Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Comedy & Humor

In the year that David Bowie died, Brexit shocked us, 'Hiddleswift' was a thing and Trump trumped, we are all asking ourselves: was 2016 really the worst year ever? Find out in this special commemorative book. In this cathartic memento of the annus shitabulus that was 2016, you'll find a hilarious guide to everything that went wrong and the few - very few - things that actually went right.

The 10 Commandments may have had a lot going for them, but they don't offer those of us located in the 21st century much in the way of guidance when it comes to our relationship with our food. And Lord knows we need it. Enter our new culinary Moses, the legendary restaurant critic Jay Rayner, with a new set of hand-tooled commandments for this food-obsessed age. He deals once and for all with questions like whether it is ever okay to covet thy neighbour's oxen (it is), eating with your hands (very important indeed) and if you should cut off the fat (no).

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of In Your Prime, written and read by India Knight. Our mothers' 50 is not our 50. We have no map, no blueprint, no nothing. There is no longer any sense of what is and isn't age appropriate, or even of whether age-appropriateness is still relevant. We're supposed to be grown up, but we seldom feel it. With In Your Prime, India Knight provides answers to the modern-day dilemmas of getting older.

Meet Martha Ross. She dreams of being a singer, but she’s been working in a call centre for far too long. She’s separating from her husband, the father of her son. And she’s moving back home to her parents’ as a single mum, toddler in tow. Life has thrown her a few lemons...but Martha intends to make a gin and tonic. It’s time to become the woman she’s always wanted to be. And at least her mum’s on hand to provide childcare - and ample motherly judgment, of course.

In A Year at the Circus: Inside Trump's White House, BBC North America Editor Jon Sopel takes you inside Trump’s West Wing and explores the impact this presidency has had on the most iconic of American institutions. Each chapter starts inside a famous Washington room, uncovering its history and its new resonance in the Trump era.

You like Jeff Goldblum. We like Jeff Goldblum. Helen McClory really likes Jeff Goldblum. So lie back, Jurassic Park-style, and prepare to enjoy The Goldblum Variations, a collection of stories, musings, puzzles, and games based on the one and only Jeff Goldblum as he (and alternate versions of himself) travels through the known (and unknown) universe in a mighty celebration of weird and wonderful Goldbluminess.

Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a 'T'. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts and tins of pineapple chunks - not to mention the devastation left in the wake of J.'s small fox-terrier Montmorency.

Leigh Somerset wants to spend some quality time with her kids before they grow up, and her husband has always fancied himself sort of a Clark Griswold figure. So the Somersets will be spending their family vacation on the road, driving from suburban Milwaukee to Orlando, Florida. Already off to a rocky start, they stumble upon an abandoned, half-burned down farmhouse in Indiana, and the Somersets inadvertently unleash an eerie history that will follow them the rest of their trip.

Vita Woods is on the brink. She produces a popular podcast and lives with her successful doctor boyfriend, Max, with whom the sex is great and the future promising. Her brilliant if unreliable sister Gracie is her best friend and sparring partner. And her steadfast goldfish, Whitney Houston, brightens even her dimmest days. Because the days are dark, as much as things are going right. Vita is not leaving the house. In fact, she can barely make it out of bed.

It's Natwest's last day before he leaves for university, and there's only one thing on his mind: the deeply embarrassing package he ordered to his house—which still hasn't arrived. He won't leave town without it. Any alternative is too distressing to consider ...

York, 1988. Dr Tom Frith is beginning his first term as a tutor at the University of Eboracum. After teaching primary school children for several years, he's sure shaping the minds of young adults will be a welcome change. But that's before considering the pressures he'll face outside the lecture hall, from helping three hapless students who've been surviving exclusively on porridge, to fielding inappropriate propositions from students chasing higher grades. And then there's the particular challenge of Edna Wallop, the Acting Head of Faculty.

Meet Cherry, a bandit queen on the run, driving a pink soft-top convertible through the Badlands of Southeast England. She's never felt more Thelma and Louise in her life - except there are three of them in the car and one of them is dead. How did a head nurse and mother of two end up driving a handcuffed policeman and the corpse of a murdered refugee on a journey to find justice? Pursued by a racist, roid-raged, shaven-headed officer of the law - not to mention by her husband and daughter - what else can a woman with a conscience do in modern Britain?

Paul Sinha is an award-winning comedian, a quizzing mastermind and a happily married husband. But it hasn't always been this way. As a boy, Paul struggled to find his place in a world where he didn't quite fit. Who was he? A smart young man with the world's knowledge at his fingertips? A traditional Bengali son, destined for a career in medicine that he didn't want? A gay man who couldn't quite come out? A man on a self-destruct mission? Amid life's chaos, it was general knowledge that kept Paul sane, even as he struggled into a new life as a stand-up comedian.

Jane has high hopes her life is about to turn around. After years of living precariously, she, her painter husband, Lenny, and their two kids have landed a stint as house sitters in a friend’s luxurious home high in the hills above Los Angeles, a gig that coincides magically with Jane’s sabbatical. If she can just finish her latest novel, Nusu Nusu, the centuries-spanning epic Lenny refers to as her “mulatto War and Peace,” she’ll have tenure and some semblance of stability and success within her grasp. But things don’t work out quite as hoped.

Shalom Auslander was raised like a veal in a dysfunctional family in the Orthodox community of Monsey, New York: the son of an alcoholic father; a guilt-wielding mother; and an overbearing God. Now, as he reaches middle age, Auslander begins to suspect that what plagues him is something worse, something he can't so easily escape: a story. The story. One implanted in him at an early age, a story that told him he is fallen, broken, shameful, disgusting, a story we have all been told for thousands of years, and continue to be told by the religious and secular alike, a story called "Feh."

An elderly substitute teacher at Baldwin High School is found dead in the faculty lounge. But after a bit of a stir, life quickly returns to normal—it’s not like it’s the worst (or even most interesting) thing that has happened within the building’s walls. But when, a week later, the spontaneous scattering of his ashes on the school grounds catches the attention of some busybody parents, it sets in motion a year that can only be described as wild, bizarre, tragic, mundane, beautiful, and humorous all at once.

We meet our ill-tempered protagonist—the story’s titular “brat”—at a low moment, but not yet at rock bottom. The Gabriel of the novel is mourning the death of his father as well as a recent breakup and struggling to finish writing his second book. Alone and aimless, he agrees to move back into his parents’ house to clear it out for sale. Here, the clichés end.

This is a perfect book for a very imperfect generation. Millennials were the kids who wore slap bracelets and jeans so low rise they could see one another's colons, and they are now adults wondering, Is everyone else as messed up as I am? In her book, Jess shares relatable tales of a woman who feels like a dumpster fire even with a seemingly ideal set up with a fire-captain wife, three kids, and a mortgage.

Mackie, Edele, Alex and Nat are navigating their chaotic and confusing 20s together. They have jobs and pay their own rent (well, most of them) but don't know how to bleed radiators, defrost a freezer or test the smoke alarms. With breakups to deal with and major decisions to make, life can get messy, especially when they're still trying to get the hang of this 'being a grown-up' thing. Welcome to the joys of being almost adults.

Sylvia lives alone, dedicating herself to her job at the local university. On weekends, she helps out at a local hedgehog sanctuary because it gives her something to talk about on Mondays - and it makes people think she's nicer than she is. Only Sylvia has a secret: she's been in love with her boss, Professor Lomax, for over a decade now, and she's sure he's just waiting for the right time to leave his wife. Meanwhile she stores every crumb of his affection and covertly makes trouble for anyone she feels gets in his way.