Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in All Categories

Sleep is one of the most important aspects of our life, health and longevity and yet it is increasingly neglected in 21st century society, with devastating consequences: every major disease in the developed world - Alzheimer's, cancer, obesity, diabetes - has very strong causal links to deficient sleep. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why its absence is so damaging to our health. Compared to the other basic drives in life - eating, drinking and reproducing - the purpose of sleep remained elusive.

Tessa Ensler always plays by the rules. A brilliant defence barrister at the top of her game, she's made it against the odds in the exclusive world of criminal law. For her, it's not about innocence or guilt - it's about winning or losing. But when a date with a dazzling colleague from her chambers goes awry, Tessa discovers that the rules she's always played by might not be in her favour.

Ever since he was a kid, kicking broken footballs on the streets of East London in the shadow of Canary Wharf's skyscrapers, Gary wanted something better. Something a whole lot bigger. Then he won a competition run by a bank: 'The Trading Game'. The prize: a golden ticket to a new life, as the youngest trader in the whole city. A place where you could make more money than you'd ever imagined. Where your colleagues are dysfunctional maths geniuses, overfed public schoolboys and borderline psychopaths, yet they start to feel like family.

As the country's top forensic pathologist, Dr Richard Shepherd has spent a lifetime uncovering the secrets of the dead. When death is sudden or unexplained, it falls to Shepherd to establish the cause. Each post-mortem is a detective story in its own right - and Shepherd has performed over 23,000 of them. Through his skill, dedication and insight, Dr Shepherd solves the puzzle to answer our most pressing question: how did this person die?

Despite its manifest failures, the narrative of neoliberalism retains its grip on the public mind and the policies of governments all over the world. By this narrative, less regulation and more ‘animal spirits’ capitalism produces not only greater prosperity, but more freedom for individuals in society - and is therefore morally better. But, in The Road to Freedom Stiglitz asks, whose freedom are we – should we be – thinking about? What happens when one person’s freedom comes at the expense of another’s?

Richmond Upon Thames is one of the most desirable areas to live in London. And Riverview Close - a quiet, gated community – seems to offer its inhabitants the perfect life. At least it does until Giles Kenworthy moves in with his wife and noisy children, his four gas-guzzling cars, his loud parties and his plans for a new swimming pool in his garden. His neighbours all have a reason to hate him and are soon up in arms. When Kenworthy is shot dead with a crossbow bolt through his neck, all of them come under suspicion and his murder opens the door to lies, deception and further death.

An old friend in the antiques business has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing. As the gang springs into action they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters and drug dealers, as well as heartache close to home. With the body count rising, the package still missing and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out? And who will be the last devil to die?

A revolutionary system to get one per cent better every day. People think when you want to change your life, you need to think big. But world-renowned habits expert James Clear has discovered another way. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions – doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call. He calls them atomic habits.

Percy Jackson has saved the world multiple times – battling monsters, Titans, even death himself – so graduating high school should be a piece of cake, right? Wrong. Percy needs three college recommendation letters from the gods before his final school year comes to an end. And one thing Percy knows, the Greek gods don’t do anything for free. He earned his first one by retrieving Ganymede’s lost chalice. Now, to secure his second letter, Percy and his friends Annabeth and Grover must agree to a new challenge – pet-sitting for the goddess Hecate while she’s away over Halloween week.

2017: 19-year-old Tallulah is going out on a date, leaving her baby with her mother, Kim. Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits. The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah's friends, who tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a party at a house in the nearby woods called Dark Place.

A haunting, magical fairy tale collection, in which Oscar Wilde beautifully evokes (amongst others) 'The Happy Prince', who was not so happy after all; 'The Selfish Giant', who learned to love little children; and 'The Star Child', who did not love his parents as much as he should.

Magical listening for young and old, narrated by John Moffatt.

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved killings. But when a local property developer shows up dead, 'The Thursday Murder Club' finds themselves in the middle of their first live case. The four friends, Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron, might be octogenarians, but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it's too late?

Anna Walsh had a dream life - according to everybody else. She lived in New York, had a long-term boyfriend, and had The Best Job In The World working as a highly successful beauty PR. So why did she decide to take a flamethrower to the lot? Because now she's back Dublin, living with her parents. She's undeniably forty-eight, with no partner, no job, and no direction. Anna's lost her purpose. She needs a new challenge to help her fall back in love with life again. When an opportunity arises to solve a PR crisis in the tiny town of Maumtully, Anna leaps at the chance.

We have entered a new 'age of eating' where most of our calories come from an entirely novel set of substances called Ultra-Processed Food, food which is industrially processed and designed and marketed to be addictive. But do we really know what it's doing to our bodies? Join Chris in his travels through the world of food science and a UPF diet to discover what's really going on. Find out why exercise and willpower can't save us, and what UPF is really doing to our bodies, our health, our weight, and the planet (hint: nothing good).

Over the course of a decade from 2010, Rory Stewart went from being a political outsider to standing for prime minister - before being sacked from a Conservative Party that he had come to barely recognise.

International bestselling author Jeff Kinney serves up heaps of laughs in Hot Mess, the 19th book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Greg Heffley is caught in the middle as the two halves of his extended family come together in a sidesplittingly relatable summer story!

1970s Yorkshire. Women are being terrorised by the serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper, whose attacks are becoming more frequent and arbitrary. Twelve year-old Miv's family, afraid of the Ripper's increasing hatred of women, begins to talk about moving south. Miv, determined for this not to happen, decides to take the matter into her own hands and investigate the attacks alongside her best friend Sharon.

The Greek myths are amongst the greatest stories ever told, passed down through millennia and inspiring writers and artists as varied as Shakespeare, Michelangelo, James Joyce and Walt Disney. They are embedded deeply in the traditions, tales and cultural DNA of the West. You'll fall in love with Zeus, marvel at the birth of Athena, wince at Cronus and Gaia's revenge on Ouranos, weep with King Midas and hunt with the beautiful and ferocious Artemis.

The story of Troy speaks to all of us - the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against the city of Troy, to which they will lay siege for 10 whole and very bloody years. It is Zeus, the king of the gods, who triggers the war when he asks the Trojan prince Paris to judge the fairest goddess of them all. Aphrodite bribes Paris with the heart of Helen, wife of King Menelaus of the Greeks, and naturally, nature takes its course.

It's the following Thursday. Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster and a very real threat to his life. As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds, too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus? But this time, they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians.