Retro
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Adding to library failed
Please try again
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.
Retro
Pre-order Now for £12.06
-
Narrated by:
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
Ash is a failed actress who is done trying to ‘make’ something of her life. Until a golden opportunity drops in her lap: a job at Retro, an agency who organise trips into the past for the ultra-wealthy.
Energised by her new role, Ash throws herself into leading bachelorette parties in the Old West, birthday parties at Woodstock and a situationship with a hard-drinking detective from 1937. But as time goes on, it becomes clear that Retro’s shadowy founder Ro has terrifying designs for the company’s future – and for the part Ash herself can play in it.
© Jessica M. Goldstein 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026
Critic reviews
Retro is a smart exploration of time travel in the Instagram age: a vividly imagined and gently satirical novel, with a keen eye for the ways nostalgia and commerce intertwine.
Retro is a funny, punchy, delightful romp through American history, tourism, and the modern workplace. Goldstein’s eye for visceral detail shines as she incisively examines the nature of nostalgia. Existential but silly, heady but oh so juicy. To say what everyone else will say too: I want to travel back so I can read it again for the first time!
A magnetic read—equal parts charming, melancholy, and strange—perfect for those with sharp tongues but yearning hearts.
Retro is smart, funny, and delicious. If I could time-travel, I would go back and read it again for the first time
Retro is so many things, all at once: delightful and disturbing; wildly speculative and chillingly realist; meticulously researched and intricately imagined; action-packed and profoundly engaged with questions of ethics, politics and philosophy; propelled through space (and, of course, time) by an engine of crackling cleverness and razor-sharp prose, but constantly retaining a Northstar of deep tenderness and genuine heart. This novel is a cri de couer, a wild adventure, a brilliant book.
Retro puts a fresh spin on the time-travel genre, blending the allure of times gone past with the absurdities of corporate work culture. Shrewd, witty and original.
Jessica M. Goldstein always has her finger on the pulse of pop culture, and she's adept at writing about it in perceptive and hilarious ways. And in her funny time-leaping novel, she doesn't miss a beat. Retro is worth your attention—no matter what timeline you're on.
No reviews yet