Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Peace Work, written and read by Spike Milligan. "I had not informed my parents of my return. I wanted it to be a lovely surprise; it was for me - they were away...." The seventh and last volume of Spike Milligan's memoirs sees our hero returning from war and Italy...but to what? Aside from shooting large, inaccurate guns at Germans, all he has done for five long years is blow a trumpet....

Immensely popular and hugely influential, legendary series The Goon Show changed the face of British comedy. This first compendium presents the episodes in chronological order of original broadcast date.

'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.

In Unruly, David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects’ destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear today in their portraits.

Between 1980 and 1988 on BBC television and radio, the exploits of the Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP (Paul Eddington) - later Prime Minister - kept the British nation enthralled. Helped - and hampered - by his diligent Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorne) and his Principle Private Secretary Bernard Woolley (Derek Fowlds), Hacker and his department became synonymous with government bureaucracy and administrative double dealing.

Paul Bäumer is just 19 years old when he and his classmates enlist. They are Germany’s Iron Youth who enter the war with high ideals and leave it disillusioned or dead. As Paul struggles with the realities of the man he has become, and the world to which he must return, he is led like a ghost of his former self into the war’s final hours. All Quiet is one of the greatest war novels of all time, an eloquent expression of the futility, hopelessness and irreparable losses of war.

A reconnaissance man and sniper, John Lewis Barkley served in Company K of the Fourth Infantry Regiment, a unit that participated in almost every major American battle. The York-like episode that earned Barkley his Congressional Medal of Honor occurred on October 7, 1918, when he climbed into an abandoned French tank and singlehandedly held off an advancing German force, killing hundreds of enemy soldiers.

Six-foot-9 and 400 pounds, hailing from parts unknown, he is the one-man walking gore machine of the Deep South Wrestling Conference, and his name is Goon. But Detective Phillip Straker isn't a wrestling fan. The bodies pile up like dirty laundry: sex-obsessed tramps used as playthings by some unspeakable creature. Straker is determined to solve the rash of mutilation murders with trimmings that beg description. Is it just coincidence, or do all the victims have something in common?

This classic war memoir, first published in 1920, is based on the author's extensive diaries describing hard combat experienced on the Western Front during World War I. It has been greatly admired by people as diverse as Bertolt Brecht and Andre Gide, and from every part of the political spectrum. Hypnotic, thrilling, and magnificent, The Storm of Steel is perhaps the most fascinating description of modern warfare ever written.

In 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania was making its way from New York to Liverpool when it was sunk by a German U-boat, shocking the world with the massive death toll. Infuriated by the tragedy, Arthur Guy Empey, an American citizen, traveled to England to enlist in the Royal Fusiliers, as the United States had not yet entered the war. Over the Top tells the story of Empey’s experiences in a voice straight from the western front, causing listeners to feel as if they are right there in the trenches.

Superb stories, daring deeds, fantastic adventures! Going Solo is the action-packed tale of Roald Dahl's exploits as a World War II pilot. Learn all about his encounters with the enemy, his worldwide travels, the life-threatening injuries he sustained in a plane accident, and the rest of his sometimes bizarre, often unnerving, and always colorful adventures. Told with the same irresistible appeal that has made Roald Dahl one of the world's best-loved writers, Going Solo brings you directly into the action and into the mind of this fascinating man.

Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders captured by the Japanese in Singapore. He not only survived working on the notorious Bridge on the River Kwai , but he was subsequently taken on one of the Japanese ‘hellships’ which was torpedoed. Nearly everyone else on board died and Urquhart spent 5 days alone on a raft in the South China Sea before being rescued by a whaling ship. He was taken to Japan and then forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki.

January 1991: IRAQ. Eight members of the SAS regiment embark upon a top-secret mission to infiltrate deep behind enemy lines. Under the command of Sergeant Andy McNab, they are to sever a vital underground communication link and to seek and destroy mobile Scud launchers. Their call sign: BRAVO TWO ZERO. Each laden with 15 stones of equipment, they tab 20km across the desert to reach their objective. But within days, their location is compromised. After a fierce fire fight, they are forced into evasive action. Four men are captured. Three die. Only one escapes.

In the U.S. Marine Corps, the most dangerous job in combat is that of the sniper. With no backup and little communication with the outside world, these men disappear for weeks on end in the wilderness with nothing but intellect and iron will to protect them - as they watch, wait, and finally strike. But of all of the snipers who ever hunted human prey, one man stands above the rest as the most legendary fighting man to ever pull a trigger. That man is Carlos Hathcock.

Flanders, June 1917: a British officer and celebrated poet, is shot dead, killed not by German fire, but while recuperating from shell shock well behind the lines. A young English soldier is arrested and, although he protests his innocence, charged with his murder.Douglas Kingsley is a conscientious objector, previously a detective with the London police, now imprisoned for his beliefs.

George MacDonald Fraser beloved for his series of Flashman historical novels offers an action-packed memoir of his experiences in Burma during World War II. Fraser was only 19 when he arrived there in the wars final year, and he offers a first-hand glimpse at the camaraderie, danger, and satisfactions of service

In 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania was making its way from New York to Liverpool when it was sunk by a German U-boat, shocking the world with the massive death toll. Infuriated by the tragedy, Arthur Guy Empey, an American citizen, traveled to England to enlist in the Royal Fusiliers, as the United States had not yet entered the war. Over the Top tells the story of Empey’s experiences in a voice straight from the western front, causing listeners to feel as if they are right there in the trenches.

They joined for their country. They fought for each other. When war breaks out in 1914, Mark Fenner and his Sheffield friends immediately flock to Kitchener's call. Amid waving flags and boozy celebration, the three men - Fen, his best friend Locky and self-assured Frank, rival for the woman Fen loves - enlist as volunteers to take on the Germans and win glory.

The celebrated 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, winner of eight Emmy Awards, was based on two classic books about the War in the Pacific, Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed. Audible Studios, in partnership with Playtone, the production company co-owned by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and creator of the award-winning HBO series Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific, as well as the HBO movie Game Change, has created new recordings of these memoirs, narrated by the stars of the miniseries.

In 1995, Arkady Babchenko was an 18-year-old law student in Moscow when he was drafted into the Russian army and sent to Chechnya. It was the beginning of a torturous journey from naïve conscript to hardened soldier that took Babchenko from the front lines of the first Chechen War in 1995 to the second in 1999. He fought in major cities and tiny hamlets, from the bombed-out streets of Grozny to anonymous mountain villages.

Paul Bäumer is just 19 years old when he and his classmates enlist. They are Germany’s Iron Youth who enter the war with high ideals and leave it disillusioned or dead. As Paul struggles with the realities of the man he has become, and the world to which he must return, he is led like a ghost of his former self into the war’s final hours. All Quiet is one of the greatest war novels of all time, an eloquent expression of the futility, hopelessness and irreparable losses of war.

The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz is the extraordinary true story of a British soldier who marched willingly into the notorious concentration camp, Buna-Monowitz, known as Auschwitz III. In the summer of 1944, Denis Avey was being held in a British POW labor camp, E715, near the site of Auschwitz III. He had heard of the brutality meted out to the prisoners there and he was determined to witness what he could.

Like many Germans, Berlin schoolboy Erwin Bartmann fell under the spell of the Zeitgeist cultivated by the Nazis. Convinced he was growing up in the best country in the world, he dreamt of joining the Leibstandarte, Hitler's elite Waffen SS unit. Tall, blond, blue-eyed, and just 17-years-old, Erwin fulfilled his dream on Mayday 1941, when he gave up his apprenticeship at the Glaser bakery in Memeler Strasse and walked into the Lichterfelde barracks in Berlin as a raw, volunteer recruit.

January 1991: IRAQ. Eight members of the SAS regiment embark upon a top-secret mission to infiltrate deep behind enemy lines. Under the command of Sergeant Andy McNab, they are to sever a vital underground communication link and to seek and destroy mobile Scud launchers. Their call sign: BRAVO TWO ZERO. Each laden with 15 stones of equipment, they tab 20km across the desert to reach their objective. But within days, their location is compromised. After a fierce fire fight, they are forced into evasive action. Four men are captured. Three die. Only one escapes.

Shortly after his arrival in Uganda, Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan is called to the scene of a bizarre accident: Idi Amin, careening down a dirt road in his Maserati, has hit a cow. When Garrigan tends to Amin, the dictator, obsessed with all things Scottish, appoints him as his personal physician. So begins a fateful dalliance with the African leader whose Emperor Jones-style autocracy would transform into a reign of terror.

Deep in the trenches of Flanders Fields, men are dying in the thousands every day. So one more death shouldn't be a surprise. But then a body turns up with bizarre injuries, and Sherlock Holmes' former sidekick, Dr. John Watson - unable to fight for his country due to injury but able to serve it through his medical expertise - finds his suspicions raised.

In the U.S. Marine Corps, the most dangerous job in combat is that of the sniper. With no backup and little communication with the outside world, these men disappear for weeks on end in the wilderness with nothing but intellect and iron will to protect them - as they watch, wait, and finally strike. But of all of the snipers who ever hunted human prey, one man stands above the rest as the most legendary fighting man to ever pull a trigger. That man is Carlos Hathcock.

Keggie Carew grew up in the gravitational field of an unorthodox father who lived on his wits and dazzling charm. As his memory begins to fail, she embarks on a quest to unravel his story and get to know who her father really was.

Louisiana, 2065. A lot has changed in the 43rd year of the Kurian Order. Possessed of an unnatural and legendary hunger, the bloodthirsty Reapers have come to Earth to establish a New Order built on the harvesting of enslaved human souls. They rule the planet. They thrive on the scent of fear. And if it is night, as sure as darkness, they will come.

On this pitiless world, the indomitable spirit of mankind still breathes in Lieutenant David Valentine.

Normandy, 1944. To cover the fighting in France, Jane, a reporter for the Nashville Banner, and Liv, an Associated Press photographer, have already had to endure enormous danger and frustrating obstacles - including strict military regulations limiting what woman correspondents can do. Even so, Liv wants more. Encouraged by her husband, the editor of a New York newspaper, she's determined to be the first photographer to reach Paris with the Allies.