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Swizzle your ears for some of the finest, most fantastic first words every written, spoken and dreamt. Stay tuned for more extracts from Roald Dahl’s best loved children’s stories and if you like what you hear then visit the Apple App. Store to download the Audiobooks App for free!
With fantastic features including free access to the first chapter of every title, in–app purchase to continue the story and the ability to stream the audiobooks, the Roald Dahl Audiobooks App is available from the App Store on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore.


Roald Dahl: Boy read by Dan Stevens

New York Times bestselling author Karen Abbott discusses her new novel Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy (on-sale: 9-2-14)with @HarperAudio_US Producer Erin Wicks. This episode also includes an excerpt from the audio edition performed by Karen White.

About Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy

Belle Boyd
Emma Edmonds
Rose O'Neal Greenhow
Elizabeth Van Lew

In Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, bestselling author Karen Abbott tells the spellbinding true story of four women who risked everything—their homes, their families, and their very lives—during the Civil War.

Seventeen-year-old Belle Boyd, an avowed rebel with a dangerous temper, shot a Union soldier in her home and became a courier and spy for the Confederate army, using her considerable charms to seduce men on both sides. Emma Edmonds disguised herself as a man to enlist as a Union private named Frank Thompson, witnessing the bloodiest battles of the war and infiltrating enemy lines, all the while fearing that her past would catch up with her. The beautiful widow Rose O'Neal Greenhow engaged in affairs with powerful Northern politicians, used her young daughter to send information to Southern generals, and sailed abroad to lobby for the Confederacy, a journey that cost her more than she ever imagined. Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy Richmond abolitionist, hid behind her proper Southern manners as she orchestrated a far-reaching espionage ring—even placing a former slave inside the Confederate White House—right under the noses of increasingly suspicious rebel detectives.

Abbott's pulse-quickening narrative weaves the adventures of these four forgotten daredevils into the tumultuous landscape of a broken America, evoking a secret world that will surprise even the most avid enthusiasts of Civil War–era history. With a cast of real-life characters, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, General Stonewall Jackson, Detective Allan Pinkerton, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and Emperor Napoléon III, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy shines a dramatic new light on these daring—and, until now, unsung—heroines.

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy by Karen Abbott

‘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

Lewis King is a trumpet player who lands a gig in the Big Easy. He is a genius on horn, but King's private life is, morally, physically, and financially bankrupt. A heavy drinker and compulsive sexual manipulator, he is prone to paranoid fits of violent rage. Ms Sugarlicq, his girlfriend, can’t keep her pants on. They’re perfect for each other…

A fantastic and graphic first-person narrative, Going to New Orleans serves as a surreal, yet  faithful, guide to the food, music, history, and literature of New Orleans. A dirty book, but also a spiritual book one.

Audio Book - Going To New Orleans: A Dirty Book, Charles Tidler

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

Arctic Monkeys Live at the Apollo

Cigarette Smoke

Arctic Monkeys - Dancing Shoes

"Planetary transformation is possible - by overcoming judgement of others and becoming aware of that stream of endless thoughts in our egoish mind - to finally awake into  pure consciousness".

Eckhart Tolle - Judgment of Others

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!). 


Pedro's Guide to the Perfect Dinner Party, Part 1, by Peter Davey (read by Xe Sands)

Penguin Books publishes blockbusting, prize-winning, celebrated, controversial, heart-warming, thought-provoking and inspiring books by a range of authors from Ali Smith to Zadie Smith, Jeremy Clarkson to Jeremy Paxman and Jamie Oliver to Oliver Goldsmith.

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

Penguin Books UK