Audiobooks by Kingsley Amis

Colonel Sun: James Bond, Book 15 Audiobook

The life of secret agent James Bond has begun to fall into a pattern that threatens complacency... until the sunny afternoon when M is kidnapped. The action ricochets across the globe to a volcanic Greek island, where Colonel Sun Liang-tan of the People's Liberation Army of China collaborates with an ex-Nazi atrocity expert in a world-menacing conspiracy. Stripped of all professional aids, Bond faces, unarmed, the monstrous devices of Colonel Sun in a test that brings him to the verge of his physical endurance.

Kingsley Amis (Author), Simon Vance, Simon Vance (Narrator)

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Complete Stories

Brought to you by Penguin. The short stories of Kingsley Amis - the great master of post-war comic prose - are dark, playful, moving, surprising and extremely funny. This definitive collection gathers all Amis's short fiction in a single volume for the first time and encompasses five decades of storytelling. In 'The 2003 Claret', written in 1958, a time machine is invented for the weighty task of sending a man to 2010 to discover what the booze will taste like. In 'Boris and the Colonel' a Cambridge spy is unearthed in the sleepy English countryside with the help of a plucky horse, while In 'Mason's Life' two men meet inside their respective dreams. The collection spans many genres, offering ingenious alternative histories, mystery and horror, satirical reflections and a devilishly funny attacks. Amis's stories reveal the scope of his imagination and the warmth beneath his acerbic humour, and they all share the unmistakable style and wit of one of Britain's best loved writers. © Kingsley Amis 2011 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Kingsley Amis (Author), John Sackville (Narrator)

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Difficulties With Girls

Brought to you by Penguin. In Kingsley Amis's Difficulties With Girls, Jenny Bunn and Patrick Standish have settled into London life with their troubled courtship long behind them. Patrick works in publishing and Jenny teaches sick children in a hospital. They have reached a certain level of maturity, or so they think. It is not long before they realize their respectability will be severely tested by seductive neighbours with a taste for whisky, the sexually confused Ted Valentine, and the literary set of Hampstead. In this funny and provocative study of a young couple growing up, Amis shows us that the difficulty with marriage is that it's so hard to preserve, especially when Patrick and Jenny harbour deep yearnings for a different kind of life. Kingsley Amis's (1922-95) works take a humorous yet highly critical look at British society, especially in the period following the end of World War II. Born in London, Amis explored his disillusionment in novels such as That Uncertain Feeling (1955). His other works include The Green Man (1970), Stanley and the Women (1984), and The Old Devils(1986), which won the Booker Prize. Amis also wrote poetry, criticism, and short stories. © Kingsley Amis 2013 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Kingsley Amis (Author), Kristin Atherton (Narrator)

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Ending Up

Brought to you by Penguin. At Tuppenny-hapenny Cottage in the English countryside, five elderly people live together in rancorous disharmony. Adela Bastable bosses the house, as her brother Bernard passes his days thinking up malicious schemes against the baby-talking Marigold and secret drinker Shorty, while kindly George lies bedridden upstairs. The mismatched quintet keep their spirits alive by bickering and waiting for grandchildren to visit at Christmas. But the festive season does not herald goodwill to all at Tuppenny-hapenny Cottage. Disaster and chaos, it seems, are just around the corner ... Told with Amis's piercing wit and humanity, Ending Up (1974) is a wickedly funny black comedy of the indignities of old age. © Kingsley Amis 2011 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Kingsley Amis (Author), Fergus Craig (Narrator)

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Everyday Drinking

Brought to you by Penguin. For the first time in audio, savour this volume bringing together the best of his three out-of-print works on the art of and, most importantly, practice of drinking. Including Kingsley Amis in Drink, Everyday Drinking and How's Your Glass?, this collection celebrates Amis' comic prose and collected thoughts on the art of drinking, alongside well-tested recipes.

Kingsley Amis (Author), Anthony Howell (Narrator)

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Girl, 20

Brought to you by Penguin. Douglas Yandell, a young-ish music critic, is enlisted by Kitty Vandervane to keep an eye on her roving husband - the eminent conductor and would-be radical Sir Roy - as he embarks on yet another affair. Roy, meanwhile, wants Douglas as an alibi for his growing involvement with Sylvia, an unsuitably young woman who loves nothing more than to shock and provoke. Life soon becomes extremely complicated as Douglas finds himself caught up in a frantic, farcical tangle of relationships, rivalry and scandal. Girl, 20 is a merciless send-up of 1970s London's permissive society from a master of uproarious comedy. © Kingsley Amis 2011 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Kingsley Amis (Author), Oliver Chris (Narrator)

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I Want It Now

Brought to you by Penguin. The quickest way to get rich is to marry someone rich, but how do you do this if you aren't yet rich? TV chat-show host Ronnie Appleyard is preoccupied with this question as he pursues wealthy heiress Simona Quick over two continents in the company of braying aristocrats, Greek shipping magnates, American dandies and the dreaded mother-in-law to be. But as he comes closer to his prize other questions present themselves. Is the androgenous Simona really worth it? Why doesn't she like sex? Is it possible to drink all day? With his unerring eye for absurdity and class satire Kingsley Amis shows us what happens when money meets naked ambition. © Kingsley Amis 2012 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Kingsley Amis (Author), Leighton Pugh (Narrator)

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Jake's Thing

Brought to you by Penguin. Jake Richardson, an Oxford don nearing sixty with a lifetime's lechery behind him, is in pursuit of his lost libido and heads of to the consulting room of a miniature sex therapist. Not one to disobey a doctor's orders, he runs the full humiliating gamut of sex labs and trendy 'workshops', where more than souls are bared. He decks himself with cunning gadgetry, dreams up a weekly fantasy, pets diligently with his overweight wife and browses listlessly through porn magazines behind locked doors. Is sex really worth it? As liberationists abuse him, a campus hostess bores him into bed - and even his own wife starts acting oddly - Jake seriously begins to wonder. © Kingsley Amis 1978 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Kingsley Amis (Author), Keith Allen (Narrator)

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Lucky Jim

Brought to you by Penguin. Jim Dixon has accidentally fallen into a job at one of Britain's new red brick universities. A moderately successful future in the History Department beckons. As long as Jim can survive a madrigal-singing weekend at Professor Welch's, deliver a lecture on 'Merrie England' and resist Christine, the hopelessly desirable girlfriend of Welch's awful son Bertrand. © Kingsley Amis 2000 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Kingsley Amis (Author), James Lailey (Narrator)

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Memoirs

Brought to you by Penguin. 'Endlessly entertaining... Good, rollicking stuff, and a delight to read... Sir Kingsley Amis is surely one of the funniest men alive' Auberon Waugh, Sunday Telegraph Elegant, provocative and hugely entertaining, Kingsley Amis's memoirs are filled with anecdotes, experiences and portraits of famous friends, family, acquaintances (and a few eminent foes). From his childhood days to Oxford and army life, his travels abroad and his years as a successful novelist, Memoirs offers extraordinary insights into a unique literary life. © Kingsley Amis 1991 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Kingsley Amis (Author), Joseph Kloska (Narrator)

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New Maps of Hell

Brought to you by Penguin. In this hilarious, inspiring and provocative series of essays, Kingsley Amis introduces every reader to the wonders and value of science fiction writing. From the extraordinary ideas but sexless science of Jules Verne to the power of H. G. Wells's terrifying storytelling; from the brilliance of bad science fiction writing to the potency of their important ideas; from a portrait of the average SF reader to Amis's sad prediction that this genre will never make it in film or television, New Maps of Hell is a warm and witty exploration of a world many readers may be yet to discover. © Kingsley Amis 2012 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Kingsley Amis (Author), Roger May (Narrator)

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One Fat Englishman

Brought to you by Penguin. Brimming with gluttony, booze and lust, Roger Micheldene is loose in America. Supposedly visiting Budweiser University to make deals for his publishing firm in England, Roger instead sets out to offend all he meets and to seduce every woman he encounters. But his American hosts seem made of sterner stuff. Who will be Roger's undoing? Irving Macher, the young author of an annoyingly brilliant first novel? Father Colgate, the priest who suggests that Roger's soul is in torment? Or will it be his married ex-lover Helene? One thing is certain - Roger is heading for a terrible fall. Outrageously funny and irreverent, One Fat Englishman (1963) is a devastating satire on Anglo-American relations. © Kingsley Amis 2011 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Kingsley Amis (Author), Leighton Pugh (Narrator)

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