audio books

Father Damien Karras: 'Where is Regan?' 
Regan MacNeil: 'In here. With us.'

The terror begins unobtrusively. Noises in the attic. In the child's room, an odd smell, the displacement of furniture, an icy chill. At first, easy explanations are offered. Then frightening changes begin to appear in eleven-year-old Regan. Medical tests fail to shed any light on her symptoms, but it is as if a different personality has invaded her body.

Father Damien Karras, a Jesuit priest, is called in. Is it possible that a demonic presence has possessed the child? Exorcism seems to be the only answer...

First published in 1971, The Exorcist became a literary phenomenon and inspired one of the most shocking films ever made. Freshly polished and expanded by the author, including new dialogue, a new character and a chilling new extended scene, this unique fortieth anniversary edition provides an unforgettable reading experience that has lost none of its power to shock - and is poised to terrify a new generation of readers.

Published on 30th October 2014
Read by William Peter Blatty
Unabridged 

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (Audiobook extract) Read by William Peter Blatty

From 1946 until the end of his life, Ian Fleming lived for two months of every year at Goldeneye – the house he built on a point of high land overlooking a small white sand beach on Jamaica’s north coast. All the James Bond novels and stories were written here. 

Fleming threw himself into the island’s hedonistic Jet Set party scene: Hollywood giants, and the cream of British aristocracy, the theatre, literary society and the secret services spent their time here drinking and bed-hopping. But while the whites partied, Jamaican blacks were rising up to demand respect and self-government. And as the imperial hero James Bond – projecting British power across the world – became ever more anachronistic and fantastical, so his popularity soared.

Drawing on extensive interviews with Ian’s family, his Jamaican lover Blanche Blackwell and many other islanders, Goldeneye is a beautifully written, revealing and original exploration of a crucially important part of Ian Fleming’s life and work.

Published on 30th October 2014
Read by Roy McMillan
Unabridged

Goldeneye by Matthew Parker (Audiobook Extract) Read by Roy McMillan

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014

‘Ma, I feel exhausted with consuming, with taking and grabbing and using.  I am so bloated that I feel I cannot breathe any more.  I am leaving to find some air, some place where I shall be able to purge myself, push back against the life given me and make my own.  I feel I live in a borrowed house.  It’s time to find my own… Forgive me…’


Calcutta, 1967.  Unnoticed by his family, Supratik has become dangerously involved in extremist political activism.  Compelled by an idealistic desire to change his life and the world around him, all he leaves behind before disappearing is this note …

The ageing patriarch and matriarch of his family, the Ghoshes, preside over their large household, unaware that beneath the barely ruffled surface of their lives the sands are shifting.  More than poisonous rivalries among sisters-in-law, destructive secrets, and the implosion of the family business, this is a family unravelling as the society around it fractures.  For this is a moment of turbulence, of inevitable and unstoppable change: the chasm between the generations, and between those who have and those who have not, has never been wider.  

Ambitious, rich and compassionate The Lives of Others anatomises the soul of a nation as it unfolds a family history.  A novel about many things, including the limits of empathy and the nature of political action, it asks: how do we imagine our place amongst others in the world? Can that be reimagined? And at what cost? This is a novel of unflinching power and emotional force.

Published on 14th October 2014
Read by Raj Ghatak
Unabridged

The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee (Audiobook Extract) Read by Raj Ghatak

‘When a man walks on to a pitch there’s always a chance something magic can happen, that’s what keeps us coming back…’

In A Man Walks On to a Pitch, Harry shares a lifetime’s experience of obsessing over football, during which he has seen it all first hand – the good, the bad and the unbelievable. Harry started in an age where players were ordinary blokes who might live on the same street as you and earn a similar wage and now manages in an era of player power, multi-million pound wages and teams assembled from around the globe.

As he shares stories of some of the legends and journeymen he played with, coached, argued with and drank with, Harry picks a team for each decade from the 1950s to the present. He gets to the heart of what was right and wrong with each era and explores the changes in the game from lifestyle to tactics. He weaves his choices together with unforgettable tales from the training pitches, boot rooms and card schools. 

One of the best informal histories of the British game you’ll ever read.

Buy on iTunes

A Man Walks Onto A Pitch by Harry Redknapp (Audiobook extract) Read by David John

Penguin presents an extract from the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of We Need to Talk About... Kevin Bridges.

Aged 17, Kevin Bridges walked on stage for the first time and brought the house down. He only had a five-minute set but he discovered he really could earn a living from making people laugh.

Kevin began life as a shy, nerve-ridden school-boy. Reaching his teens, he followed his true calling as the class clown. This was a guy going somewhere - off the rails seeming most likely.  

Kevin's trademark social commentary, sharp one-liners and laugh-out-loud humour blend with his reflections on his Glaswegian childhood and the journey he's taken to become one of the most-loved comedians of our time.

Kevin Bridges: We Need to Talk About ... Kevin Bridges(Audiobook extract) Read By Kevin Bridges

The groundbreaking book that gives every woman the practical skills they need to begin PLAYING BIG.

Five years ago, Tara Mohr began to see a pattern in her work as an expert in leadership: women with tremendous talent, ideas and aspiration were not recognising their own brilliance. They felt that they were ‘playing small’ in their lives and careers and wanted to ‘play bigger’, but didn’t know how. And so Tara devised a step-by-step programme for playing big from the inside out: this book is the result.

Many women are aware of the changes they need to make to be more successful, but they don't know how to become that more confident woman they'd like to be. Playing Big provides real, practical tools to help women trust their instincts; identify and pursue their callings; become their own mentor; and take bold action to make their ideas a reality.

Not everyone wants to be a CEO, but every woman – whether a graduate, manager, volunteer, creative, stay-at-home mum or an entrepreneur – aspires to something: more influence at work or fulfilment at home; more opportunities to share their voice; more certainty in their vision. Tara has already helped thousands of women across the world to play bigger according to what ‘playing big’ truly means to them. And when women play big, we make things happen.

Read by the Author.

Playing Big by Tara Mohr (Audiobook Extract) Read by Tara Mohr

An extract from the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Belle, from the Number One bestselling author, Lesley Pearse.

She witnessed a murder - and now her life is in danger . . .

Fifteen year-old Belle, though raised in a London brothel, is an innocent. But when she witnesses one of the girls brutally strangled by a client, she is cast into a cruel, heartless world. Snatched from the streets and sold into prostitution, she is made a courtesan in New Orleans. At the mercy of desperate men who crave her beauty and will do anything to keep her, Belle's dreams of home, family and freedom appear futile. 

Are Belle's courage and spirit strong enough to help her escape? And what will await her at the end of the long, dangerous journey home? 

Lesley Pearse, author of Number One bestseller Stolen, has done it again with Belle - a heroine for our times: a strong woman trying to be good in a world gone bad.

Lesley Pearse: Belle (Audiobook extract) Read by Sherry Baines

Penguin presents an audiobook extract from the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Promise from the bestselling author Lesley Pearse.

War threatens to take all she has loved and lived for . . .

When Belle Reilly's husband Jimmy enlists and heads for the trenches of Northern France, she knows she cannot stand idly by awaiting his return. Volunteering to help the wounded, Belle is posted to France as a Red Cross ambulance driver. There, tragedy brings her face to face with Etienne, a man from her past who she'd never quite forgotten.

Torn between forbidden passion, loyalty and love, Belle is caught in an impossible situation. Will the brutality and carnage of war make the honorable path the hardest one to take? Or will fate intervene and finally lead her to lasting happiness?

Lesley Pearse: The Promise (Audiobook extract) Read by Sherry Baines

An extract from the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of We Need to Talk About... Kevin Bridges.

Aged 17, Kevin Bridges walked on stage for the first time and brought the house down. He only had a five-minute set but he discovered he really could earn a living from making people laugh.

Kevin began life as a shy, nerve-ridden school-boy. Reaching his teens, he followed his true calling as the class clown. This was a guy going somewhere - off the rails seeming most likely.  

Kevin's trademark social commentary, sharp one-liners and laugh-out-loud humour blend with his reflections on his Glaswegian childhood and the journey he's taken to become one of the most-loved comedians of our time.

We Need to Talk About ... Kevin Bridges - Audiobook extract, read by Kevin Bridges

These are the voyages of the starship, A.S.F. Willful Child. Its ongoing mission: to seek out strange new worlds on which to plant the Terran flag, to subjugate and if necessary obliterate new life-forms, to boldly blow the...

And so we join the not-terribly-bright but exceedingly cock-sure Captain Hadrian Sawback - think James T Kirk crossed with ‘American Dad' - and his motley crew on board the Starship Willful Child for a series of devil-may-care, near-calamitous and downright chaotic adventures through ‘the infinite vastness of interstellar space’... 

The bestselling author of the acclaimed Malazan Book of the Fallen sequence has taken a life-long passion for 'Star Trek' and transformed it into a hugely entertaining spoof on the whole mankind-exploring-space-for-the-good-of-all-species-but-trashing-stuff-with-a-lot-of-hi-tech-kit-along-the-way type over-blown science fiction adventure. The result is smart. inventive, occasionally OTT and often very funny - a novel that both deftly parodies the genre and pays fond homage to it.

Willful Child by Steven Erikson (Audiobook extract) Read by MacLeod Andrews

THE LIVING

Erlendur works nights. He’s a young officer in Traffic, not yet a detective. And Reykjavik’s nights are full of car crashes, robberies, drinkers and fighters. Sometimes an unexplained death.

THE LOST

A homeless man Erlendur knows is found drowned. But few people care. Or when a young woman on her way home from a club vanishes. Both cases go cold. 

THE SEARCHER

Two lost people from two different worlds. Erlendur is not an investigator, but his instincts tell him their fates are worth pursuing. How could they be linked? 

IN THE HEART OF THE NIGHT

Inexorably, he is drawn into the blackness of the city’s underbelly, where everyone is in the dark or on the run.

Reykjavík Nights by Arnaldur Indridason (Audiobook extract) Read by Saul Reichlin

Eureka's tears have flooded the earth and now Atlantis is rising, along with its evil king, Atlas. Eureka is the only one who can stop him – but first she must learn how to fight. 

She travels across the ocean with Ander to try and make sense of the dark world her sorrow has created. But dark secrets are hidden in the depths – will she be strong enough to defeat Atlas, or is her broken heart just what he needs to power his rising kingdom? 

Eureka has the chance to save the world. But she'll have to give up on everything – even love . . .

Waterfall by Lauren Kate (Audiobook extract) Read by Erin Spencer

It’s the 1st of June 1914 and Hugh Stanton, ex-soldier and celebrated adventurer is quite literally the loneliest man on earth. No one he has ever known or loved has been born yet. Perhaps now they never will be.

Stanton knows that a great and terrible war is coming. A collective suicidal madness that will destroy European civilization and bring misery to millions in the century to come. He knows this because, for him, that century is already history.

Somehow he must change that history. He must prevent the war. A war that will begin with a single bullet. But can a single bullet truly corrupt an entire century? 

And, if so, could another single bullet save it?

Time and Time Again by Ben Elton (Audiobook extract) Read by Jot Davies

Detective Alex Cross is being stalked by a psychotic genius, forced to play the deadliest game of his career. Cross's family – his loving wife Bree, the wise and lively Nana Mama, and his precious children--have been ripped away. Terrified and desperate, Cross must give this mad man what he wants if he has any chance of saving the most important people in his life. The stakes have never been higher: What will Cross sacrifice to save the ones he loves?

Widely praised by the greatest crime and thriller writers of our time, Cross My Heart set a jaw-dropping story in motion. Hope to Die propels Alex Cross's greatest challenge to its astonishing finish, proving why Jeffery Deaver says "nobody does it better" than James Patterson.

Hope To Die by James Patterson (Audiobook extract) Read by Michael Boatman & Scott Sowers

Penguin presents an extract from the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Doctor Who: Lights Out read by Samuel Anderson.

As the newly-regenerated Twelfth Doctor arrives on our TV screens, Puffin are publishing the twelfth instalment in its sensational series of Doctor Who eShorts! With 11 previous stories by some of the most exciting names in children's fiction, this Twelfth Doctor ebook is written by bestselling US author Holly Black.

Holly Black: Doctor Who - Lights Out (Audiobook extract) Read by Samuel Anderson

Russell Brand wants YOU to join the revolution.

We all know the system isn't working. Our governments are corrupt and the opposing parties pointlessly similar. Our culture is filled with vacuity and pap, and we are told there's nothing we can do - "it's just the way things are".

In this book, Russell Brand hilariously lacerates the straw men and paper tigers of our conformist times and presents, with the help of experts as diverse as Thomas Piketty and George Orwell, a vision for a fairer, sexier society that's fun and inclusive.

You have been lied to, told there's no alternative, no choice and that you don't deserve any better. Brand destroys this illusory facade as amusingly and deftly as he annihilates Morning Joe anchors, Fox News fascists and BBC stalwarts.

This book makes revolution not only possible, but inevitable and fun.

Narrated by Russell himself.

Revolution by Russell Brand (Audiobook extract) Read by Russell Brand

This week on the Penguin Podcast we are thinking about the planet that we call home - from the perils of its great oceans, and the impact of our own way of life on the planet, to enjoying the simple pleasures of walking. 

The Penguin Podcast: Mother Nature feat. Will Self, Naomi Klein and Clare Balding

An audio extract from the brand new unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Annie, read by Annie Potts

It's 1933 and for as long as she can remember, 11 year old Annie has believed that her mother and father would come back to her New York City orphanage to get her. But mean Miss Hannigan the headmistress is making Annie's life a misery. So she runs away to find her parents - and along the way she rescues a friendly dog, meets millionaire Oliver Warbucks, and has a many scary and exciting adventures. Will kind-hearted Annie find a way to escape her hard-knock life?

Thomas Meehan: Annie (audiobook extract)read by Annie Potts

The vampire world is in crisis – their kind have been proliferating out of control and, thanks to technologies undreamed of in previous centuries, they can communicate as never before. Roused from their earth-bound slumber, ancient ones are in thrall to the Voice: which commands that they burn fledgling vampires in cities from Paris to Mumbai, Hong Kong to Kyoto and San Francisco. Immolations, huge massacres, have commenced all over the world.

Who – or what – is the Voice? What does it desire, and why? 

There is only one vampire, only one blood drinker, truly known to the entire world of the Undead. Will the dazzling hero-wanderer, the dangerous rebel-outlaw Lestat heed the call to unite the Children of Darkness as they face this new twilight? 

Prince Lestat by Anne Rice (Audiobook extract) Read by Simon Vance

GOING PUBLIC 4.19.13 - PEDRO'S GUIDE TO THE PERFECT DINNER PARTY
Written by, and recorded with permission from by the wonderful Peter Davey﻿
...offered in two parts. 

Link to author's original post: 
http://peterdavey2.com/2012/10/06/pedros-guide-to-the-perfect-dinner-party/


As I said earlier, there is still joy in the world, and I find that when everything seems to have gone to hell in a handbasket - when in fact we're all starting to secretly harbor thoughts that perhaps the Mayans got it right - it soothes my soul to find sources of amusement, little reminders that we are more than the sum of our personal or global tragedies.

Enter this week's Going Public, which is lovingly offered as pure amusement from author Peter Davey (with my apologies to dear Peter for my not brilliant attempt at a British accent...I just couldn't bear to say "arse" and "paracetamol" without one!). 


audio books

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