What are Librivox audiobooks? How do you find an audiobook on a subject?
Librivox audiobooks are totally free audiobooks in the public domain that were recorded by volunteers. You can use Century Past to search for a Librivox audiobook on almost any topic, or in any genre. Then just listen online, or download it to your device.
Table of contents
Searching for Librivox Audiobooks
Librivox is a non-commercial organization of volunteers that has been recording public domain books since 2005. As of January 2026, the library contains over 21,000 audiobooks. Most of these titles were originally published before 1930 and were hand-selected for recording by the volunteers themselves. The majority are in English, but they are also in many other languages.
Where to Find Librivox Recordings
The complete audio library is hosted on two primary websites:
You can also access Librivox recordings through dedicated apps on Google Play and the Apple App Store, as well as via YouTube channels.
The Challenge of Subject Searching
While you can easily search for a specific author or title on the Librivox homepage, most of these older works are unknown to modern readers. This makes subject searching much more useful.
However, subject searches on Librivox or the Internet Archive often miss relevant books because volunteer readers did not use standardized library terminology in their descriptions. For example, a search for “World War One” would fail to find books tagged as “WWI,” “The Great War,” or “First World War.”
How Century Past Makes Searching Better
To solve this problem, Century Past has curated specific audiobook sections across our fiction and nonfiction pages. We have performed exhaustive searches using multiple keyword variants to ensure our collections are as complete as possible.
For instance, if you visit our Historical Romance page, you will find nearly 20 specific sub-topics. Clicking on a category like “Politics Historical Romances” will provide a comprehensive list of Librivox books that you might otherwise never find through a standard search.
Start Your Librivox Audiobook Search on Century Past
To find Librivox audiobooks by subject on our site, try one of these methods:
- Browse the Subject Directory.
- Explore our A to Z Index.
- Use the search tool located at the top right of every page.
Related Pages on Century Past
Here are CenturyPast.org pages with books or other resources on related subjects. Use the top Menu to look through our 400+ pages.