Get Your Free Audiobook
-
Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas
- Narrated by: Adam Kay
- Length: 2 hrs and 20 mins
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Professionals & Academics
Non-member price: $10.63
People who bought this also bought...
-
What Seems to Be the Problem with Adam Kay and Mark Watson
- In Support of The Lullaby Trust
- By: Adam Kay, Mark Watson
- Narrated by: Adam Kay, Mark Watson
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What Seems to Be the Problem with Adam Kay and Mark Watson reveals the intriguing and hilarious ways the body can go wrong - and the amazing stories that unfold when the medical world tries to help.... In conversation with his (very health-anxious) friend, the comedian Mark Watson, best-selling doctor-turned-writer Adam Kay takes a scalpel to the bizarre past, often-surprising present and fantastical future of medicine.
-
-
Very funny, but ...
- By Amazon Customer on 06-10-2020
-
This Is Going to Hurt
- Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
- By: Adam Kay
- Narrated by: Adam Kay
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids, and the hospital parking meter earns more than you. Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know - and more than a few things you didn't - about life on and off the hospital ward.
-
-
Not for the prudish but well written/read
- By Carron on 11-08-2018
-
Trust Me, I'm a (Junior) Doctor
- By: Max Pemberton
- Narrated by: Alexi Armitage
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Starting on the evening before he begins work as a doctor, this audiobook charts Max Pemberton's touching and funny journey through his first year in the NHS. Progressing from youthful idealism to frank bewilderment, Max realises how little his job is about 'saving people' and how much of his time is taken up by signing forms and trying to figure out all the important things no one has explained yet - for example, the crucial question of how to tell whether someone is dead or not.
-
Critical
- Science and Stories from the Brink of Human Life
- By: Dr Matt Morgan
- Narrated by: Dr Matt Morgan
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following in the wake of hugely successful medical memoirs such as Do No Harm and Fragile Lives, Critical is an intelligent, compelling and profoundly insightful journey into the world of intensive care medicine and the lives of people who have forever been changed by it.
-
-
Nothing short of inspiring
- By Anonymous User on 14-06-2019
-
Going Under
- By: Sonia Henry
- Narrated by: Sarah Blackstone
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr Katarina 'Kitty' Holliday thought that once she finished medical school and found gainful employment at one of Sydney's best teaching hospitals that her dream was just beginning. The hard years, she thought, were finally over. But Kitty is in for a rude shock. Between trying to survive on the ward, in the operating theatre and in the emergency department without killing any of her patients or going under herself, Kitty finds herself facing situations that rock her very understanding of the vocation to which she intends to devote her life.
-
-
Eye opening read
- By Emily on 11-10-2019
-
Where Does It Hurt?
- What the Junior Doctor Did Next
- By: Max Pemberton
- Narrated by: Alexi Armitage
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
He's into his second year of medicine, but this time Max is out of the wards and onto the streets, working for the Phoenix Outreach Project. Fuelled by tea and more enthusiasm than experience, he attempts to locate and treat a wide and colourful range of patients that somehow his first year on the wards didn't prepare him for...from Molly the 80-year-old drugs mule and God in a Tesco car park to middle-class mums addicted to appearances and pain killers in equal measure.
-
What Seems to Be the Problem with Adam Kay and Mark Watson
- In Support of The Lullaby Trust
- By: Adam Kay, Mark Watson
- Narrated by: Adam Kay, Mark Watson
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What Seems to Be the Problem with Adam Kay and Mark Watson reveals the intriguing and hilarious ways the body can go wrong - and the amazing stories that unfold when the medical world tries to help.... In conversation with his (very health-anxious) friend, the comedian Mark Watson, best-selling doctor-turned-writer Adam Kay takes a scalpel to the bizarre past, often-surprising present and fantastical future of medicine.
-
-
Very funny, but ...
- By Amazon Customer on 06-10-2020
-
This Is Going to Hurt
- Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
- By: Adam Kay
- Narrated by: Adam Kay
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids, and the hospital parking meter earns more than you. Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know - and more than a few things you didn't - about life on and off the hospital ward.
-
-
Not for the prudish but well written/read
- By Carron on 11-08-2018
-
Trust Me, I'm a (Junior) Doctor
- By: Max Pemberton
- Narrated by: Alexi Armitage
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Starting on the evening before he begins work as a doctor, this audiobook charts Max Pemberton's touching and funny journey through his first year in the NHS. Progressing from youthful idealism to frank bewilderment, Max realises how little his job is about 'saving people' and how much of his time is taken up by signing forms and trying to figure out all the important things no one has explained yet - for example, the crucial question of how to tell whether someone is dead or not.
-
Critical
- Science and Stories from the Brink of Human Life
- By: Dr Matt Morgan
- Narrated by: Dr Matt Morgan
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following in the wake of hugely successful medical memoirs such as Do No Harm and Fragile Lives, Critical is an intelligent, compelling and profoundly insightful journey into the world of intensive care medicine and the lives of people who have forever been changed by it.
-
-
Nothing short of inspiring
- By Anonymous User on 14-06-2019
-
Going Under
- By: Sonia Henry
- Narrated by: Sarah Blackstone
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr Katarina 'Kitty' Holliday thought that once she finished medical school and found gainful employment at one of Sydney's best teaching hospitals that her dream was just beginning. The hard years, she thought, were finally over. But Kitty is in for a rude shock. Between trying to survive on the ward, in the operating theatre and in the emergency department without killing any of her patients or going under herself, Kitty finds herself facing situations that rock her very understanding of the vocation to which she intends to devote her life.
-
-
Eye opening read
- By Emily on 11-10-2019
-
Where Does It Hurt?
- What the Junior Doctor Did Next
- By: Max Pemberton
- Narrated by: Alexi Armitage
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
He's into his second year of medicine, but this time Max is out of the wards and onto the streets, working for the Phoenix Outreach Project. Fuelled by tea and more enthusiasm than experience, he attempts to locate and treat a wide and colourful range of patients that somehow his first year on the wards didn't prepare him for...from Molly the 80-year-old drugs mule and God in a Tesco car park to middle-class mums addicted to appearances and pain killers in equal measure.
-
The Doctor Will See You Now
- By: Max Pemberton
- Narrated by: Alexi Armitage
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The junior doctor...back on the wards. After a year on the streets treating outreach patients, Max Pemberton is back in the relative comfort of hospital. This time running between elderly care and the dementia clinic to A&E and outpatients. No longer inexperienced (Max and his doctor friends can now tell when someone is actually dead), they are on the front line of patient care, for better or worse.
-
War Doctor
- Surgery on the Front Line
- By: David Nott
- Narrated by: David Nott
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than 25 years, David Nott has taken unpaid leave from his job as a general and vascular surgeon with the NHS to volunteer in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones. From Sarajevo under siege in 1993 to clandestine hospitals in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he has carried out lifesaving operations and field surgery in the most challenging conditions, and with none of the resources of a major London teaching hospital.
-
-
Amazing life story.
- By Sam on 30-04-2019
-
The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly
- A Physician's First Year
- By: Matt McCarthy
- Narrated by: Matt McCarthy
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In medical school, Matt McCarthy dreamed of being a different kind of doctor - the sort of mythical, unflappable physician who could reach unreachable patients. But when a new admission to the critical care unit almost died his first night on call, he found himself scrambling. Visions of mastery quickly gave way to hopes of simply surviving hospital life, where confidence was hard to come by and no amount of med school training could dispel the terror of facing actual patients.
-
-
Well done!!!
- By Tobi Martins on 24-10-2019
-
Unnatural Causes
- By: Dr Richard Shepherd
- Narrated by: Dr Richard Shepherd
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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?
-
-
an extraordinary life
- By Amazon Customer on 27-09-2019
-
Dear NHS
- A Collection of Stories to Say Thank You
- By: Adam Kay - editor
- Narrated by: Caitlin Moran, Candice Carty-Williams, Ed Sheeran, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Dear NHS, an amazing list of inspirational people come together to share their stories of how the national health service has been there for them and changed their lives in the process. By turns deeply moving, hilarious, hopeful and impassioned, these stories together become a love letter to the NHS and the 1.4 million people who go above and beyond the call of duty every single day - selflessly, generously, putting others before themselves, never more so than now.
-
-
Dear NHS - Wow!
- By Karen Stephens on 29-07-2020
-
Hard Pushed
- A Midwife’s Story
- By: Leah Hazard
- Narrated by: Leah Hazard
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Life on the NHS front line, working within a system at breaking point, is more extreme than you could ever imagine. From the bloody to the beautiful, from moments of utter vulnerability to remarkable displays of strength, from camaraderie to raw desperation, from heart-wrenching grief to the pure, perfect joy of a newborn baby, midwife Leah Hazard has seen it all.
-
-
Leah Hazard is AMAZING!
- By Anonymous User on 02-02-2020
-
Are you the F--king Doctor?
- Tales from the Bleeding Edge of Medicine
- By: Liam Farrell
- Narrated by: Matthew Forsythe
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Family doctor, Irishman, musician, award-winning author, anarchist and recovering morphine addict, Liam became a columnist for the British Medical Journal in 1994. He went on to write for many major publications, winning a series of prestigious awards; in 2005, he was the first doctor to win Columnist of the Year in the Periodical Publishers Association awards. The book contains a selection of Liam’s best work, from his columns, blogs and short stories.
-
The Prison Doctor
- By: Dr Amanda Brown, Ruth Kelly
- Narrated by: Sophie Aldred
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Horrifying, heartbreaking and eye-opening, these are the stories, the patients and the cases that have characterised a career spent behind bars. The no-holds-barred memoirs of a GP who went from working at a quiet suburban practice to treating the country’s most dangerous criminals - first in young offenders’ institutions, then at the notorious Wormwood Scrubs and finally at Europe’s largest women-only prison in Europe, Bronzefield.
-
A Promised Land
- By: Barack Obama
- Narrated by: Barack Obama
- Length: 29 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency - a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.
-
-
Fantastic
- By James M on 28-11-2020
-
Kay’s Anatomy
- A Complete (and Completely Disgusting) Guide to the Human Body
- By: Adam Kay
- Narrated by: Adam Kay, Sandi Toksvig, Rose Matafeo, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Explore each organ of the body in this immersive audiobook edition of Kay's Anatomy, read by Adam Kay with a full cast of voices, including Mark Gatiss, Sandi Toksvig, Andy Nyman and Lolly Adefope. Do you ever think about your body and how it all works? Like really properly think about it? The human body is extraordinary and fascinating and, well...pretty weird. Yours is weird, mine is weird, your maths teacher's is even weirder. This book is going to tell you what's actually going on in there and answer the really important questions.
-
-
technical problem
- By Anonymous User on 06-11-2020
-
In Shock
- By: Dr Rana Awdish
- Narrated by: Dr Rana Awdish, Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At seven months pregnant, intensive care doctor Rana Awdish suffered a catastrophic medical event, haemorrhaging nearly all of her blood volume and losing her unborn first child. She spent months fighting for her life in her own hospital, enduring a series of organ failures and multiple major surgeries. Every step of the way, Awdish was faced with something even more unexpected and shocking than her battle to survive: her fellow doctors’ inability to see and acknowledge the pain of loss and human suffering, the result of a self-protective barrier hardwired in medical training.
-
When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times number-one best seller. At the age of 36, on the verge of completing a decade's training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, the next he was a patient struggling to live.
-
-
I am a doctor! I have cancer.
- By Amazon Customer on 21-05-2020
Publisher's Summary
The number one Sunday Times best seller.
Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas is a short gift book of festive diaries from the author of multi-million-copy bestseller This is Going to Hurt.
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...but 1.4 million NHS staff are heading off to work. In this perfect present for anyone who has ever set foot in a hospital, Adam Kay delves back into his diaries for a hilarious, horrifying and sometimes heartbreaking peek behind the blue curtain at Christmastime.
Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas is a love letter to all those who spend their festive season on the front line, removing babies and baubles from the various places they get stuck, at the most wonderful time of the year.
What listeners say about Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Emily Martin
- 06-12-2019
Adam Kay you have done it again
I loved Kay’s first book and I couldn’t wait to listen to this one. I love his honesty about the profession. You are one funny man 😊
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jasmine Andrew
- 26-11-2019
swearing and honesty. great read
Honesty with a mix of funny, WTF moments and sad experiences. A snapshot to the unseen world of Xmas within the health sector... with a twist
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 16-04-2020
An entertaining piece but not value for money
Another entertaining piece by Adam Kay but disappointingly short for the price of a credit. Compared to his first authorial outing, it was a little light on the content as well, lacking the laughs as well as the poignancy.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 09-03-2020
Not long enough to be engaging.
Not long enough to be engaging, I enjoyed the last book but I think this is worth an exchange. Disappointing.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 04-02-2020
Brutally honest, funny and poignant.
Brutally honest and funny. As a healthcare professional I appreciate the poignant yet relatable moments and helps me feel less alone! Easy to listen to and highly enjoyable light read.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Liam
- 31-01-2020
Adam delivers another healthy book!
Adam once again has put out an excellent book, based off his experiences as a Doctor! Hilarious, sad and extremely relatable.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 09-01-2020
Awesome book!
Totally loved it. Adam tells it like it is! His humor is awesome . Well done!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Barry Mason
- 12-12-2019
A few key funny parts, and one sad bit
I liked the book, although I preferred the first one more. This one kept referring to the first book at least four times as if it was trying to grab the success back. There was a few great lol moments in this book, but it was mostly reminiscing about what was with a bleak Christmas message at the end.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- April
- 17-11-2019
Thank you again Adam.
Adam Kay's books always manage to reaffirm my faith in humanity somehow. Moved to tears.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Gemma
- 17-10-2019
Bloody loved it!
Absolutely loved ‘This is Going to Hurt’ and wondered if a second book could live up to it ... but it really did. I loved it. An emotional rollercoaster that was so thoughtfully, addictively (couldn’t stop listening) and humorously written. Adam Kay is an all round genius. Thank you to all the NHS staff working around Christmas.
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- pie finger
- 19-10-2019
Love love love it
Adam Kay is a loss to the NHS, however he is an immense writer and this book does not disappoint. Who knew that Mars bar wrappers were contraception...... I look forward to his next literary offering 😂
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Sharon Fisher
- 18-10-2019
great book even if it's only half a pint, not full
I loved the first book, this ones great but feeling somewhat shortchanged as it's only half the length of the first book read on audible.
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 19-10-2019
Hes done it again !
I loved the 1st book and enjoyed this just as much... the stories are hilarious and it really does make you think about how hard the NHS all work over Christmas... cant wait for the tv series !
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- K. J. Noyes
- 19-10-2019
Extra tales from Kay with a festive flavour
Extra tales from Kay with a festive flavour, as laugh-out-loud as ever. Kay mentions in this that some of the stories were intended to be included in 'This is Going to Hurt', and they would have made a perfect 'Christmas' chapter in his first 'behind the NHS curtain' book. This makes a good little stocking filler though, a second glimpse at the perennially exhausting, sometimes hilarious and often heartbreaking life of a doctor. Kay takes us through twenty five stories from his time in the NHS. I ran a ParkRun while listening to this and ended up snorting with laughter as I ran, it was impossible not to. Then a few minutes later I had a lump in my throat. Not often that such extremes happen so smoothly. The funny stories are right up there with some of the most outrageous and hilarious I've ever heard. Comic gold. And Kay tells them beautifully, a real literary talent. He also makes a very entertaining narrator, reading his own work on the audiobook. It was only 2 hours long, a short read either on paper or to listen to, but it's one I would definitely listen to annually near Christmas, a quick giggle for the season. These stories deserve sharing (and no identities are uncovered, for those embarrassing tales!), there are some here that might affect those in similar situations (regarding IVF, miscarriage, death), and of course Kay reminds us more than once of the hard-working souls who prop up our health service, and how much they give up at this time of year to keep us healthy. Just as entertaining as his first, a slim edition but a great gift idea. With thanks to Nudge Books for providing a sample Audible copy.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Benedict westoby
- 17-10-2019
Funny as (I’ll let you guess what)
Amazing, funny, laugh out loud! Definitely worth a listen or read. Now I feel very festive.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Cath W
- 20-10-2019
Relatable and Funny
If you work in the NHS you will definitely relate to some of these tales and laugh out loud. A short but enjoyable listen.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Elen
- 17-10-2019
shame
first book was fantastic, loved it and was so excited for this to come out. so disappointed how short it was. not worth 1 audible credit.
17 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 19-10-2019
Another great book
The third Adam Kay book I’ve listened to. Really enjoyed it. I’d recommend it to everyone; whether you’re an NHS professional or not. Adam - Keep up the good work.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- lucy Frame
- 19-10-2019
As funny as the first
Great story teller. Humane and humble. Sorry the NHS lost him but get why. Thank you for telling your story.
2 people found this helpful
20 Best Fantasy Audiobooks
This genre is so full of talent, it can be difficult to know what to listen to next — so look no further than this list to get you started.



20 Best Nonfiction Audiobooks
From the entire history of humanity to astrophysics, to our gut and mental health, dig into this list and learn something new.



Best Australian Podcasts on Audible
Audible Original Podcasts are free for Audible members. Check out this list of home-grown content, from binge-worthy true crime to self-help.


