Bill Bailey Audiobooks

Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to Happiness, comedy and curiosity in equal measure

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.4/5 average

3,373 listener ratings

Who is Bill Bailey?

Bill Bailey, born in 1965, is an English musician, comedian, actor and television presenter – the billing order varies by evening. He is known for playing Manny in the sitcom Black Books and for regular appearances on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You and QI, while his stand-up has long been distinguished by the array of instruments he folds into the act. The Observer listed him among the fifty funniest acts in British comedy in 2003, and Channel 4 viewers twice voted him the seventh greatest stand-up.

In 2020 he won the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing with professional partner Oti Mabuse – at fifty-five, the oldest winner in the show’s history. Away from the stage he is a committed cancer fundraiser, having walked a hundred miles in honour of his mother, who died in 2005, and in 2018 the University of Bath awarded him an honorary doctorate.

Bill Bailey in audiobooks

Our catalogue features Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to Happiness, one of several books he has written alongside his guide to British birds and a memoir of his animals. The register UK audiences know from the stage – musical, erudite, fond of the sudden left-turn – is precisely what a listener wants from him at book length, and a guide to happiness from a man whose trade is producing it in others carries a certain natural authority. This is comfort listening in the best sense: funny, curious and quietly wise. Ideal for a long walk, which feels appropriately Bailey-ish as a recommendation.