Listening Books

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We are a UK charity providing a fantastic selection of high-quality audiobooks to over 15000 people across the UK who find it difficult or impossible to read due to illness or disability. We help a wide range of organisations and individuals and provide our audiobooks on 3 easily accessible formats: through the post on CD, downloaded online and streamed from this website. Members can choose from a range of options to find the service that best suits their needs.

Our service is quick and easy to use and it will open up the wonderful world of books to anyone who finds it difficult to read in the usual way. We support the National Curriculum from Key Stage 2 to A-Level and have a huge range of fiction and non-fiction titles for both adults and children. Listening to audiobooks allows children and young people to listen to the same books their friends and peers are reading, helping to instil a greater understanding and enjoyment of literature. For older members, audiobooks can provide welcome relief from pain, boredom and loneliness, lifting them out of what are often challenging circumstances.

All of our titles are either commercially sourced from the best publishers or recorded in-house in our digital studios by professionally qualified sound recording engineers. We do not make recordings in private homes on portable equipment. The charity led the voluntary sector in pioneering formal contracts with commercial publishers for the provision of their titles to people with print impairments. Additionally, our education service goes far beyond just providing ‘English’ texts and supports subjects across much of the National Curriculum.

The charity charges a membership fee but this is heavily subsidised. Listening Books receives no central government funding whatsoever and very little local government funding. The reality is that Listening Books simply could not survive without the generous support of sponsors and the active co-operation of publishers and authors.