when one of the women accuses Dr. Aziz of assault. Arguably Forster's greatest novel, A Passage to India paints a troubling portrait of colonialism at its worst and, in the breach between Aziz and his English "friends," foreshadows the end of British rule in India.

Click HERE to sign up for an account and get the free downloads. Don't forget, you'll also need to install the Overdrive software (there is a link at Sync). In addition, you end up clicking about three pages, for each book, before the audiobook actually downloads. Don't stop so long as you still see a button that talks about your Sync download (or until you see the Overdrive software open up). Once in Overdrive, you'll need to tell it where to save the files (just click OK to use the default location, since Overdrive will keep track of them for you), then again to actually start the download (by default, all parts of the book are downloaded; I would suggest not changing this in the last dialog box, just click on OK to get the download started).

Free Audiobooks - Little Brother and The Trial

Audiobook Sync's summer of free audiobooks continues. First, I've linked in the info from the ebook or audiobook version of each title (Amazon has the best reviews), then a link to get your copies free. You can't get any titles that have been missed, but once they are loaded into Overdrive (which you will need to install, if you are not already using it for library books), they are yours to keep (there is no expiration date). Two new titles each Thursday, so be sure to check back next week.!

Little Brother ($9.99 Kindle; $31.68 Audible), by Cory Doctorow, read by Kirby Heyborne.

Book Description
Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

The Trial ($9.99 Kindle; $28.95 Audio CD), by Franz Kafka, read by Rupert Degas.

Book Description
Someone must have been telling tales about Josef K. for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.

A successful professional man wakes up one morning to find himself under arrest for an offence which is never explained. The mysterious court which conducts his trial is outwardly co-operative, but capable of horrific violence. Faced with this ambiguous authority, Josef K. gradually succumbs to its psychological pressure. He consults various advisers without escaping his fate. Was there some way out that he failed to see? Kafka's unfinished novel has been read as a study of political power, a pessimistic religious parable, or a crime novel where the accused man is himself the problem.

One of the iconic figures of modern world literature, Kafka writes about universal problems of guilt, responsibility, and freedom; he offers no solutions, but provokes his readers to arrive at meanings of their own. This new edition includes the fragmentary chapters that were omitted from the main text, in a translation that is both natural and exact, and an introduction that illuminates the novel and its author.

Click HERE to sign up for an account and get the free downloads. Don't forget, you'll also need to install the Overdrive software (there is a link at Sync). In addition, you end up clicking about three pages, for each book, before the audiobook actually downloads. Don't stop so long as you still see a button that talks about your Sync download (or until you see the Overdrive software open up). Once in Overdrive, you'll need to tell it where to save the files (just click OK to use the default location, since Overdrive will keep track of them for you), then again to actually start the download (by default, all parts of the book are downloaded; I would suggest not changing this in the last dialog box, just click on OK to get the download started).

Free Audiobook - The Wind in the Willows

Until midnight in the UK, you can get a free audiobook edition (abridged) of the children's classic The Wind in the Willows ($4.74 Kindle; $19.95 unabridged audiobook), by Kenneth Grahame, read by Sir Derek Jacobi, from AudioGo (a division of the BBC). You will need an account with a billing address, but don't need to add any credit card info.

Book Description
The enchanting tale of Ratty, Mole, Badger and Toad, read by Emmy Award winner Sir Derek Jacobi.

When Mole goes boating with the Water Rat instead of spring-cleaning, he discovers a new world. As well as the river and the Wild Wood, there is Toad's craze for fast travel and motor-cars that leads them all on a timeless adventure.

Click HERE for the free audiobook. There are numerous editions of this classic in the Kindle store (including the illustrated one from Puffin Classics linked in above), or you can skip over to MobileRead's archives and get a version in most formats (all DRM-free).
Illustrated:

• Mobi
• LRF
• IMP

Original text only:

• LRF
• PDF optimized for Sony displays

Free Audiobooks - Shiver and Romeo & Juliet

Audiobook Sync is once again giving away audiobooks aimed at young adults during the summer. There are two new ones each week, so you have to keep checking back. You can't get any titles that have been missed, but once they are loaded into Overdrive (which you will need to install, if you are not already using it for library books), they are yours to keep (there is no expiration date). Two new titles each Thursday!

First, I've linked in the info from the ebook or audiobook version of each title (Amazon has the best reviews), then a link to get your copies free.

BBC Radio Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet (Dramatized) ($11.95 Audible), by William Shakespeare, narrated by Douglas Henshall, Sophie Dahl, Susannah York and the Full Cast.

Book Description
BBC Radio has a unique heritage when it comes to Shakespeare. Since 1923, when the newly formed company broadcast its first full-length play, generations of actors and producers have honed and perfected the craft of making Shakespeare to be heard.

With the intimacy of radio the full beauty and meaning of some of the most lyrical lines ever written can be truly heard: tenderness and passion, betrayal and bigotry are brilliantly evoked as the tale comes to its tragic conclusion.

Revitalised, original, and comprehensive, this is Shakespeare for the new millennium.

Shiver ($8.54 Kindle), by Maggie Stiefvater, is the first in her Wolves of Mercy Falls series.

Book Description
For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf--her wolf--is a chilling presence she can't seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again.

Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It's her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human--or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

Click HERE to sign up for an account and get the free downloads. Don't forget, you'll also need to install the Overdrive software (there is a link at Sync). In addition, you end up clicking about three pages, for each book, before the audiobook actually downloads. Don't stop so long as you still see a button that talks about your Sync download (or until you see the Overdrive software open up). Once in Overdrive, you'll need to tell it where to save the files (just click OK to use the default location, since Overdrive will keep track of them for you), then again to actually start the download (by default, all parts of the book are downloaded; I would suggest not changing this in the last dialog box, just click on OK to get the download started).

Free Audiobook - The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Tantor Audio has a new free download this month: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. They are also having a 50% off sale on their site to celebrate Audiobook Month -- to make things simple, they just marked down every title on the site, including the CD's (not just MP3 downloads) and pre-orders!

Book Description
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes are overshadowed by the event with which they close---the meeting of the great detective and Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime. When "The Final Problem" was first published, the struggle between Holmes and his arch nemesis, seemingly to the death, left many readers desolate at the loss of Holmes, but it also led to his immortality as a literary figure. The stories that precede it included two narratives from Holmes himself---on a mutiny at sea and a treasure hunt in a Sussex country house---as well as a meeting with his brilliant brother Mycroft.

Included in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes are "Silver Blaze," "The Yellow Face," "The Stock-Broker's Clerk," "The 'Gloria Scott,'" "The Musgrave Ritual," "The Reigate Puzzle," "The Crooked Man," "The Resident Patient," "The Greek Interpreter," "The Naval Treaty," and "The Final Problem."

Click HERE to get the free download from Tantor. You'll need to log in before you see a download button; once you do, return to this same page and refresh - you should now see "CLICK HERE" where it did say "Log in to Download" (in red, above the title). You won't get the companion PDF ebook with the free download, but you can pick this classic book up free in the Kindle store (and elsewhere), if you like to read along.

Free Book (PDF) - Little Caesar

Little Caesar ($7.99 Kindle), by W.R. Burnett, is free in DRM'd PDF format over on Copia.

Book Description
The savage chronicle of a gangland boss's odyssey toward power and destruction in the savage Chicago underworld of the 1920's. Burnett's criminous short story, DRESSING UP, won the O. Henry First Prize in 1929. Edward G. Robinson made a landmark role of his portrayal in the film adaptation.

Click HERE to get the free book from Copia. Make sure it still says "Your Price: $0.00" before clicking on Buy Now (don't use the cart, it doesn't show up as free). You'll need an account there, if you don't have one already, and the Copia reader to download the books (this is a requirement, no way around it). Once downloaded, though, you can move the books into Adobe ADE or onto your EPUB ereader.

Free Books (nook) - Secret Garden

Barnes and Noble is giving away two versions of the classic Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, as this week's Free Friday nookBook. First, the Classic Starts illustrated edition (cover shown here), which is only available as a $5.95 paperback from Amazon. Second, their annotated Barnes & Noble Classics series edition (which has previously been free at B&N.

The Secret Garden (Classic Starts Series), by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Lucy Corvino (Illustrator), Abridged by Martha Hailey DuBose and Arthur Pober (Afterword)

Expertly retold to appeal to second to fourth graders, as well as older reluctant readers, each of the beautiful, high-quality books in the Classic Starts series is a literary treasure.

Secret Garden (Barnes & Noble Classics Series), by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Jill Muller

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras.

Though Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote more than forty books, none remains so popular as her miraculous and magical masterpiece, The Secret Garden. Has any story ever dared to begin by calling its heroine, the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen and, just a few sentences later, as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived? Mary Lennoxis the little pig, sent to Misselthwaite Manor, on the Yorkshire moors, to live with her uncle after her parents die of cholera. There she discovers her sickly cousin Colin, who is equally obnoxious and imperious. Both love no one because they have never been loved. They are the book s spiritual secret gardens, needing only the right kind of care to bloom into lovely children.

Mary also discovers a literal secret garden, hidden behind a locked gate on her uncle s estate, neglected for the ten years since Colin s birth and his mother s death. Together with a local child named Dickon, Mary and Colin transform the garden into a paradise bursting with life and color. Through their newfound mutual love of nature, they nurture each other, until they are brought back to health and happiness.

With Charles Robinson's original illustrations.

Jill Muller was born in England and educated at Mercy College and Columbia University. She currently teaches at Mercy College and Columbia University. She is the author of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Victorian Catholicism, in addition to articles on Joyce, Newman, Hopkins, and the medieval women mystics.

Free Audiobook - Walden

For Earth Day, Tantor Audio is giving away the unabridged audiobook of Walden ($6.41 Kindle), by Henry David Thoreau, narrated by Mel Foster. The download is a huge zip file containing the book in MP3 format (compatible with Kindle), in 20 parts.

Book Description
Walden is the classic account of two years spent by Henry David Thoreau living at Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. The story is detailed in its accounts of Thoreau's day-to-day activities, observations, and undertakings to survive out in the wilderness for two years. Thoreau's journal is an exquisite account of a man seeking a more simple life by living in harmony with nature. In today's fast-paced consumer-driven society, the austere lifestyle endorsed by Thoreau is as relevant and refreshing as ever.

Click HERE to get the free download. If you don't already have an account with Tantor, you'll need to create one (no credit card info is required to set up the account).

Update: The link at Tantor is now for a streaming listen only. However, you can still get the audiobook free at Learn Out Loud, HERE.

Free Book (nook) - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass

The Barnes & Noble Classics Series edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, with commentary by Tan Lin, is currently free at B&N (of course).

Book Description
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

• New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
• Biographies of the authors
• Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
• Footnotes and endnotes
• Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
• Comments by other famous authors
• Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
• Bibliographies for further reading
• Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

First published in 1865, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was an immediate success, as was its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. Carroll’s sense of the absurd and his amazing gift for games of logic and language have secured for the Alice books an enduring spot in the hearts of both adults and children.

Alice begins her adventures when she follows the frantically delayed White Rabbit down a hole into the magical world of Wonderland, where she meets a variety of wonderful creatures, including Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Cheshire Cat, the hookah-smoking Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, and the Queen of Hearts—who, with the help of her enchanted deck of playing cards, tricks Alice into playing a bizarre game of croquet. Alice continues her adventures in Through the Looking-Glass, which is loosely based on a game of chess and includes Carroll’s famous poem “Jabberwocky.”

Throughout her fantastic journeys, Alice retains her reason, humor, and sense of justice. She has become one of the great characters of imaginative literature, as immortal as Don Quixote, Huckleberry Finn, Captain Ahab, Sherlock Holmes, and Dorothy Gale of Kansas.

Tan Lin is a writer, artist, and critic. He is the author of two books of poetry, Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe and IDM.

Click HERE for the free book from B&N.

More Free Classics from B&N (nook)

More free classics from B&N, all in the same Barnes & Noble Classics Series as the ones I posted earlier.

Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
One of the greatest heroes in American literature, Natty Bumppo is the rugged frontiersman of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five novels that includes The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer. Although the final volume to be written, The Deerslayer is the first in the chronology of Natty Bumppo’s life, depicting the character as a young man testing himself in the wilderness, and against enemies, for the first time.

Set in the 1740’s just as the French and Indian wars have begun, the novel opens as Natty Bumppo—known as Deerslayer—and his friend Hurry Harry travel to Tom Hutter’s house in upstate New York. Hurry plans to marry Tom’s beautiful daughter Judith, while Deerslayer has come to help his close friend Chingachgook save his bride-to-be, Wah-ta-Wah, from the Huron Indians. When war breaks out, and Hurry and Tom are captured by Indians, Deerslayer must go on his first warpath to rescue them.

One of the earliest novels to be considered truly “American," The Deerslayer is a masterpiece of suspense, adventure, and romance.

Moby-Dick (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
On a previous voyage, a mysterious white whale had ripped off the leg of a sea captain named Ahab. Now the crew of the Pequod, on a pursuit that features constant adventure and horrendous mishaps, must follow the mad Ahab into the abyss to satisfy his unslakeable thirst for vengeance. Narrated by the cunningly observant crew member Ishmael, Moby-Dick is the tale of the hunt for the elusive, omnipotent, and ultimately mystifying white whale—Moby Dick.

On its surface, Moby-Dick is a vivid documentary of life aboard a nineteenth-century whaler, a virtual encyclopedia of whales and whaling, replete with facts, legends, and trivia that Melville had gleaned from personal experience and scores of sources. But as the quest for the whale becomes increasingly perilous, the tale works on allegorical levels, likening the whale to human greed, moral consequence, good, evil, and life itself. Who is good? The great white whale who, like Nature, asks nothing but to be left in peace? Or the bold Ahab who, like scientists, explorers, and philosophers, fearlessly probes the mysteries of the universe? Who is evil? The ferocious, man-killing sea monster? Or the revenge-obsessed madman who ignores his own better nature in his quest to kill the beast?

Scorned by critics upon its publication, Moby-Dick was publicly derided during its author’s lifetime. Yet Melville’s masterpiece has outlived its initial misunderstanding to become an American classic of unquestionably epic proportions.

Includes an extensive Dictionary of Sea Terms (37 pages).

My Bondage and My Freedom (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
A richer, deeper, and far more ambiguous work than the earlier Narrative, My Bondage and My Freedom reveals Douglass’s increased intellectual sophistication and maturity. In the decade that had elapsed since Douglass wrote Narrative, he had broken away from his antislavery mentors, successfully toured England, and established himself as an inspired speaker and writer. With the publication of My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855, Douglass became the country’s foremost spokesman for American blacks—free and enslaved—during the tense and politically charged years preceding the Civil War.

One of the highlights of My Bondage and My Freedom is the appendix, which contains excerpts from several of Douglass’s speeches, including perhaps his most famous, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”

O Pioneers! (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
"The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman," writes Willa Cather in O Pioneers! The country is America; the woman is Alexandra Bergson, a fiercely independent young Swedish immigrant girl who inherits her father’s farm in Nebraska. A model of emotional strength, courage, and resolve, Alexandra fights long and hard to transform her father’s patch of raw, wind-blasted prairie into a highly profitable business.

A gripping saga of love, murder, greed, failure, and triumph, O Pioneers! vividly portrays the hardships of prairie life. Above all, it champions the belief that hard work is the surest road to personal fulfillment. Described upon publication in The New York Times as “American in the best sense of the word,” O Pioneers! celebrates the men and women who struggled to build a nation that is both compelling and contradictory.

Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
Perhaps the best-loved nineteenth-century American novel, Mark Twain’s tale of boyhood adventure overflows with comedy, warmth, and slapstick energy. It brings to life and array of irresistible characters—the awesomely self-confident Tom, his best buddy Huck Finn, indulgent Aunt Polly, and the lovely, beguiling Becky—as well as such unforgettable incidents as whitewashing a fence, swearing an oath in blood, and getting lost in a dark and labyrinthine cave. Below Tom Sawyer’s sunny surface lurk hints of a darker reality, of youthful innocence and naïveté confronting the cruelty, hypocrisy, and foolishness of the adult world—a theme that would become more pronounced in Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Despite such suggestions, Tom Sawyer remains Twain’s joyful ode to the endless possibilities of childhood.

Age of Innocence (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s masterful portrait of desire and betrayal during the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people “dreaded scandal more than disease.”

This is Newland Archer’s world as he prepares to marry the beautiful but conventional May Welland. But when the mysterious Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a disastrous marriage, Archer falls deeply in love with her. Torn between duty and passion, Archer struggles to make a decision that will either courageously define his life—or mercilessly destroy it.

Awakening and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
When it first appeared in 1899, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening was greeted with cries of outrage. The novel’s frank portrayal of a woman’s emotional, intellectual, and sexual awakening shocked the sensibilities of the time and destroyed the author’s reputation and career. Many years passed before this short, pioneering work was recognized as a major achievement in American literature.

Set in and around New Orleans, The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother who, determined to control her own life, flouts convention by moving out of her husband’s house, having an adulterous affair, and becoming an artist.

Beautifully written, with sensuous imagery and vivid local descriptions, The Awakening has lost none of its power to provoke and inspire. Additionally, this edition includes thirteen of Kate Chopin’s magnificent short stories.

Stories Included in the Volume:
The Awakening Emancipation: A Life Fable A Shameful Affair At the ‘Cadian Ball Désirée’s Baby A Gentleman of Bayou Têche A Respectable Woman The Story of an Hour Athénaïse A Pair of Silk Stockings Elizabeth Stock’s One Story The Storm The Godmother A Little Country Girl

Common Sense and Other Writings (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
Though he did not emigrate from England to the American colonies until 1774, just a few months before the Revolutionary War began, Thomas Paine had an enormous impact on that war and the new nation that emerged from it. Common Sense, the instantly popular pamphlet he published in January 1776, argued that the goal of the struggle against the British should be not simply tax reform, as many were calling for, but complete independence. His rousing, radical voice was balanced by the equally independence-minded but more measured tones of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence later that year.

In later works, such as The Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, and other selections included in this volume, Paine proved himself a visionary moralist centuries ahead of his time. He believed that every human has the natural right to life’s necessities and that government’s role should be to provide for those in dire need. An impassioned opponent of all forms of slavery, he understood that no one in poverty is truly free, a lesson still to be learned by many of our leaders today.

The Souls of Black Folk (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
The first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University, Du Bois was a sociologist, historian, novelist, and activist whose astounding career spanned the nation’s history from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement. In The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903, Du Bois argued against the conciliatory position taken by Booker T. Washington, at the time the most influential black leader in America, and called for a more radical form of aggressive protest—a strategy that would anticipate and inspire much of the activism of the 1960s.

Du Bois’s essays were the first to articulate many of Black America’s thoughts and feelings, including the dilemma posed by the black psyche’s “double consciousness,” which Du Bois described as “this twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings . . . in one dark body.” Every essay in The Souls of Black Folk is a jewel of intellectual prowess, eloquent language, and groundbreaking insight. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the struggle for Civil Rights in America.

Virginian (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
The Virginian's characters include: The hero, tall, taciturn, and unflappable, confident in his skills, careful of his honor, mysterious in his background; the heroine, the “schoolmarm from the East,” dedicated to civilizing the untamed town, but willing to adapt to its ways—up to a point; and the villain, who is a liar, a thief, a killer, and worst of all, a coward beneath his bluster. Its setting—the lonely small town in the midst of the vast, empty, dangerous but overwhelmingly beautiful landscape—plays so crucial a role that it may be regarded as one of the primary characters. And its action—the cattle roundup, the capture of the rustlers, the agonizing moral choices demanded by “western justice,” and the climactic shoot-out between hero and villain—shaped the plots of the thousands of books and movies that followed.

Free Book (nook) - This Side of Paradise

The Barnes & Noble Classics Series edition of This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sharon G. Carson, is free at B&N tonight. Their editions generally sell for $2-$4, but are occasionally offered as free downloads.

Biography
Inseparably associated with a point in history he claimed to despise, F. Scott Fitzgerald is both the quintessential Jazz-Age writer and perhaps the era s harshest critic. However, the complexity and sheer timelessness of classics such as The Great Gatsby has ensured that Fitzgerald s work will never be regarded as mere period pieces.

Book Description
This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

• New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
• Biographies of the authors
• Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
• Footnotes and endnotes
• Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
• Comments by other famous authors
• Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
• Bibliographies for further reading
• Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

If the “Roaring Twenties” are remembered as the era of“flaming youth,” it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who lit the fire. His semi-autobiographical first novel, This Side of Paradise, became an instant best-seller and established an image of seemingly carefree, party-mad young men and women out to create a new morality for a new, post-war America. It traces the early life of Amory Blaine from the end of prep school through Princeton to the start of an uncertain career in New York City.

Alternately self-confident and self-effacing, torn between ambition and idleness, the self-absorbed, immature Amory yearns to run with Princeton’s rich, fast crowd and become one of the “gods” of the campus. Hopelessly romantic, he learns about love and sex from a series of beautiful young “flappers,” women who leave him both exhilarated and devastated. Fitzgerald describes it all in intensely lyrical prose that fills the novel with a heartbreaking sense of longing, as Amory comes to understand that the sweet-scented springtime of his life is fragile and fleeting, disappearing into memory even as he reaches for it.

Sharon G. Carson is Professor Emerita in the English Department at Kent State University, where she has taught for thirty-five years. She is the author of numerous articles and essays on modern and contemporary fiction.