Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Dark Humor

Years on from Trainspotting Sick Boy is back in Edinburgh after a long spell in London. Having failed spectacularly as a hustler, pimp, husband, father and businessman, Sick Boy taps into an opportunity which to him represents one last throw of the dice. However, to realise his ambitions within the Adult industries, Sick Boy must team up with old pal and fellow exile Mark Renton.

You probably already know my name. Lucy Chase, the woman who doesn’t remember murdering her best friend. Even though they couldn’t find enough evidence to charge me, I know you all think I did it. That’s OK. I realise being found wandering the streets the next day covered in her blood wasn't a great look. Believe me, I’m as frustrated as you are. I’d love to know if I’m a murderer – it’s the sort of thing you really should know about yourself, isn’t it? And now, thanks to true-crime podcast Listen for the Lie, I finally have the chance to find out.

On a chilly February day two old friends meet in the throng outside a crematorium to pay their last respects to Molly Lane. Both Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday had been Molly's lovers in the days before they reached their current eminence, Clive as Britain's most successful modern composer, Vernon as editor of the quality broadsheet The Judge. Gorgeous, feisty Molly had had other lovers too, notably Julian Garmony, Foreign Secretary, a notorious right-winger tipped to be the next prime minister.

Twenty-four-year-old Megan may have her whole life ahead of her, but it already feels like a dead end, thanks to her dreadful job as a gastroenterologist's receptionist and her heart-clogging resentment of the success and happiness of everyone around her. But no one stokes Megan's bitterness quite like her coworker, Jillian, a grotesquely optimistic, 35-year-old single mother whose chirpy positivity obscures her mounting struggles.

'And God said, Let there be light; and there was light, but Eastern Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected.' There have been many interpretations of the Old Testament over the centuries but never one quite like this. Spike Milligan has rewritten, in his own inimitable style, many of the best-known stories of the Old Testament, featuring characters like King 'my brain hurts' Solomon; the great oaf of a giant, Goliath; and the lesser-known crossword clue, Hushai the Archite.

Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. A compulsive womaniser, Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering. But this time it is different: she is having the affair, and he is still in love with her.

Emily didn’t join the cast of The One for fame or for a relationship. She simply didn’t have anything better to do. Newly fired from her dead-end job, it doesn’t take much convincing when she’s recruited as a last-minute contestant for the popular reality dating show. Emily has been performing her entire life—for her family and friends, former boyfriends, and coworkers. How different could it be playing herself in front of cameras? But the moment Emily arrives, it becomes clear she’s been tapped to win it all.

In the land of Lapvona, the lord of the land Villiam is cheating the local villagers of their food, their water, their livelihoods. Grotesque and ridiculous, he marries the pregnant and tongueless ex-nun Agata, whom he believes will make him God, and his son will be the second Christ.

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?

Paddy Buckley is a grieving widower who has worked for years for Gallagher's, a long-established - some say the best - funeral home in Dublin. One night, while driving home after an unexpected encounter with a client, Paddy hits a pedestrian crossing the street. He pulls over and gets out of his car, intending to do the right thing. As he bends over to help the man, he recognizes him. It's Donal Cullen, brother of one of the most notorious mobsters in Dublin. And he's dead.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of On the Bright Side by Hendrik Groen, read by Patrick Ryecart. Everyone's favourite octogenarian is back and - together with the Old-But-Not-Dead Club - is more determined than ever to wreak havoc. After a year mourning the death of his beloved friend Eefje, Hendrik picks up his pen once again to chronicle the goings on both inside his care home and in the increasingly confusing world outside.

Maren Gelb is on a company-imposed digital detox. She tweeted something terrible about the president's daughter, and as the COO of Richual, "the most inclusive online community platform for women to cultivate the practice of self-care and change the world by changing ourselves", it's a PR nightmare.

What would you do if you knew you only had 100 days left to live? For Lucio Battistini, it's a chance to spend the rest of his life the way he always should have - by making every moment count. Imperfect, unfaithful, but loveable Lucio has been thrown out of the house by his wife and is sleeping at his father-in-law's bombolini bakery when he learns he has inoperable cancer. So begins the last hundred days of Lucio's life, as he attempts to right his wrongs, win back his wife (the love of his life and afterlife), and spend the next three months enjoying every moment.

In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her loveless marriage to join an ashram, endured a brief stint as a beggar (mostly to spite her affluent parents) and spent years chasing after a dishevelled, homeless 'artist' - all with her young child in tow. Now she is forgetting things, mixing up her maid's wages and leaving the gas on all night, and her grown-up daughter is faced with the task of caring for a woman who never cared for her.

Meet Steven Stelfox. London, 1997: New Labour is sweeping into power, and Britpop is at its zenith. A&R man Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music industry, fuelled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine, searching for the next hit record amid a relentless orgy of self-gratification. But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox must take the notion of cutthroat business practices to murderous new levels in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.

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.

When 34-year-old Ms Shibata gets a new job in Tokyo to escape sexual harassment at her old one, she finds that, as the only woman at her new workplace—a company that manufactures cardboard tubes—she is expected to do all the menial tasks. One day, she announces that she can't clear away her colleagues' dirty cups—because she's pregnant and the smell nauseates her. The only thing is...Ms Shibata is not pregnant.

The sensational new crime novel from the best-selling author of Snap. Pensioner Felix Pink is about to find out that it’s never too late...for life to go horribly wrong. When Felix lets himself in to Number Three Black Lane, he’s there to perform an act of kindness and charity: to keep a dying man company as he takes his final breath. But just 15 minutes later Felix is on the run from the police - after making the biggest mistake of his life.

At sixty-four Mickey Sabbath is still defiantly antagonistic and exceedingly libidinous; sex is an obsession and a principle, an instrument of perpetual misrule in his daily existence. But after the death of his long-time mistress - an erotic free spirit whose great taste for the impermissible matches his own - Sabbath embarks on a turbulent journey into his past. Bereft and grieving, tormented by the ghosts of those who loved and hated him, he contrives a succession of farcical disasters that take him to the brink of madness and extinction...

Mark Renton is finally a success. An international jet-setter, he now makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, airport lounges, soulless hotel rooms and broken relationships have left him dissatisfied with his life. He's then rocked by a chance encounter with Frank Begbie, from whom he'd been hiding for years after a terrible betrayal and the resulting debt. But the psychotic Begbie appears to have reinvented himself as a celebrated artist and - much to Mark's astonishment - doesn't seem interested in revenge.