Here’s a lit­tle known tip. If you open Spo­ti­fy, click “Browse” (in the left hand nav), then scroll way down to “Word,” you will find a num­ber of free audio­book col­lec­tions–read­ings by Sylvia Plath, Langston Hugh­es, and Dylan Thomas; old time crime and sci-fi dra­mas; a big H.P. Love­craft com­pendi­um and more. But that way of nav­i­gat­ing things real­ly only scratch­es the sur­face of what Spo­ti­fy has to offer.

If you rum­mage around enough, you’ll find many qual­i­ty recordings–everything from Christo­pher Lee read­ing Drac­u­la and Franken­stein, to Kurt Von­negut read­ing four of his nov­els, to a 68-hour playlist of Shakespeare’s plays being per­formed by leg­endary actors. We’ve found 75+ record­ings in recent months and grad­u­al­ly added them to our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free. But they seemed worth high­light­ing and call­ing to your atten­tion here.

If you need Spo­ti­fy’s free soft­ware, down­load it here. And if you find any oth­er gems, please list them in the com­ments below and we’ll add them to our list.

• Austen, Jane — Pride and Prej­u­dice — Spo­ti­fy
• Beck­ett, Samuel – Wait­ing for Godot (The­atri­cal per­for­mance with Bert Lahr) – Spo­ti­fy
• Bukows­ki, Charles – 4 Hours of Bukows­ki Read­ings – Spo­ti­fy
• Bukows­ki, Charles – Hostage – Spo­ti­fy
• Bukows­ki, Charles – Mas­ter Col­lec­tion – Spo­ti­fy
• Bur­roughs, William S. – Call Me Bur­roughs (his first spo­ken word album) – Spo­ti­fy
• Bur­roughs, William S. – Let Me Hang You (posthu­mous album sett­ting read­ings of Naked Lunch to music) – Spo­ti­fy
• Car­roll, Lewis – Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land (Read by Sir John Giel­gud) – Spo­ti­fy
• Car­roll, Lewis – Through the Look­ing Glass (Read by Joan Green­wood, Stan­ley Hol­loway) – Spo­ti­fy

• Cia­r­di, John – As If: Poems New and Select­ed by John Cia­r­di (read by the author) –Spo­ti­fy
• Coleridge, Samuel – Poems (Read by Ralph Richard­son) – Free Spo­ti­fy
• Collins, Bil­ly – The Best Cig­a­rette (Poet­ry col­lec­tion read by the author) – Free Spo­ti­fy
• Collins, Bil­ly – Soap – Spo­ti­fy
• Conan Doyle, Arthur – The Adven­tures of Sher­lock Holmes (64 Hours of Read­ings) – Spo­ti­fy
• Dante Alighieri – The Infer­no, Can­tos I‑VIII (Read by John Cia­r­di) – Spo­ti­fy
• Defoe, Daniel – Robin­son Cru­soe (Read by Nigel Gra­ham)
• Dick­in­son, Emi­ly – Poems & Let­ters – Spo­ti­fy
• Eliot, T.S. – The Cock­tail Par­ty (Per­formed by Alec Guin­ness & Cath­leen Nes­bitt) – Free Spo­ti­fy
• Eliot, T.S. – Old Possum’s Book of Prac­ti­cal Cats (Read by T.S. Eliot) – Spo­ti­fy playlist
• Eliot, T.S. – T.S. Eliot Read­ing Poems and Cho­rus­es – Spo­ti­fy
• Eliot T.S. — T.S. Eliot Reads the Waste Land — Spo­ti­fy
• Fer­linghet­ti, Lawrence – A Coney Island of the Mind – Spo­ti­fy
• Frost, Robert – Robert Frost Reads His Poet­ry – Free Spo­ti­fy
• Gins­berg, Allen — Howl — Spo­ti­fy
• Gins­berg, Allen – First Blues: Rags, Bal­lads and Har­mo­ni­um Songs – Spo­ti­fy
• Gins­berg, Allen – The Last Word on First Blues – Spo­ti­fy
• Gins­berg, Allen – The Lion for Real – Free on Spo­ti­fy
• Gins­berg, Allen – Witchi­ta Vor­tex Sutra – Spo­ti­fy
• Hawthorne, Nathaniel – The Scar­let Let­ter – Spo­ti­fy
• Hugo, Vic­tor – The Hunch­back of Notre Dame (Abridged ver­sion read by Christo­pher Lee) – Spo­ti­fy
• Hesse, Her­mann – Sid­dhartha – Spo­ti­fy
• Hitch­cock, Alfred – Alfred Hitch­cock Presents Ghost Sto­ries for Young Peo­ple – Spo­ti­fy
• Hugh­es, Langston – Langston Hugh­es Reads Langston Hugh­es – Spo­ti­fy
• Hugh­es, Langston – The Dream Keep­er and Oth­er Poems of Langston Hugh­es (Read by Hugh­es) – Spo­ti­fy
• Hugh­es, Langston – The Glo­ry of Negro His­to­ry – Spo­ti­fy
• Hugh­es, Langston – The Voice of Langston Hugh­es – Spo­ti­fy
• Joyce, James – Dublin­ers – Free on Spo­ti­fy
• Joyce, James – “The Dead” (Read by Bart Wolffe) – Spo­ti­fy
• Kaf­ka, Franz – The Meta­mor­pho­sis – Spo­ti­fy
• Ker­ouac, Jack – 4 Albums with Ker­ouac Recit­ing Poet­ry & Verse – Spo­ti­fy
• Ler­oux, Gas­ton – The Phan­tom of the Opera (Abridged ver­sion read by Christo­pher Lee) – Spo­ti­fy
• Love­craft, H.P – The Call of of Cthul­hu & Oth­er Sto­ries – Spo­ti­fy
• Melville, Her­man – Moby-Dick (Abridged ver­sion read by Hay­ward Morse) – Spo­ti­fy
• Miller, Arthur – Read­ings from The Cru­cible and Death of a Sales­man – Spo­ti­fy
• Nabokov, Vladimir – Vladimir Nabokov Reads from Loli­ta & Select­ed Poems – Spo­ti­fy
• Nash, Ogden – Christ­mas with Ogden Nash – Spo­ti­fy
• Nash, Ogden – Ogden Nash Reads Ogden Nash – Spo­ti­fy
• Neru­da, Pablo – Pablo Neru­da Lee a Pablo Neru­da (in Span­ish) – Spo­ti­fy
• Orwell, George – Ani­mal Farm – Spo­ti­fy
• Poe, Edgar Allan – The Essen­tial Edgar Allan Poe – Spo­ti­fy
• Poe, Edgar Allan – The Mask of the Red Death (Read by William S. Bur­roughs) –Spo­ti­fy
• Prokofiev, Sergei – Peter and the Wolf (Nar­rat­ed by David Bowie) – Spo­ti­fy
• Sand­burg, Carl – A Lin­coln Album: Read­ings by Carl San­durg – Spo­ti­fy
• Sand­burg, Carl – The Peo­ple Yes – Spo­ti­fy
• Sex­ton, Anne – What’s That – Spo­ti­fy
• Schiller, Friedrich – Poet­ry of Friedrich von Schiller: Read in Ger­man by Kin­s­ki –Spo­ti­fy
• Shake­speare, William – A 68 Hour Playlist of Shakespeare’s Plays Being Per­formed by Great Actors: Giel­gud, McK­ellen & More – Free on Spo­ti­fy
• Shake­speare, William – Ham­let (French trans­la­tion by Mar­cel Pag­nol) – Spo­ti­fy –YouTube
• Shake­speare, William – Ham­let (Star­ring John Giel­gud) – Spo­ti­fy + Archive.org
• Shake­speare, William – Mac­beth (with Alec Guin­ness) – Free Spo­ti­fy
• Shel­ley, Mary – Franken­stein (Abridged ver­sion read by Christophe Lee) – Spo­ti­fy
• Shel­ley, Per­cy Bysshe – Var­i­ous Poems (Read by Vin­cent Price) – Free Spo­ti­fy
• Stein­beck, John – “The Snake” and “John­ny Bear” – Free Stream – Spo­ti­fy
• Steven­son, Robert Louis – The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (Read by Christo­pher Lee) – Spo­ti­fy
• Steven­son, Robert Louis – Trea­sure Island (Read by Hans Con­ried) – Spo­ti­fy
• Stok­er, Bram – Drac­u­la (Read by Christo­pher Lee) – Spo­ti­fy
• Thomas, Dylan – Dylan Thomas Reads 8 Hours of His Poet­ry – Spo­ti­fy
• Thomas, Dylan – An Evening with Dylan Thomas – Spo­ti­fy
• Thomas, Dylan – Richard Bur­ton Reads 15 Poems by Dylan Thomas – Spo­ti­fy
• Twain, Mark – The Adven­tures of Tom Sawyer – Spo­ti­fy ver­sion
• Von­negut, Kurt – Slaugh­ter­house 5, Cat’s Cra­dle, Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons, Wel­come to the Mon­key House (Abridged read­ings by Von­negut) – Spo­ti­fy
• Welles, Orson — 61 Hours of Orson Welles’ Clas­sic 1930s Radio Plays: War of the Worlds, Heart of Dark­ness & More — Spo­ti­fy
• Wells, HG – The War of the Worlds (Read by Maxwell Caulfield) – Spo­ti­fy
• Wilde, Oscar – The Impor­tance of Being Earnest (Per­formed by John Giel­gud) – Free
• Woolf, Vir­ginia – The Short Sto­ries – Spo­ti­fy
• Yeats, William But­ler – William But­ler Reads His Own Work – Spo­ti­fy

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es

Down­load Two Har­ry Pot­ter Audio Books for Free (and Get the Rest of the Series for Cheap)

A quick heads up: For the next two weeks, you can stream a BBC Radio 4 drama­ti­za­tion of Fyo­dor Dos­toyevsky’s final nov­el, The Broth­ers Kara­ma­zov. Pub­lished between Jan­u­ary 1879 and Novem­ber 1880, the philo­soph­i­cal nov­el has influ­enced gen­er­a­tions of readers–certainly me, maybe you, and then some oth­er notable fig­ures like Ein­stein, Wittgen­stein, Hei­deg­ger, Freud and more. The radio drama­ti­za­tion is trun­cat­ed, just 5 hours, where­as most com­plete ver­sions run 34 hours. (Find those in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books. Or get a pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read ver­sion on Audible.com, by check­ing out Audi­ble’s 30-day free tri­al pro­gram.) Below, you can find the install­ments of the BBC radio dra­ma.

• Episode 1: Rus­sia, 1880: The unpre­dictable Fyo­dor Kara­ma­zov and his sons are reunit­ed to dis­cuss Dmit­ry’s inher­i­tance. Stars Roy Mars­den.
• Episode 2: As Alyosha attends to dying Father Zosi­ma, rela­tions between Dmit­ry and his father turn ever more dan­ger­ous. Stars Paul Hilton.
• Episode 3: Fol­low­ing a vio­lent encounter at the Kara­ma­zov home, Dmit­ry flees the town in search of Grushen­ka. Stars Paul Hilton.
• Episode 4: As Dmit­ry goes on tri­al for mur­der, Alyosha des­per­ate­ly seeks proof of his inno­cence. Stars Paul Hilton and Carl Prekopp.
• Episode 5: Fol­low­ing Ivan’s dra­mat­ic appear­ance at his broth­er’s tri­al, Kate­ri­na pre­pares to deal Dmit­ry a fatal blow. Stars Paul Hilton.

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If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices

Fyo­dor Dostoyevsky’s Life & Lit­er­a­ture Intro­duced in a Mon­ty Python-Style Ani­ma­tion

Fyo­dor Dos­to­evsky Draws Elab­o­rate Doo­dles In His Man­u­scripts

Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es