Where did Roald Dahl get all of his wonderful ideas for stories?

From his own life, of course! As full of excitement and the unexpected as his world-famous, best-selling books, Roald Dahl's tales of his own childhood are completely fascinating and fiendishly funny. Did you know that Roald Dahl nearly lost his nose in a car accident? Or that he was once a chocolate candy tester for Cadbury's? Have you heard about his involvement in the Great Mouse Plot of 1924? If not, you don’t yet know all there is to know about Roald Dahl. Sure to captivate and delight you, the boyhood antics of this master storyteller are not to be missed!

On sale September 26, 2013.

Available for purchase at:
<a href="www.us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781611761894,00.html?Boy_Roald_Dahl">Penguin.com - Audiobook (CD format)</a>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Roald-Dahl/dp/1611761891">Amazon - Audiobook (CD format)</a>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Boy/dp/B00F0VDDLW">Amazon - Audiobook (downloadable format)</a>
<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/boy-roald-dahl/1100475378?ean=9781611761894">Barnes & Noble - Audiobook (CD format)</a>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/audiobook/boy-unabridged/id703151237?uo=4">iTunes - Audiobook (downloadable format)</a>
<a href="http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00F0VL7BK&qid=1378736378&sr=1-1">Audible - Audiobook (downloadable format)</a>
<a href="http://www.emusic.com/book/roald-dahl/boy/10132264/">emusic.com - Audiobook (downloadable format)</a>

Boy by Roald Dahl, read by Dan Stevens

Add variety to your child's bedtime routine with the latest audiobook from the author of The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep, the global bestseller that parents have been raving about! Features all-new child-tested, parent-approved techniques to reclaim bedtime and provide a sweet and tender end to each day.

Your child joins Ellen the Elephant on a journey through a magical forest that leads to sleep. Along the way, children meet different fantastical characters and have calming experiences that will help your child to relax and slip into slumber quickly. The story works perfectly for either naptime or bedtime.

Children will love switching between stories about both Roger the Rabbit (The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep) and Ellen the Elephant (The Little Elephant Who Wants to Fall Asleep), and parents will appreciate the diverse ways each character will help their loved ones fall asleep quickly and easily.

This soothing audiobook edition contains a choice of male or female narrator.

http://amzn.to/2bKPKWx  

The Little Elephant Who Wants to Fall Asleep (audiobook extract) read by Rachel Bavidge

This is an excerpt from the audiobook EDUCATED by Tara Westover, narrated by Julia Whelan.

Learn more about EDUCATED here: https://bit.ly/2H4QypA

An unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University &ldquo;Tara&rsquo;s story will find a place alongside modern classic memoirs like Wild and The Glass Castle. It&rsquo;s that special.&rdquo;&mdash;Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her &ldquo;head-for-the-hills&rdquo; bag. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged metal in her father&rsquo;s junkyard. Her father distrusted the medical establishment, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when an older brother became violent. When another brother got himself into college and came back with news of the world beyond the mountain, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. She taught herself enough mathematics, grammar, and science to take the ACT and was admitted to Brigham Young University. There, she studied psychology, politics, philosophy, and history, learning for the first time about pivotal world events like the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she&rsquo;d traveled too far, if there was still a way home. Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief that comes from severing ties with those closest to you. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one&rsquo;s life through new eyes, and the will to change it. &ldquo;A punch to the gut, a slow burn, a savage indictment, a love letter: Educated somehow contrives to be all these things at once. Tara Westover guides us through the extraordinary Western landscape of her coming of age, and in clear, tender prose makes us feel what she felt, growing up among fanatics.&rdquo;&mdash;Claire Dederer, author of Love and Trouble

Educated by Tara Westover, read by Julia Whelan

Don't know about you, but we've really felt the need for a little more joy around here lately. We miss it, and as the world continues to turn upside down, we’re learning how to find it in new ways and in new places. So, Minisode Fifteen is dedicated to JOY, and the best thing about joy is that once you have a little of it you can find ways to pass it on, like a paper chain of joy spreading out across communities virtual and real. What's bringing you joy right now? Is reading a joyful act? Can finding joy be a practice? And as we get into what brings us joy, hopefully we’ll spread a little of that joy to you, and finally as usual give a few recommendations of things we’ve been into lately. This is our last show before we take our summer break in August, so we wish you all good things, and may you go to your joy.

Minisode Fifteen: Joy

Will Harris and Nick Makoha, prizewinning poets both, talk about Nick’s poems in the spring 2020 issue of The Poetry Review and how these poems exemplify his interest in song, story and myth, the parameters of self, reconfiguring the problem of the white lens, and how the act of writing poems produces unlooked-for discoveries. Nick gives electrifying readings of his poems ‘Codex 1’ and Codex 2, both published in the Review, and ‘Bird In Flames’ from his Forward-shortlisted debut Kingdom of Gravity.

Nick Makoha talks to Will Harris

Listen to an excerpt from ANXIOUS PEOPLE by Fredrik Backman and read by Marin Ireland

ANXIOUS PEOPLE Audiobook Excerpt

Why is there so much delight in discovering a juicy new word? Do you ever read the dictionary for fun? Is it annoying when people use obscure words too often? This month’s show is dedicated to the building blocks of all books: words. Joining us is the author Eley Williams, whose first novel The Liar’s Dictionary is both about words and delights in them. In the novel, Peter Winceworth, a disgruntled employee of Swansby’s New Encyclopedic Dictionary at the turn of the century, begins inserting his own invented words into the first edition. In the present day, intern Mallory is tasked with rooting out his mischievous insertions. We spoke to Eley about lots of things including our favourite words and reading the dictionary like a novel, so kick back and join us for an hour of lexical wonder and appreciation. 

Recommendations on the theme, The Joy of Words: 
Octavia: A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes 
https://monoskop.org/images/f/f7/Roland_Barthes_Roland_a_lover_s_discourse_1978.pdf
Carrie: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 
https://www.anthonyburgess.org/a-clockwork-orange/

General Recommendations:
Octavia: Blueberries by Ellena Savage 
https://scribepublications.co.uk/books-authors/books/blueberries
Eley: and what if we are all allowed to disappear by Tania Hershman 
https://www.guillemotpress.co.uk/poetry/tania-hershman
Carrie: The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin 
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/n-k-jemisin/the-fifth-season/9780316229296/

Email us: litfriction@gmail.com 
Tweet us & find us on Instagram: @litfriction

Literary Friction -  The Joy of Words with Eley Williams

Listen to an excerpt from BLACKOUT by Candace Owens and read by Candace Owens

BLACKOUT Audiobook Excerpt

From the author of the bestselling More Beautiful Than Before comes an inspiring book about loss based on his most popular sermon. As the senior rabbi of one of the largest synagogues in the world, Steve Leder has learned over and over again the many ways death teaches us how to live and love more deeply by showing us not only what is gone but also the beauty of what remains. This inspiring and comforting book takes us on a journey through the experience of loss that is fundamental to everyone. Yet even after having sat beside thousands of deathbeds, Steve Leder the rabbi was not fully prepared for the loss of his own father. It was only then that Steve Leder the son truly learned how loss makes life beautiful by giving it meaning and touching us with love that we had not felt before. Enriched by Rabbi Leder's irreverence, vulnerability, and wicked sense of humor, this heartfelt narrative is filled with laughter and tears, the wisdom of millennia and modernity, and, most of all, an unfolding of the profound and simple truth that in loss we gain more than we ever imagined. Available for purchase at: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08D8J4D8Z?tag=randohouseinc7911-20">Amazon</a><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/?ean=9780593187562">Barnes & Noble</a><a href="http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-8373827-10747236?SID=PRHD39095A662--9780593187562&url=http://www.booksamillion.com/p/9780593187562">Books A Million</a><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2186/9780593187555?prhc=PRHD39095A662">Bookshop.org</a><a href="http://www.hudsonbooksellers.com/book/9780593187555?utm_source=prh&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_term=301&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780593187555&utm_campaign=9780593187555">Hudson Booksellers</a><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780593187555?aff=penguinrandom">IndieBound</a><a href="http://www.powells.com/book/-9780593187555?utm_source=randomhouse&utm_campaign=randomhouse&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780593187555">Powell's</a><a href="http://goto.target.com/c/128773/81938/2092?subId1=PRHD39095A662--9780593187555&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.target.com%2Fs%3FsearchTerm%3D9780593187555">Target</a><a href="https://www.walmart.com/search/?query=9780593187555">Walmart</a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1524211087?at=11l3IH&ct=PRHD39095A662--9780593187562">Apple Books</a><a href="https://google.prf.hn/click/camref:1011ld4r/pubref:PRHD39095A662--9780593187562/destination:https://play.google.com/store/search?q=9780593187562&c=books">Google Play Store</a><a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=VD9*lkiWNd8&offerid=258185.12829781935712206&type=2&u1=PRHD39095A662--9780593187562}&murl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kobo.com%2Fsearch%3FQuery%3D9780593187562">Kobo</a>

The Beauty of What Remains by Steve Leder, read by Steve Leder

Listen to an excerpt from LET US DREAM by Pope Francis and Austen Ivereigh and read by Arthur Morey

LET US DREAM Audiobook Excerpt

The man who predicted the worst economic crisis in US history shows you how to survive it. The current crisis is not like 2008 or even 1929. The New Depression that has emerged from the COVID pandemic is the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. Most fired employees will remain redundant. Bankruptcies will be common, and banks will buckle under the weight of bad debts. Deflation, debt, and demography will wreck any chance of recovery, and social disorder will follow closely on the heels of market chaos. The happy talk from Wall Street and the White House is an illusion. The worst is yet to come. But for knowledgeable investors, all hope is not lost. In The New Great Depression, James Rickards, New York Times bestselling author of Aftermath and The New Case for Gold, pulls back the curtain to reveal the true risks to our financial system and what savvy investors can do to survive -- even prosper -- during a time of unrivaled turbulence. Drawing on historical case studies, monetary theory, and behind-the-scenes access to the halls of power, Rickards shines a clarifying light on the events taking place, so investors understand what's really happening and what they can do about it. A must-read for any fans of Rickards and for investors everywhere who want to understand how to preserve their wealth during the worst economic crisis in US history. Available for purchase at: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08DMVQ184?tag=randohouseinc7911-20">Amazon</a><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/?ean=9780593330289">Barnes & Noble</a><a href="http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-8373827-10747236?SID=PRHD39095A662--9780593330289&url=http://www.booksamillion.com/p/9780593330289">Books A Million</a><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2186/9780593330272?prhc=PRHD39095A662">Bookshop.org</a><a href="http://www.hudsonbooksellers.com/book/9780593330272?utm_source=prh&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_term=301&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780593330272&utm_campaign=9780593330272">Hudson Booksellers</a><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780593330272?aff=penguinrandom">IndieBound</a><a href="http://www.powells.com/book/-9780593330272?utm_source=randomhouse&utm_campaign=randomhouse&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780593330272">Powell's</a><a href="http://goto.target.com/c/128773/81938/2092?subId1=PRHD39095A662--9780593330272&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.target.com%2Fs%3FsearchTerm%3D9780593330272">Target</a><a href="https://www.walmart.com/search/?query=9780593330272">Walmart</a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1525128590?at=11l3IH&ct=PRHD39095A662--9780593330289">Apple Books</a><a href="https://google.prf.hn/click/camref:1011ld4r/pubref:PRHD39095A662--9780593330289/destination:https://play.google.com/store/search?q=9780593330289&c=books">Google Play Store</a><a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=VD9*lkiWNd8&offerid=258185.12829781935712206&type=2&u1=PRHD39095A662--9780593330289}&murl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kobo.com%2Fsearch%3FQuery%3D9780593330289">Kobo</a>

The New Great Depression by James Rickards, read by James Rickards

Penguin Random House Audio is the market leader for adult and children's audiobook publishing. Follow us on Twitter @PRHAudio.

Boy by Roald Dahl, read by Dan Stevens

PRH Audio