
The Penguin Lessons
What I Learned from a Remarkable Bird
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Narrated by:
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Bill Nighy
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By:
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Tom Michell
About this listen
A unique and moving real-life story of the extraordinary bond between a young teacher and a penguin, this audiobook will delight listeners who loved Marley & Me, Dewey the Library Cat, The Good Good Pig, and any book by Jon Katz.
In 1975, 23-year-old Englishman Tom Michell follows his wanderlust to Argentina, where he becomes assistant master at a prestigious boarding school. But Michell's adventures really begin when, on a weekend in Uruguay, he rescues a penguin covered in oil from an ocean spill, cleans the bird up, and attempts to return him to the sea. The penguin refuses to leave his rescuer's side. "That was the moment at which he became my penguin, and whatever the future held, we'd face it together," says Michell in this charming memoir.
Michell names the penguin Juan Salvador ("John Saved"), but Juan Salvador, as it turns out, is the one who saves Michell.
After Michell smuggles the bird back to Argentina and into his campus apartment, word spreads about the young Englishman's unusual roommate. Juan Salvador is suddenly the center of attention - as mascot of the rugby team, confidant to the dorm housekeeper, cohost of Michell's parties, and an unprecedented swimming coach to a shy boy. Even through the collapse of the Perónist government and amid the country's economic and political strife, Juan Salvador brings joy to everyone around him - especially Michell, who considers the affectionate animal a compadre and kindred spirit.
Witty and heartwarming, The Penguin Lessons is a classic in the making, a story that is both absurd and wonderful, exactly like Juan Salvador.
Praise for The Penguin Lessons
“I loved this book, and you will, too! It’s as charming, heartwarming, and surprising as a penguin on a roof terrace. What’s more, The Penguin Lessons teaches an important truth: that a single act of compassion can be repaid a thousand-fold.” (Sy Montgomery, author of The Good Good Pig and the National Book Award finalist The Soul of an Octopus)
“[Tom Michell’s] tone suits the material perfectly.... You believe every word.... No fool, this penguin. No fools, these publishers, who have unleashed such a delightful and charming book just in time for Christmas.” (Daily Mail [UK])
“Heart-warming is a wholly inadequate phrase to describe this captivating story that is pure delight from beginning to end.” (The Bookseller [UK])
©2015 Tom Michell (P)2015 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Fever Beach
- A Novel
- By: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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“The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he’d take him there after finishing an errand.” Thus begins Fever Beach, with an errand that leads—in pure Hiaasen-style—into the depths of Florida at its most Floridian: a sun-soaked bastion of right-wing extremism, white power, greed, and corruption.
By: Carl Hiaasen
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Mary Jane
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Anya Blau
- Narrated by: Caitlin Kinnunen
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1970s Baltimore, 14-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and enjoying her family’s subscription to the Broadway Showtunes of the Month record club. Shy, quiet, and bookish, she’s glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. A respectable job, Mary Jane’s mother says. In a respectable house.
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👍
- By Alana Torres on 05-22-21
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The Memory Library
- By: Kate Storey
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond, Imogen Wilde
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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For forty-two years, Sally Harrison has been building a library. Each year, on her daughter’s birthday, she adds a new book to her shelves – with a note in the front dedicated to her own greatest work. But Ella – Sally’s only child – fled to Australia twenty-two years ago after a heated exchange, and never looked back. And though Sally still dutifully adds a new paperback to the shelves every time the clock strikes midnight on July 11th, her hopes of her daughter ever thumbing through the pages are starting to dwindle.
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Lovely story
- By Teresa van Niekerk on 03-22-25
By: Kate Storey
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How the Penguins Saved Veronica
- By: Hazel Prior
- Narrated by: Helen Lloyd, Andrew Fallaize, Mandy Williams
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Eighty-five-year-old Veronica McCreedy is estranged from her family and wants to find a worthwhile cause to which to leave her fortune. When she sees a documentary about penguins being studied in Antarctica, she tells the scientists she's coming to visit - and won't take no for an answer. Shortly after arriving, she convinces the reluctant team to rescue an orphaned baby penguin. He becomes part of life at the base, and Veronica's closed heart starts to open.
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A mostly pleasant story
- By Kristyn Rose on 02-28-21
By: Hazel Prior
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Bad Law
- Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America
- By: Elie Mystal
- Narrated by: Elie Mystal
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times bestselling author brings his trademark legal acumen and passionate snark to offer a brilliant takedown of ten shocking pieces of legislation that continue to perpetuate hate, racial bias, injustice, and inequality today—an urgent yet hopeful story for our current political climate
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my fav
- By Anonymous User on 04-02-25
By: Elie Mystal
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The 10
- A Memoir of Family and the Open Road
- By: E.A. Hanks
- Narrated by: E.A. Hanks
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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From Vanity Fair and The New York Times contributor comes a beautifully written, deeply felt memoir recounting the solo cross-country journey she made along the Ten across the American southwest: a mission to uncover both what harrowing violence may or may not have happened to her late mother, but also, to look within and discover who she herself is—where her mother ends and she begins.
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E.A. Hanks’s writing never flinches—always fresh, vulnerable, and deeply honest
- By Jonah Evans on 04-09-25
By: E.A. Hanks
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Lilith
- By: Nikki Marmery
- Narrated by: Lara Sawalha
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. Until Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and lie beneath him. She refuses—and is banished forever from Paradise. Demonized and sidelined, Lilith watches in fury as God creates Eve, the woman who accepts her submission. But Lilith has a secret: she has already tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Endowed with Wisdom, she knows why Asherah—God's wife and equal, the Queen of Heaven—is missing. Lilith has a plan: she will rescue Eve, find Asherah, restore balance to the world, and regain her rightful place in Paradise.
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Gnostic Circe
- By Stefan Filipovits on 01-06-24
By: Nikki Marmery
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Boat Baby
- By: Vicky Nguyen
- Narrated by: Vicky Nguyen
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Starting in 1975, Vietnam’s “boat people”—desperate families seeking freedom—fled the Communist government and violence in their country any way they could, usually by boat across the South China Sea. Vicky Nguyen and her family were among them. Attacked at sea by pirates before reaching a refugee camp in Malaysia, Vicky’s family survived on rations and waited months until they were sponsored to America. But deciding to leave and start a new life in a new country is half the story…figuring out how to be American is the other.
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Vicky's tenacity
- By Amazon Customer on 04-15-25
By: Vicky Nguyen
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When the Going Was Good
- An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines
- By: Graydon Carter, James Fox - contributor
- Narrated by: Graydon Carter
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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When Graydon Carter was offered the editorship of Vanity Fair in 1992, he knew he faced an uphill battle—how to make the esteemed and long-established magazine his own. Not only was he confronted with a staff that he perceived to be loyal to the previous regime, but he arrived only a few years after launching Spy magazine, which gloried in skewering the celebrated and powerful—the very people Vanity Fair venerated.
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A lucky man
- By Dassha1 on 03-30-25
By: Graydon Carter, and others
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The Resistance Bakery
- By: Siobhan Curham
- Narrated by: Lauryn Allman
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Paris, 1943. The scent of fresh baguettes hangs in the air as Coralie unbolts the door to her bakery with trembling fingers. She must get out of the city. Hiding her precious leather recipe book inside her coat, she promises never to let the secret locations of the people she worked tirelessly to save fall into German hands… Present day. Raven is unhappy about being shipped off to the other side of the country for the summer to stay with the mysterious French grandmother she barely knows.
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One of the best!!!
- By NICK J. on 02-08-25
By: Siobhan Curham
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The Lies You Wrote
- Raisa Susanto, Book 1
- By: Brianna Labuskes
- Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The double murder of a married couple in a small Washington town draws FBI forensic linguist Raisa Susanto into an investigation that mirrors a decades-old crime. Twenty-five years ago—to the day—Alex Parker murdered his parents, then took his own life, leaving behind a note admitting everything. Raisa, paired with forensic psychologist Callum Kilkenny, uses her skills to read between the lines. Especially now that paranoid postings on a conspiracy thread suggest that Alex was a victim himself.
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Great storyline with a twist
- By Kat in Hawaii on 01-21-24
By: Brianna Labuskes
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Your Dog Is Your Mirror
- The Emotional Capacity of Our Dogs and Ourselves
- By: Kevin Behan
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In Your Dog Is Your Mirror, dog trainer Kevin Behan proposes a radical new model for understanding canine behavior: a dog’s behavior and emotion, indeed its very cognition, are driven by our emotion. The dog doesn’t respond to its owner based on what the owner thinks, says, or does; it responds to what the owner feels. And in this way, dogs can actually put people back in touch with their own emotions.
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No Scientific Basis
- By Ergon on 03-15-22
By: Kevin Behan
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The Personal Librarian
- By: Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.
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A Treat For This Academic Librarian!
- By AlTonya on 07-14-21
By: Marie Benedict, and others
What listeners say about The Penguin Lessons
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- rachel cartwright
- 02-03-23
Fabulous story
I really enjoyed the way details of the biology of penguins and the history of Argentina were woven into the storyline .
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- debbie
- 09-12-24
Wonderful read.
I Thoroughly enjoyed this book it was wonderful to listen to. I just completed it and I feel so good.
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- Robin
- 11-16-16
Unusual and touching story
This is the true story of an unexpected companionship and what it taught the author. It has a dry British sense of humor which comes through in the narration. It could be make a good movie.
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- BarbF
- 09-26-23
Heart-warming and hilarious!
I thoroughly enjoyed this story, read superbly by Bill Nighy. His reading of Juan Salvato, the voice of the penguin, adds the right note of warmth, humor and a bit of sarcasm. The tales of Tom Mitchell's peripheral adventures were very interesting, but his connection with Juan really takes center stage. Very enjoyable.
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- Rebecca
- 03-19-23
Wonderful
Beautiful story, well written and perfectly narrated. Thanks to the author for sharing Juan Salvador.
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- Alison B. Arter
- 01-29-24
Just a wonderful tale
Loved the narration pace and accent; learned about penguins! On my way to Argentina to meet some!
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- Anita
- 01-19-16
I want a penguin!
Not a huge animal story fan - but this is one terrific story! Tom Michell and I are about the same age and I vaguely remembered stories of oil soaked penguins washing up many places. Knowing that there were people out there saving these adorable animals made me feel much better. I like to think that if I were in the same position, I would have had the the chutzpa to take one home with me. I fell in love with this little guy from the first. What's not to love about a creature who just wants to be, "one of the guys"?
Bill Nighy's narration is spot on. I can hardly wait to find more he has read, to listen to.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-04-17
Thank you
Thank you, Tom Michell and Bill Nighy for bringing Juan Salvado to us so perfectly.
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- Charles Butter
- 04-10-25
The narrator did a beautiful job and made the book come to life.
I enjoyed this book so much! I picked it up after seeing the movie. The movie was good and I would recommend going to see it but the book had so much more depth. If you are looking for a feel good book during this crazy time, read this!
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- Shiloh
- 09-08-16
sweet story
It was a nice, sweet story if you're looking for something light to read/ listen to. Had some funny & interesting parts as well. enjoyed the narrator.
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