Penguin audiobooks Series

Paul Theroux invites us to join him on one of his most exotic and tantalizing adventures exploring the coasts and blue lagoons of the Pacific Islands, and taking up residence to discover the secrets of these isles.

Theroux is a mesmerizing narrator - brilliant, witty, keenly perceptive as he floats through Gauguin landscapes, sails in the wake of Captain Cook and recalls the bewitching tales of Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson. Alone in his kayak, paddling to seldom visited shores, he glides through time and space, discovering a world of islands, their remarkable people, and in turn, happiness.

'A sharp, fascinating and highly entertaining book ... Theroux at his best' Daily Telegraph.

Kowloon Tong

by Paul Theroux

Published 1 April 1997

When Mr Hung offers Bunt a handsome sum for the family business, he refuses him immediately. Yet it soon grows clear that Mr Hung will accept no refusals. Then a woman from Bunt's factory vanishes and he is forced for the first time in his life to make decisions that matter.

Old Patagonian Express

by Paul Theroux

Published 1 December 1980

The "Old Patagonian Express" was the last train Paul Theroux took in his journey from Boston to Patagonia. Some trains were superb, most were deplorable. It was a journey of contrasts in people, in temperature, in scenery, in altitude, and in attitude. The people were extraordinary, eccentric, replusive and individualistic. There was the appalling Mr Thornberry, the bogus priest in Cali and the blind writer, Borges, in Buenos Aires. Paul Theroux has also written "The Great Railway Bazaar".

Riding the Iron Rooster

by Paul Theroux and Howard H Scullard

Published 12 September 1988

If you want to understand China, take the train: as the Chinese do. The author decided to do just that - from the searing hot Gobi desert to the Western Xinjiang of the ice-bound cities of the Siberian border, along the South China Sea and to the edge of Tibet - and this book is an account of that year. Paul Theroux joined a tour that made its way by rail from London to Mongolia, stopping in Paris, Warsaw and in the Soviet Union. Reaching China by this unconventional overland route provided the author with much material for his book and details about who goes to China and why. Then, to Inner Mongolia and Peking and Shangai, he rode trains and discovered that in some ways China is changing radically, and in others it is still ancient and bound by tradition. An example was the Iron Rooster - an aged rattling train that continues to shudder along a four day route between Peking and distant Urumchi in China's far west. While the country produces Kentucky Fried Chicken and atom bombs, most trains still go everywhere, and the trains are crammed with Chinese tourists, who are on the move, studying and sightseeing.
The book is full of Theroux's encounters with people and their talk - about Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution, about rising prices and student unrest, about their work and their worries and the possiblity of a better life elsewhere. Paul Theroux is author of "The Great Railway Bazaar", "The Old Patagonian Express", "The Kingdom by the Sea", "The Mosquito Coast" and "Doctor Slaughter". The latter two have been made into films and his novel "Picture Palace" was winner of the Whitbread Prize for Fiction.

The Pillars of Hercules

by Paul Theroux

Published 17 October 1995

At the gateway to the Mediterranean lie the two Pillars of Hercules: Gibraltar and Ceuta, in Morocco. Paul Theroux decided to travel from one to the other – but taking the long way round.

His grand tour of the Mediterranean begins in Gibraltar and takes him through Spain, the French Riviera, Italy, Greece, Istanbul and beyond. He travels by any means necessary - including dilapidated taxi, smoke-filled bus, bicycle and even a cruise-liner. And he encounters bullfights, bazaars and British tourists, discovers pockets of humanity in war-torn Slovenia and Croatia, is astounded by the urban developments on the Costa del Sol and marvels at the ancient wonders of Delphi.

Told with Theroux's inimitable wit and style, this lively and eventful tour evokes the essence of Mediterranean life.

The Kingdom by the Sea

by Paul Theroux

Published 3 October 1983

As mentioned in The Times Travel Book Club 2020

Award winning writer Paul Theroux embarks on a journey that, though closer to home than most of his expeditions, uncovers some surprising truths about Britain and the British people in the '80s in The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain.

Paul Theroux's round-Britain travelogue is funny, perceptive and 'best avoided by patriots with high blood pressure...'

After eleven years living as an American in London, Paul Theroux set out to travel clockwise round the coast and find out what Britain and the British are really like. It was 1982, the summer of the Falklands War, the ideal time, he found, to surprise the British into talking about themselves. The result makes superbly vivid and engaging reading.

'A sharp and funny descriptive writer. One of his golden talents, perhaps because he is American and therefore classless in British eyes, is the ability to chat up and get on with all sorts and conditions of British. . . Theroux is a good companion' The Times

'Filled with history, insights, landscape, epiphanies, meditations, celebrations and laments' The New York Times

'Few of us have seen the entirety of the coast and I for one am grateful to Mr Theroux for making my journey unnecessary. He describes it all brilliantly and honestly' Anthony Burgess, Observer

American travel writer Paul Theroux is known for the rich descriptions of people and places that is often streaked with his distinctive sense of irony; his other non-fiction titles, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Happy Isles of Oceania, Sunrise with Seamonsters, The Tao of Travel, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, The Old Patagonian Express, The Great Railway Bazaar, Dark Star Safari, Fresh-air Fiend, Sir Vidia's Shadow, The Pillars of Hercules, and his novels and collections of short stories, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize winner The Mosquito Coast are available from Penguin.