A good audio book is medicine for the soul. Good books give us wings to dream, faith to hope, and the will to believe that tomorrow will be better.

Sometimes all it takes to lighten our burdens is the laughter we find in free online audio books.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.

Charles Dickens

A great place to get free online audio books is Talking-Book-Store. A free download of episodes from the best BBC comedy shows is available at Talking-Book-Store.com—everything from Monty Python to Alan Partridge. In all, you’ll receive an hour of classic BBC comedy absolutely free.

(To view the complete list of titles available in the free download, visit the site and click on the “Free” tab in the main menu.)

When we listen to our favorite recorded comedy shows and free audio books, they make us laugh as if we were in the company of old friends. When you download your favorite free online audio books, your old friends can go with you wherever you go.

Dickens’ Christmas Carol is one of my favorite stories. It makes me laugh and it makes me cry. If you have ever read it, seen one of the many film versions, or heard one the audio book versions of this classic, then I know you’ll understand when I say that Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchet and Tiny Tim are more real to me today than many people I have known.

I have watched at least one film version of this story every year at Christmas time for as long as I can remember. It has become an annual rite of passage for me—a time when I know I must shed my old skin so that new skin can grow.

Each year, as I see the miserly Scrooge transformed, all that has grown miserly in me over the preceding year is transformed, too. I cry every time I see the movie, though the need to do so comes at different scenes each year.

O, yes, and I cry more than once. Dickens, Expert Surgeon of the Heart, has detected more than one Scrooge-like trait growing in me since our last encounter, and he will leave nary a trace of any of them when he is done cutting.

I cry no matter who plays the part of Scrooge. It makes no difference if he is George Scott this year, Patrick Stewart the year before, or Michael Caine the year before that. In case you didn’t know, Michael Caine played Scrooge in the Muppets Christmas Carol.

That is a good version to watch if you like frogs with your surgery.

You can click on the “Free” tab in the main at Talking-Book-Store.com to find out how to get free online audio books. While you’re there, don’t forget to check out the great deals on all your favorite recorded books.

This year I will not watch a film version of the Scrooge story; I will listen to the audio book—and I will listen as if I were hearing the story for the first time, because that is what audio books make you believe.

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