Could anyone recommend any (free) audio books or files for download that they might have enjoyed? We’ve got a flight coming up, and we’re taking our MP3 player, so we thought it might be nice to have something different to listen to for a change.
I downloaded Prof Robert Greenberg’s “How to Listen to and Understand Great Music” off of BT. It’s gigantic. You can skip some of the more obscure bits, but some of his lectures on stuff like fugues and 19th century Italian opera (which is criminally short considering all the time he spends on Middle Age church music) are really good.
Yes, Greenberg’s great.
Depends what kind of books you both like.
Gladwell’s “Blink” is engaging, in content and presentation.
Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” read by Charleton Heston is good.
2001 is a good listen. Many of Arthur C. Clarke’s books are. Rendevous with Rama stands out, and his short stories, like The Nine Billion Names of God are a delight. Short stories might be best for a flight.
If you’re into fantatsy, the first three books of the Dune series are fantastic, and Robert Jordan too, but they’re long and addictive.
Thanks for the suggestions. I’m probably less interested in fiction than in really good talks. Got any links for those suggestions? What’s “BT”?
cough BitTorrent cough
A topic of great debate around here.
You could download a the 2003 Reith Lectures by Vilayanur Ramachandran on cognitive psychology, here: bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/. Interesting, thought provoking, great speaking voice. They’re about four and a half or five hours in total.
Freakonomics is pretty good.
Collapse is great.
I really liked “The gentle art of verbal self-defense”. It was a good listen.
I also “got” (BT 
) Joseph Camble’s “The Power of Myth” and “The Hero with 1000 Faces”
The BBC also has many good radio shows you can download (legally?). I have a many part show on numbers.
also get everything ever written by Pratchett. The Disk world rocks. Big rocks too.