Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Social Sciences

Why does the political representation of women matter? And which hurdles - personal, political and societal - have been faced, fought and sometimes overcome in the past 30 years? From campaigning with small children to increasing the number of women in Parliament, bringing women's issues to the heart of the Labour Party and tackling a parliamentary culture with no consideration for family life, this frank, inspiring and politically charged audiobook is a crucial account of the progress (and occasional setbacks) made.

Ivy, Dulcie, Barbara, Ann, Dorothy and Jean all had different reasons for applying to work at Carr’s biscuits, but once they had put on their overalls and walked through the factory gates they discovered a community full of life, laughter and friendship. To those who didn’t know, the biscuit factory that towered over Carlisle might look like just another slice of the industrial North, a noisy and chaotic place with workers trooping in and out at all hours.

After a love affair with a man 3,000 miles away, whom she met online, Suzanne Portnoy, mother of two and a top executive in the entertainment industry, begins her sexual reawakening. Insatiable, she dives into the swinging scene and works her way through an entire spectrum of sexual experience, including exhibitionism, group sex, and fetish clubs. The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker is a story that is shocking and heart-warming in equal measure.

Are you happy? Does it matter? Increasingly, governments seem to think so. As the UK government conducts its first happiness survey, Alastair Campbell looks at happiness as a political as well as a personal issue; what it should mean to us, what it means to him.

Well hark at you, stumbling upon my autobiography. Bet you wouldn't have put money on that three years ago, eh? Please don't stress yourself out too much, though; it's actually socially acceptable nowadays that you're interested. Firstly I'd like to emphasise that I have written this audiobook myself, so be assured you're getting the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth! (Which was my original choice of title, but babe, we're so over that).

In Who Killed My Father, Édouard Louis explores key moments in his father’s life and the tenderness and disconnects in their relationship. Told with the fire of a writer determined on social justice and with the compassion of a loving son, the book urgently and brilliantly engages with issues surrounding masculinity, class, homophobia, shame and social poverty. It unflinchingly takes aim at systems that disadvantage those they seek to exclude - those who have their expectations, hopes and passions crushed by a society which gives them little thought.

If art imitates life then Ashley Walters is living proof. From his explosive performance as the drug dealer Dushane in Top Boy to his turn as an undercover detective in Bulletproof, to his time as a member of one of Britain's most notorious music collectives, So Solid Crew, Ashley's career has always explored the same conflicting forces that have governed his life. Good and evil. Honour and shame. Failure and success. Happiness and despair.

It’s 1996, and Jeremy has met the British boy of his dreams — just as, amid a media frenzy, US Congress prepares the Defense of Marriage Act, denying same-sex couples federal rights, including immigration. The pair snatch time in forests and deserts, London fashion shows, Berlin sex clubs and East Village hotel rooms. Finding no other way to stay together, they shack up illicitly among unlikely allies in San Francisco. Deep House moves through the couple’s domiciles while unlocking doors to a lineage of gay men who have come before.

When recently widowed Jason Corbett hired a wholesome young American, Molly Martens, to care for his two young children, there was nothing to suggest she was a fantasist - and that her obsession with his children would end in his death. In 2011, Jason and Molly married and settled in her native North Carolina. Just four years later, Jason was found beaten to death on the floor of the marital bedroom. The only others in the house were Jason's children, his wife and his parents-in-law.

Today, trauma is everywhere, and it seems like everybody has it. Trauma shapes public debates on education, criminal justice and healthcare. It’s cited as a root cause of addiction, mental health issues, and relationship breakdowns. It permeates media, from music and television to films and books – my own included.

Mina Smallman has lived through the unimaginable. On Saturday 6 June 2020, her daughters, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, were killed in a park by a male stranger as they celebrated Bibaa's birthday. Mina has been fighting for justice ever since - for her daughters, and for the rest of us, by challenging the toxic culture in the Metropolitan Police and calling out the wider institutional misogyny, racism and classism in Britain. Now, she tells her story for the first time.

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.

Today I sat on a bench facing the sea, the one where I waited for L to be born, and sobbed my heart out. I don't know if I'll ever recover. This note was written on 9th November 2017. As the seagulls squawked overhead and the sun dipped into the sea, Alexandra Heminsley's world was turning inside out. She'd just been told her then-husband was going to transition. The revelation threatened to shatter their brand new, still fragile, family.

Two leading data scientists offer an up-close and user-friendly look at artificial intelligence: what it is, how it works, where it came from and how to harness its power for a better world. Dozens of times per day, we all interact with intelligent machines that are constantly learning from the wealth of data now available to them. These machines, from smartphones to talking robots to self-driving cars, are remaking the world in the 21st century in the same way that the Industrial Revolution remade the world in the 19th.

Barack Obama's election in 2008 was a moment of true, unabashed hope. But after two terms shadowed by a growing white supremacist movement, Obama was replaced by an openly nativist administration. So what the hell happened? Interweaving deep historical analysis with gripping first-hand reporting on both victims and perpetrators of violence, Lowery uncovers how this vicious cycle is entering ever more perilous territory and how the United States still might find a route of escape.

David Rowan travels the globe in search of the most exciting and pioneering start-ups building the future. He’s got to know the founders of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Google, Spotify, Xiaomi, Didi, Nest, Twitter and countless other ambitious entrepreneurs disrupting businesses in almost every sector. And yet too often the companies they’re disrupting don’t get it. They think they can innovate through jargon: with talk of change agents and co-creation gurus, ideas portals and webinars, make-a-thons and hackfests, paradigm shifts and pilgrimages to Silicon Valley.

How ordinary Americans suffer when the rich and powerful use tax doges or break the law to get richer and more powerful - and how we can stop it. There is an elite crime spree happening in America, and the privileged perps are getting away with it. Selling loose cigarettes on a city sidewalk can lead to a choke-hold arrest, and death, if you are not among the top one percent.

In this short sequel to his acclaimed memoir, the legendary filmmaker and global cultural icon explores one of his favourite topics: the nature of truth. At the heart of the book lies Werner Herzog’s concept of ‘ecstatic truth’ – a truth that is often hidden behind the facts and our conceptions of reality but can be gleaned through the poetic imagination, in art, literature and cinema, when we open ourselves up to an aesthetic experience.

Kingsley Amis' authoritative and witty guide to the use and abuse of the English language. A scourge of illiteracy and a thorn in the side of pretension, Amis provides indispensable advice about the linguistic blunders and barbarities that lie in wait for us, from danglers, four-letter words to jargon and even Welsh rarebit. By turns reflective, acerbic and provocative, The King's English is for anyone who cares about how the English language is used.

Naomi and Natalie Evans, founders of Everyday Racism, share their experiences of growing up mixed race in Britain, how they process, understand and learn about their identity and use their privilege to advocate for change, as well as addressing the privileges and complexities of being mixed race in Britain today.