Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Political

A stunning rendering of present-day Palestine, Enter Ghost is a story of diaspora, displacement, and the connection to be found in family and shared resistance. Timely, thoughtful, and passionate, Isabella Hammad's highly anticipated second novel is an exquisite feat, an unforgettable story of artistry under occupation.

Sorcha had thrown me out of the family home - this time apparently for good. And yet that was the least of my worries. My old dear was in prison, accused of murdering her second husband. My sons were showing an unhealthy interest in - someone call social services - soccer! And my daughter wanted everyone to call her Eddie. On top of all that, a blond wig discovered in a dusty attic had given my old man delusions of power. Suddenly, he was running for election, promising to tear up the bailout deal and take Ireland out of Europe.

Merchant-banker Nicholas de Fleury, having wrested his infant son from the boy's formidable mother, pauses en route to the land of golden light to set in train a deception that will ensnare nations in the triumphant ruin of his enemies. This is volume six in the House of Niccolo.

Our brains stay active for 10 minutes after our heart stops beating. For Leila, each minute brings with it a new memory: growing up with her father and his wives in a grand old house in a quiet Turkish town; watching the women gossip and wax their legs while the men went to mosque; sneaking cigarettes and Western magazines on her way home from school; running away to Istanbul to escape an unwelcome marriage; falling in love with a student who seeks shelter from a riot in the brothel where she works.

The theme that unites these stories in this dazzling first collection by Curtis Sittenfeld is how even the cleverest people tend to misread others and how much we all deceive ourselves. Sharp and tender, funny and wise, this collection shows Sittenfeld’s knack for creating real, believable characters while also skewering contemporary mores with brilliant dry wit.

Intimidated by her father, the rector of Knype Hill, Dorothy performs her submissive roles of dutiful daughter and bullied housekeeper. Her thoughts are taken up with the costumes she is making for the church school play, by the hopelessness of preaching to the poor and by debts she cannot pay in 1930s Depression England. Suddenly her routine shatters and Dorothy finds herself down and out in London. She is wearing silk stockings, has money in her pocket and cannot remember her name.

In this riveting thriller - from the Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author - Dr Henry Parsons, an unlikely but appealing hero, races to find the origins and cure of a mysterious new killer virus as it brings the world to its knees. At an internment camp in Indonesia, 47 people are pronounced dead with acute hemorrhagic fever. When Henry Parsons - microbiologist, epidemiologist - travels there on behalf of the World Health Organization to investigate, what he finds will soon have staggering repercussions across the globe.

In 1461, the mysterious, enigmatic Nicholas is in Florence. Backed by none other than Cosimo de' Medici, he will sail the Black Sea to Trebizond, last outpost of Byzantium, and the last jewel missing from the crown of the Ottoman Empire. But trouble lies ahead. Nicholas's step-daughter - at the tender age of 13 - has eloped with his rival in trade: a Machiavellian Genoese who races ahead of Nicholas, sowing disaster at every port. And time is of the essence: Trebizond may fall to the Turks at any moment.

Nayan Olak keeps seeing Helen Fletcher around town and on his daily run out to the Peaks. She’s come back to the old house at the end of the lane, with her teenage son, Brandon, though nobody seems to remember much about her. Some trouble at school, back in the day. A certain defensiveness. Nayan is powerfully drawn to her, though he doesn’t quite know why. He hasn’t risked love since he lost his young family in a terrible accident twenty years before. All his energy has gone into work at the union, trying to make the world better, fairer, as he sees it, as he would have wanted it for his son.

In the year 2000, in the closest election in American history, Alice Blackwell's husband becomes President of the United States. Their time in the White House proves to be heady, tumultuous and controversial. In Alice Blackwell, Curtis Sittenfeld has created her most dynamic and complex heroine yet. American Wife is not a novel about politics. It is a gorgeously written novel that weaves race, class, fate and wealth into a brilliant tapestry. It is a novel in which the unexpected becomes inevitable and the pleasures and pain of intimacy and love are laid bare.

Jim Sams has undergone a metamorphosis. In his previous life he was ignored or loathed, but in his new incarnation he is the most powerful man in Britain - and it is his mission to carry out the will of the people. Nothing must get in his way: not the opposition, nor the dissenters within his own party. Not even the rules of parliamentary democracy. With trademark intelligence, insight and scabrous humour, Ian McEwan pays tribute to Franz Kafka’s most famous work to engage with a world turned on its head.

George Pantis is in a pickle. After walking out on his wife Rosie on Referendum night 2016 to shack up with hairdresser 'Brexit Brenda' next door, he thinks he's got it made - especially when he wins millions on a Kosovan lottery he only vaguely remembers entering. Unfortunately, he's forgotten his password and can't get at his money. Which is a problem because he suddenly has to contend with lots of forceful new friends desperate to know his mother's maiden name.

Welcome to Chain-Gang All-Stars - the highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program inside America's private prison system. Harkening back to the time of gladiators, but watched by millions of live-stream subscribers, prisoners compete for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

Beginning eight years ago on the outskirts of Birmingham, where car factories have been replaced by Poundland, and London, where frenzied riots give way to Olympic fever, Middle England follows a brilliantly vivid cast of characters through a time of immense change.

Fiona Maye is a leading High Court judge, presiding over cases in the family court. She is renowned for her fierce intelligence, exactitude and sensitivity. But her professional success belies private sorrow and domestic strife. There is the lingering regret of her childlessness, and now her marriage of 30 years is in crisis. At the same time, she is called on to try an urgent case: for religious reasons, a beautiful 17-year-old boy, Adam, is refusing the medical treatment that could save his life, and his devout parents share his wishes. Time is running out.

Adam Lang has been Britain's longest serving - and most controversial - prime minister of the last half century. And now that he's left office, he's accepted one of history's largest cash advances to compose a tell-all (or at least, tell-some) memoir of his life and years of power.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Race of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett, read by John Banks. This is the third book in the House of Niccolo series. Set in 15th-century Cyprus, this novel continues the saga of Nicholas van der Poel, international mercenary who started out as a dyer's apprentice, as he plays for the highest stakes with the greatest superpowers in Europe.

Hat, ribbon, bird rose. To the people on the island, a disappeared thing no longer has any meaning. It can be burned in the garden, thrown in the river or handed over to the Memory Police. Soon enough, the island forgets it ever existed. When a young novelist discovers that her editor is in danger of being taken away by the Memory Police, she desperately wants to save him. For some reason, he doesn't forget, and it's becoming increasingly difficult for him to hide his memories. Who knows what will vanish next?

It is the summer of 1938 and Phyllis Forrester has returned to England after years abroad. Moving into her sister's grand country house, she soon finds herself entangled in a new world of idealistic beliefs and seemingly innocent friendships. Fevered talk of another war infiltrates their small, privileged circle, giving way to a thrilling solution: a great and charismatic leader, who will restore England to its former glory. At a party hosted by her new friends, Phyllis lets down her guard for a single moment, with devastating consequences.

1960. The border between East and West Germany has closed. For Elisabeth - a young painter - the GDR is her generation's chance to build a glorious, egalitarian socialist future. For her brother Uli, it is a place of stricture and oppression. Separating them is the ever-wider chasm of the party line; over them loom the twin spectres of opportunity and fear, and the shadow of their defector brother Konrad. In prose as bold as a scarlet paint stroke, Brigitte Reimann battles with the clash of idealism and suppression, familial loyalty and desire.