Free audiobooks

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Project Gutenberg has joined up with Microsoft to make thousands of free audiobooks using modern ‘text to speech’ technology.

Since 1971, Project Gutenberg has compiled a wide range of copyright free ebooks in many formats. Now Microsoft has used its neural text-to-speech technology to convert the books into natural sounding audiobooks.

We’ve listened to a few and they sound good, if not amazing compared to what was possible only a few years ago. Though a human reader would still be better able to give the right emphasis

Get the free audiobooks

The audiobooks are now available from ‘the usual suspects’ like Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Or check out the whole list... Click on any link to play or right-click and ‘Save As  ...’ to save as a MP3 file.

Choose a different voice, accent or speed

The Microsoft made audiobooks are very good but there’s no choice of voice. If you prefer a different voice (male/female), accent (US, UK, Aussie etc.) or reading speed, try this.

Get the text of an ebook from Project Gutenberg and paste into a Word document. For example, Anna Karenina

Select the HTML5 format then Select All (Ctrl + A) and copy (Ctrl + C). Switch to a blank Word document and paste (Ctrl + V). For a large ebook, wait while Word 'swallows' it all <g>.

The browser 'Read Aloud' alternative

Depending on your browser, you might not need to use Word at all. Check your browser for a 'Read Aloud' feature. Microsoft Edge has 'Read Aloud' on the right-click menu, check under 'Voice options' to choose a voice and accent.