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Kindle Hack: How to Listen to Any Kindle Book (Even Without Audible)

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Rob Mahan

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If you’re like Linda and me, you love to read—but sometimes you want to listen to your book instead. Maybe you’re walking the dog, folding laundry, or just want to rest your eyes for a bit.

Using the YT video below, we’ve discovered a great little trick for iPhone and iPad users that lets you listen to any Kindle book, even if there’s no Audible narration available—and it even syncs your progress across devices!

Here’s a summary of the steps Brittany explains in the video, which also includes a demonstration reading the first page of one of her novels.

🎧 What You’ll Need

  • An iPhone or iPad (I use an iPhone 12)
  • The Kindle app (signed into your Amazon account)
  • Any Kindle book—no Audible version required
  • A few minutes to set things up!

🛠️ Step-by-Step: Turn On Spoken Content

  1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
  2. Scroll down and tap Accessibility.
  3. Tap Spoken Content.
  4. Turn on these two features:
    • ✅ Speak Screen
    • ✅ Speech Controller (optional, but helpful)
  5. Tap Voices to choose a more natural-sounding Siri voice.

    I use Siri Female Voice 2 (English – US), but there are several good ones available here, in many different languages. The ones marked Enhanced and Premium use more memory, but are a bit smoother that the other options.
  6. Adjust the Speaking Rate if needed (I suggest just below the middle).

📖 How to Listen to Your Kindle Book

  1. Open the Kindle app and go to the book you want to listen to.
  2. With the book open, swipe down with two fingers from the top of the screen—or tap the Speech Controller hand icon and long-press (this is really important to get the text reader to turn the pages automatically) anywhere on the text.
  3. Your iPhone will begin reading the text aloud—and it will turn the pages automatically as it goes!

🔁 Bonus: It Syncs with Your Kindle E-Reader

Here’s the best part: Even though this method doesn’t use Audible or Whispersync, it still syncs your reading progress!

  • I read (well, listened) to Dillon’s Tale this way.
  • Later, when I picked up my Kindle Paperwhite, it offered to sync to the last page read.
  • And it worked—like magic!

So now, you can listen on your iPhone and read later on your Kindle, without losing your place!

🎁

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