Listens for an epic adventure - extracts from our #penguinjourneys audiobooks

Steven Patrick Morrissey was born in Manchester on May 22nd 1959. Singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Smiths (1982-1987), Morrissey has been a solo artist for twenty-six years, during which time he has had three number 1 albums in England in three different decades.

Achieving eleven Top 10 albums (plus nine with the Smiths), his songs have been recorded by David Bowie, Nancy Sinatra, Marianne Faithfull, Chrissie Hynde, Thelma Houston, My Chemical Romance and Christy Moore, amongst others.

An animal protectionist, in 2006 Morrissey was voted the second greatest living British icon by viewers of the BBC, losing out to Sir David Attenborough. In 2007 Morrissey was voted the greatest northern male, past or present, in a nationwide newspaper poll. In 2012, Morrissey was awarded the Keys to the City of Tel-Aviv.

It has been said 'Most pop stars have to be dead before they reach the iconic status that Morrissey has reached in his lifetime.'

David Morrissey is one of the most versatile actors of his generation. He is also a screenwriter and director.

Morrissey: Autobiography (Audiobook extract) read by David Morrissey

An extract from the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of M.J. Carter's The Strangler Vine, read by the actor Sam Dastor.

India. 1837. William Avery, a fresh young officer in the East India Company, arrives in Calcutta expecting to be seduced by its ancient traditions. Nine months later he hasn't learnt a word of Hindoostani, is in terrible debt, and longs to return home before the cholera epidemic finishes him off.

A few months earlier, so rumour has it, the infamous and disgraced poet Xavier Mountstuart leaves Calcutta in order to track down the last of the remaining Thugs, a sinister secret fraternity notorious for strangling thousands of travellers. But after reaching the kingdom of Jubbulpore, Mountstuart mysteriously disappears.

Then the Company leads Avery to Jeremiah Blake, an unruly ex-Captain who has embraced native life. Their mission? To cover 700 miles of treacherous road in three weeks and find Mountstuart. A more unlikely duo couldn't be imagined, but they must bury their differences if they wish to succeed - for all is not as it seems, and at the rotten heart of everything lies the secret of the macabre Thugs...

M. J. Carter: The Strangler Vine (Audiobook extract) Read by Sam Dastor

An extract from the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Eeny Meeny, the rocket-paced serial-killer thriller debut from M. J. Arlidge. Read by Elizabeth Bower, Nigel Pilkington, Lucy Gaskell and Annie Aldington.

The girl emerged from the woods, barely alive. Her story was beyond belief. But it was true. Every dreadful word of it.

Days later, another desperate escapee is found - and a pattern is emerging. Pairs of victims are being abducted, imprisoned then faced with a terrible choice: kill or be killed.

Would you rather lose your life or lose your mind?

Detective Inspector Helen Grace has faced down her own demons on her rise to the top. As she leads the investigation to hunt down this unseen monster, she learns that it may be the survivors - living calling cards - who hold the key to the case.

And unless she succeeds, more innocents will die . . .

Introducing M. J. Arlidge's Detective Inspector Helen Grace. Eeny Meeny is an electrifying debut, with the nerve-shredding intensity of Saw and Along Came a Spider. Fans of James Patterson and Mo Hayder should pay attention.

M. J. Arlidge has worked in television for the last fifteen years, specialising in high end drama production.  In the last five years Arlidge has produced a number of prime-time crime serials for ITV, including Torn, The Little House and most recently Undeniable, broadcast in spring 2014.  Currently writing for Silent Witness, Arlidge is also piloting original crime series for both UK and US networks. Debut thriller Eeny Meeny, which introduces Detective Inspector Helen Grace, has sold to publishers around the world. The follow up, Pop Goes the Weasel, is published by Penguin Books in September 2014.

M J Arlidge: Eeny Meeny (Audiobook extract) read by Lucy Gaskell

Set before and during the Great War, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experience of the war itself

Sebastian Faulks: Birdsong (Audiobook extract) read by Samuel West

This year Valentine's Day isn't for romance. It's for murder.

Mega rich restaurant owner Jack Barnes and his second wife Zee are very much in love. However, their plans for Valentine's Day are about to be torn apart by the most violent murder.Who is the strange figure plotting this sick crime? Who hates Jack that much? There are plenty of suspects living in Jack's fancy block of flats. Is it them, or could it be the work of an outsider with a twisted mind? One thing's for sure, the police have got their work cut out solving this bloody mess.

James Patterson: Bloody Valentine (Audiobook extract) read by Steven Pacey

The introduction of the audiobook edition of Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman's pioneering work that tackles questions of intuition and rationality. Read by the actor Patrick Egan.

About the book:
Daniel Kahneman, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his seminal work in psychology challenging the rational model of judgment and decision making, is one of the world's most important thinkers. His ideas have had a profound impact on many fields-including business, medicine, and politics-but until now, he has never brought together his many years of research in one book.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think and make choices. One system is fast, intuitive, and emotional; the other is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities-and also the faults and biases-of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behaviour. The importance of properly framing risks, the effects of cognitive biases on how we view others, the dangers of prediction, the right ways to develop skills, the pros and cons of fear and optimism, the difference between our experience and memory of events, the real components of happiness-each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.

Drawing on a lifetime's experimental experience, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our professional and our personal lives-and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will transform the way you take decisions and experience the world.


Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow (Audiobook Extract)

An extract from the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Laura Moriarty's The Chaperone, read by the actress Elizabeth McGovern, best-known for her role as Cora, Countess of Grantham in the hit TV series Downton Abbey. 

About the book:

On a summer's day in 1922 Cora Carlisle boards a train from Wichita, Kansas, to New York City, leaving behind a marriage that's not as perfect as it seems and a past that she buried long ago. She is charged with the care of a stunning young girl with a jet-black fringe and eyes wild and wise beyond her fifteen years. This girl is hungry for stardom and Cora for something she doesn't yet know. Cora will be many things in her lifetime - an orphan, a mother, a wife, a mistress - but in New York she is a chaperone and her life is about to change.

It is here under the bright lights of Broadway, in a time when prohibition reigns and speakeasies with their forbidden whispers behind closed doors thrive, that Cora finds what she has been searching for. It is here, in a time when illicit thrills and daring glamour sizzle beneath the laws of propriety that her life truly begins. It is here that Cora and her charge, Louise Brooks, take their first steps towards their dreams.

Available to buy from iTunes UK and Audible.co.uk

Laura Moriarty: The Chaperone (Audiobook Extract) read by Elizabeth McGovern

Roald Dahl: The Last Act (Audiobook Extract) read by Gillian Anderson

Roald Dahl: The Wish (Audiobook Extract) read by Stephen Mangan

An extract from the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Susan Cain's ground-breaking book Quiet, brilliantly read by Kathe Mazur.

About the book:

In Quiet, the international bestseller, Susan Cain shows how the brain chemistry of introverts and extroverts differs, and how society misunderstands and undervalues introverts. She gives introverts the tools to better understand themselves and take full advantage of their strengths.

Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with real stories, Quiet will permanently change how we see introverts - and how you see yourself.

Susan Cain: Quiet (Audiobook Extract) read by Kathe Mazur

An extract from the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Ali Smith's remarkable exploration of love, life and death, read by the author herself.

Originally four lectures given by Ali Smith at Oxford University, Artful is a tidal wave of ideas in four thematically organised bursts of thought: 'On Time', 'On Form', 'On Edge' and 'On Offer and On Reflection'.

Refusing to be tied down to either fiction or the essay form, Artful is narrated by a character who is haunted - literally - by a former lover, the writer of a series of lectures about art and literature. Full of both the poignancy and humour of fiction and all the sideways insights and jaunty angles you would expect from Ali Smith's criticism, it explores form, style, life, love, death, mortality, immortality and what art and writing can mean.
 

Artful by Ali Smith: (Audiobook Extract, read by the author herself)

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.

Listens for an epic adventure - extracts from our #penguinjourneys audiobooks

Penguin Books UK