Books with author Penguin Audio

The New York Times best-selling author of Falling presents a warm, wise, and wonderfully vivid novel about a mother who asks her three estranged daughters to come home to help her end her life. Ronni Sunshine left London for Hollywood to become a beautiful, charismatic star of the silver screen. But at home she was a narcissistic, disinterested mother who alienated her three daughters. As soon as possible, tomboy Nell fled her mother's overbearing presence to work on a farm and find her own way in the world as a single mother. The target of her mother's criticism, Meredith never felt good enough, thin enough, pretty enough. Her life took her to London - and into the arms of a man whom she may not even love. And Lizzy, the youngest, more like Ronni than any of them, seemed to have it easy, using her drive and ambition to build a culinary career to rival her mother's fame, while her marriage crumbled around her. But now the Sunshine sisters are together again, called home by Ronni, who has learned that she has a serious disease and needs her daughters to fulfill her final wishes. And though Nell, Meredith, and Lizzy have never been close, their mother's illness draws them together to confront the old jealousies and secret fears that have threatened to tear these sisters apart. As they face the loss of their mother, they will discover if blood might be thicker than water after all....

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Plantagenets, a short, lively, action-packed history of how the Magna Carta came to be. The Magna Carta is revered around the world as the founding document of Western liberty. Its principles can be found in our Bill of Rights and in the Constitution. But what was this strange document that dwells on tax relief and greater fishing rights, and how did it gain legendary status? In this 800th anniversary year, Dan Jones takes us back to 1215, the turbulent time when the Magna Carta was just a peace treaty between England's King John and a group of self-interested, violent barons who were tired of his high taxes and endless foreign wars. The treaty would fail within two months of its confirmation. But this important document marked the first time a king was forced to obey his own laws. Jones' Magna Carta follows the story of the Magna Carta's creation, its failure, and the war that subsequently engulfed England and is an audiobook that will appeal to fans of microhistories of pivotal years like 1066, 1491, and especially 1776 - when American patriots, inspired by that long-ago defiance, dared to pick up arms against another English king.

Abby Maslin shares an inspiring story of resilience and commitment in a deeply affecting new memoir. After her husband suffered a traumatic brain injury, the couple worked together as he recovered - and they learned to love again. When Abby Maslin's husband, TC, didn't make it home on August 18, 2012, she knew something was terribly wrong. Her fears were confirmed when she learned her husband had been beaten by three men and left for dead mere blocks from home, all for his cell phone and debit card. The days and months that followed were a grueling test of faith. As TC recovered from a severe traumatic brain injury that left him unable to speak and walk, Abby faced the challenge of caring for - and loving - a husband who now resembled a stranger. Love You Hard is the raw, unflinchingly honest story of a young love left broken and the resilience required to mend a life and remake a marriage. Told from the caregiver's perspective, this audiobook is a daring exploration of true love: what it means to love beyond language, beyond abilities, and into the place that reveals who we really are. At the heart of Abby and TC's unique and captivating story are the universal truths that bind us all. This is a tale of living and loving wholeheartedly, learning to heal after profound grief, and choosing joy in the wake of tragedy.

Simplicity is arguably the most potent weapon in business - attracting customers, motivating employees, helping companies to outthink competitors, and creating new efficiencies. Yet rarely is it as simple as it looks. Ken Segall's first book, Insanely Simple, was based on observations gained from 12 years working as Steve Jobs' advertising agency creative director, first with NeXT and then with Apple. He saw firsthand that Jobs looked at everything through the lens of simplicity. His obsession with simplicity was visible not just in Apple's products. You could see it in the way the company was organized and how it innovated, advertised, sold at retail, and provided customer service. In practice simplicity was Jobs' most powerful business weapon. It helped Apple distinguish its products and create entirely new product categories, and it put distance between Apple and its competitors. But while Apple is a terrific example of a company that has been propelled by the power of simplicity, it is hardly alone. Inspired by the ways Apple has benefited from the power of simplicity, Segall set out to find other companies that were traveling this path. He wanted to learn more about the thinking of their leaders. He felt that if he could chronicle the experiences of those who have successfully simplified, it would be an invaluable guide for everyone who would like to do the same. This book is the result of his journey into simplicity in companies around the world. Many of the "heroes of simplicity" profiled in this book are probably not on your list of usual suspects. Segall had conversations with over 40 men and women from a wide range of industries, in companies big and small, established and up and coming, famous and below the radar. Each leader has a fascinating point of view about how simplicity has helped improve his or her company and set it apart from competitors. Each is unique, yet, as you'll find, many display interesting similarities. From Jerry Greenfield, you'll hear how Ben & Jerry's grew from local to global without losing its focus and simple values. From the CEO of one of Australia's biggest banks, you'll hear how simplicity is attracting new customers. From former Apple senior vice president Ron Johnson, you'll hear how a simple idea aligned the team creating the worldwide network of Apple Stores. You'll discover how simplicity influences the CEOs of The Container Store and Whole Foods. You'll get insights on simplification from the worlds of fashion, automobiles, entertainment, and technology. You'll even get inside the blue heads of the Blue Man Group, who developed a business strategy to defeat complexity before it could take root.

As seen on The Today Show! The Friends We Keep is the heartwarming and unforgettable New York Times best-selling novel from Jane Green, author of The Sunshine Sisters and The Beach House. Evvie, Maggie, and Topher have known one another since college. Their friendship was something they swore would last forever. Now years have passed, the friends have drifted apart, and they never found the lives they wanted - the lives they dreamed of when they were young and everything seemed possible. Evvie starved herself to become a supermodel but derailed her career by sleeping with a married man. Maggie married Ben, the boy she fell in love with in college, never imagining the heartbreak his drinking would cause. Topher became a successful actor, but the shame of a childhood secret shut him off from real intimacy. By their 30th reunion, these old friends have lost touch with one another and with the people they dreamed of becoming. Together again, they have a second chance at happiness...until a dark secret is revealed that changes everything. The Friends We Keep is about how despite disappointments we've had or mistakes we've made, it's never too late to find a place to call home.

Sports fans see Joe Buck everywhere: broadcasting one of the biggest games in the NFL every week, calling the World Series every year, announcing the Super Bowl every three years. They know his father, Jack Buck, is a broadcasting legend and that he was beloved in his adopted hometown of St. Louis. Yet they have no idea who Joe really is. Or how he got here. They don't know how he almost blew his career. They haven't read his funniest and most embarrassing stories or heard about his interactions with the biggest sports stars of this era. They don't know how hard he can laugh at himself - or that he thinks some of his critics have a point. And they don't know what it was really like to grow up in his father's shadow. Joe and Jack were best friends, but it wasn't that simple. Jack, the voice of the St. Louis Cardinals for almost 50 years, helped Joe get his broadcasting start at 18. But Joe had to prove himself, first as a minor league radio announcer, and then on local TV, national TV with ESPN, and then finally on FOX. He now has a successful, Emmy-winning career, but only after a lot of dues-paying, learning, and pretty damn entertaining mistakes that are recounted in this book. In Lucky Bastard, Joe takes the listener into the broadcast booth and into his childhood home. Hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking, this is a book that any sports fan will love.

With his signature matter-of-fact humor, comedian and musician Dave Hill explores his increasingly close relationship with his recently widowed father in a series of painfully funny essays you will want to listen to again and again by the fire, at the beach, in a truck stop men's room, or just about anywhere. It's your call, really. These days Dave has just the right amount of spare time to write books at home, preferably in his underwear, but things weren't always perfect. When he found himself pushing 30 while still living with his parents in Cleveland, unsuited for anything but what an "employment expert" vaguely called a career in "art, music, writing, or entertainment", he decided to visit some friends in New York for the weekend and never left. However, getting his life together wasn't as easy as he'd hoped, and even an illegally subletted, rent controlled fifth-floor walk-up studio apartment with a (for the most part) working toilet wasn't glamorous enough to erase the fact that his four siblings were all married with steady jobs and actual human offspring. And in recent years, Dave's father had grown tired of loaning him cash and living alone in the empty family home, neither of which made much sense to Dave, but whatever. Through the process of his father's eventual move to a retirement community, Dave and his dad bonded over the things in life that really matter: scorching-hot rock jams, the gluten allergy craze, 18-wheelers, Italian food (pizza and spaghetti), and whatever else could possibly be left after that. Meanwhile, Dave discovered his late-blooming manhood via experiences as disparate and dangerous as a visit to a remote Mexican prison, where he learned that people everywhere love the Eagles, and a martial arts class that pushed his resolve and his groin to their limits. In Dave Hill Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Hill's voice is sharp, carefree, and laced with just the right amount of profanity, and he is - seemingly despite himself - deeply empathetic as he portrays a difficult time in his family's life and grows up just enough to realize that maybe he and his dad aren't so different after all.

"My name is Doug Barnes, and this stuff happened on Christmas Eve in my town, which is Asquont, New York." The year is 1960, and, as it is every year, the Christmas pageant at St. John's Episcopal Church, directed by Mrs. Elkins - who used to be in "The Theater" in New York, and who is tall and skinny, with hair the color of the orange part of a candy corn - is a very big deal. Doug is a shepherd this year, which is better than being a "Three King", because, for one thing, you get to carry a stick. But there are problems everywhere. Doug's fellow shepherds are hacking around, which makes Mrs. Elkins yell at all of them; the girl he likes is playing Mary opposite a Joseph who is depressingly smart and athletic and cute; the family dog is doing very poorly, and they have no idea what they're going to tell Doug's little sister, Becky, who's playing one of the Host of Angels and who loves the dog more than anything; and his dad's just gotten a flat tire, which means they might not even get to the pageant at all. But Christmas is a time of miracles. And for Doug and his family, this will be the most miraculous Christmas of all. Dave Barry has been delighting readers for decades with his newspaper columns, nonfiction, novels for adults, and novels for children, but this book is something special: a story for all ages that will touch the heart and make you laugh out loud. And you may never look at a manger scene the same way again.

"This isn't a story about black people - it's a story about the Left's agenda to patronize blacks and lie to everyone else." For decades, the Left has been putting on a play with themselves as heroes in an ongoing civil rights move­ment - which they were mostly absent from at the time. Long after pervasive racial discrimination ended, they kept pretending America was being run by the Klan and that liberals were black America's only protectors. It took the O. J. Simpson verdict - the race-based acquittal of a spectacularly guilty black celebrity as blacks across America erupted in cheers - to shut down the white guilt bank. But now, fewer than two decades later, our "postracial" president has returned us to the pre-O.J. era of nonstop racial posturing. A half-black, half-white Democrat, not descended from American slaves, has brought racial unrest back with a whoop. The Obama candidacy allowed liberals to engage in self-righteousness about race and get a hard-core Leftie in the White House at the same time. In 2008, we were told the only way for the nation to move past race was to elect him as president. And 53 percent of voters fell for it. Now, Ann Coulter fearlessly explains the real his­tory of race relations in this country, including how white liberals twist that history to spring the guilty, accuse the innocent, and engender racial hatreds, all in order to win politically. You'll learn, for instance, how: A U.S. congressman and a New York mayor con­spired to protect cop killers who ambushed four police officers in the Rev. Louis Farrakhan's mosque. The entire Democratic elite, up to the Carter White House, coddled a black cult in San Francisco as hun­dreds of the cult members marched to their deaths in Guyana. New York City became a maelstrom of racial hatred, with black neighborhoods abandoned to crimi­nals who were ferociously defended by a press that assessed guilt on the basis of race. Preposterous hoax hate crimes were always believed, never questioned. And when they turned out to be frauds, the stories would simply disappear from the news. Liberals quickly switched the focus of civil rights laws from the heirs of slavery and Jim Crow to white feminists, illegal immigrants, and gays. Subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz was surprisingly popular in black neighborhoods, despite hysterical denunciations of him by The New York Times. Liberals slander Republicans by endlessly repeating a bizarro-world history in which Democrats defended black America and Republicans appealed to segregationists. The truth has always been exactly the opposite. Going where few authors would dare, Coulter explores the racial demagoguery that has mugged America since the early 70s. She shines the light of truth on cases ranging from Tawana Brawley; Lemrick Nelson; and Howard Beach, New York; to the LA riots and the Duke lacrosse scandal. And she shows how the 2012 Obama campaign is going to inspire the greatest racial guilt mongering of all time.

Can you remember that one time you got recognized or someone thanked you for your contribution to their life? You were a rock star, even for just one second. This book isn't about a charmed path to success or some untouchable fairy tale that nobody can relate to - this is about going from rock bottom to rock star, something that everybody can relate to. In his first book, Blair shared the brutally honest story of how he went from an at-risk youth sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a shack to a self-made multimillionaire by his early 20s. As his story became a national sensation, fans started asking him how they, too, could become entrepreneurs, take their careers to the next level, and achieve financial freedom. Rock Bottom to Rock Star answers those questions. Blair has battled extreme obstacles: life as a former gang member, balancing a demanding career with single parenthood, building and selling multiple companies, and making and losing tens of millions of dollars (sometimes all in one day). He wants to help others avoid the mistakes he made in the school of hard knocks, so he has compiled his unique advice for going from rock bottom to rock star in whatever field you choose to pursue. Much of his advice is counterintuitive and definitely not what you would learn in business school. Here's one example: "Don't believe your own hype. The moment you start celebrating, you've left the stage. It wasn't celebration that made you a rock star. It was hard work." If you're serious about making the most of your life and you're ready to become the "rock star next door" instead of just looking up to them, this may be the most rewarding book you'll ever hear.

Brought to you by Penguin. Welcome to the White House. At the heart of Washington, there is a circus. It's raucous, noisy and full of clowns. Reporting on it is a daily cacophony. Four major stories can blow up and blow out before breakfast, and political weather systems are moving at warp speed. The one thing absent from the weather forecast is the tranquil eye of the storm. That we never see. 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 are invited to step inside the Oval Office, where Trump called for loyalty from FBI Director James Comey, and experience life as a reporter in the Briefing Room, where the tense relationship between the media and the President is played out. Guiding you through these rooms, Jon reveals the inner workings of the Trump White House and details the key moments and conversations that have unfolded within its walls. From Kim Jong-un and Kavanaugh to Merkel and the Mueller Inquiry - this is your insider guide to the Washington Circus. Roll up, roll up....

A thrilling story of espionage, daring, and deception set in the exotic landscape of occupied Manila during World War II. On January 2, 1942, Japanese troops marched into Manila unopposed by US forces. Manila was a strategic port, a romantic American outpost, and a jewel of a city. Tokyo saw its conquest of the Philippines as the key in its plan to control all of Asia, including Australia. Thousands of soldiers surrendered and were sent on the notorious 80-mile Bataan Death March. But thousands of other Filipinos and Americans refused to surrender and hid in the Luzon hills above Bataan and Manila. MacArthur's Spies is the story of three of them and how they successfully foiled the Japanese for more than two years, sabotaging Japanese efforts and preparing the way for MacArthur's return. From a jungle hideout, Colonel John Boone, an enlisted American soldier, led an insurgent force of Filipino fighters who infiltrated Manila as workers and servants to stage demolitions and attacks. "Chick" Parsons, an American businessman, polo player, and expatriate in Manila, was also a US Navy intelligence officer. He escaped in the guise of a Panamanian diplomat and returned as MacArthur's spymaster, coordinating the guerrilla efforts with the planned Allied invasion. And finally there was Claire Phillips, an itinerant American torch singer with many names and almost as many husbands. Her nightclub in Manila served as a cover for supplying food to Americans in the hills and to thousands of prisoners of war. She and the men and women who worked with her gathered information from the collaborating Filipino businessmen; the homesick, English-speaking Japanese officers; and the spies who mingled in the crowd. Fans of Alan Furst and Ben Macintyre - and anyone who loves Casablanca - will relish this true tale of heroism when it counted the most.