Back in the 1930’s, the US Congress legislated the "talking-book program" keeping the needs of the blinds in the centre of attention. Clearly, the intention of the legislation was to facilitate the blinds’ access to knowledge and information more. With time the idea of this talking-book curved its place among the common mass as audiobook – "recording of the contents of a book read aloud". Though earlier audio cassettes were the sole medium of audiobooks, the invention of CDs gave audiobooks a big thrive. Later, faster internet technology coupled with varied compressed audio formats and portable audio players have given the biggest impetus to the audiobook industry and a solid popularity.

Now, of late, downloadable audiobooks are the best choice among all the alternatives available. And you can avail these just sitting at home and they can be converted to any major media format you wish. And there are a good number of sites that offer free audiobooks. Besides taking these free downloadable audiobooks over to your MP3 or iPod, you can also burn CDs and make as many copies as you need. In addition to the internet, many libraries are also offering audiobooks free download and downloading free audiobooks from libraries is particularly worthwhile when you are looking for some particular category that the library is rich in. Most libraries usually have a diverse collection of research and non-fiction free downloadable audiobooks and the formats of the free audiobooks they offer are no different from those of the free audiobook download websites.

Some of the free audiobooks are read by computer voice which you’ll find to be a bit distorted and thus less intelligible when you transfer them to other devices from your PC. So, make sure that you choose the audiobook produced by a real person’s voice when there’s an option. One other thing you should be aware of is that most of the sites offering free downloadable audiobooks would ask you to register with them and provide your personal information. Many of the not-so-reputable sites may sell the database of personal information to other online websites and this may severely add up to your junk mail. Besides, some sites may also generate virus or spy ware into your PC. To avoid such nuisances, take little toil to review the free audiobooks sites you wish to download from. In cases, you’d even get reviews and comments on such free audiobooks sites from people who downloaded from those sites earlier. The bottom line of all these advices is – always prefer to download free audiobooks from sites with a good reputation.

Audiobooks are great stuffs that you can listen to while doing some repetitive and boring task or waiting for somebody for long. And for those also who have an interest in literature but don’t afford the time to be solely caught up by a book for hours. No matter what book you are looking for, you are most likely to find it on any of those audiobooks free download sites. Try searching with keywords like "free audiobooks", "free downloadable audiobooks", "free audio books downloads" to get into the treasure trove.