The Book of Ultimate Truths cover art

The Book of Ultimate Truths

Cornelius Trilogy, Book 1

Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Book of Ultimate Truths

By: Robert Rankin
Narrated by: Robert Rankin
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £15.99

Buy Now for £15.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Cornelius Murphy is a big-haired seventeen-year-old tall school leaver, devoted avoider of regular employment and Stuff of Epics.

And together with his diminutive companion and bestest friend Tuppe (the stuff of epics to a slightly lesser degree) they set out in a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado to travel the length of the British Isles in search of the missing chapters from a great and wonderful tome: The Book of Ultimate Truths. Penned by self-styled Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived, Hugo Rune.

Although few people remember Rune today, in his time he was lionised by society for his many achievements. He spoke seventeen languages, played darts with the Dalai Lama and shared his sleeping bag (on separate occasions) with Albert Einstein, Lawrence of Arabia, George Formby and Marilyn Monroe. He was worshipped as a god by an East Acton cargo cult and once scaled Everest in a smoking jacket and a pair of plus-fours to win a bet with Oscar Wilde.

He travelled to Venus in the company of George Adamski, reinvented the ocarina and was yearly burned in effigy by the Chiswick Townswomens’ Guild. He was an expert swordsman, a world traveller, a poet, a painter, a guru unto gurus and a passionate hater of Bud Abbot. He won a first at Oxford, squandered three fortunes, made love to a thousand women, imbibed strange drugs and almost pipped Einstein for the Nobel Prize. He was barred from every Chinese noodle parlour in West London and died penniless in a Hastings boarding house in his ninetieth year.

He penned nearly eight million words, wrote the songs that made the whole world sing and knew all the answers to all the big questions. And he was, as his acolyte Aleister Crowley once said, One Hell of a Holy Guru!

His greatest work The Book of Ultimate Truths explains in terms understandable to the layman just what life is all about. Why there are always two small screws left over when you reassemble that broken toaster. Where all the yellow-handled screwdrivers go to.

The truth about the A-Z street directory and the Forbidden Zones that lie hidden all around us. The spontaneous generation of crowds. Where the flat hedgehogs upon country roads really come from. The real deal about Time, the Creation of the Universe and pretty much everything really.

Throughout his long life he was constantly under attack from the Forces of Darkness that sought to stop him revealing these Ultimate Truths. And now Cornelius and Tuppe must battle these same Dark Forces if they are to seek out and publish the missing chapters of Rune.

The going won’t be easy, as they encounter demonic Scotsmen, mad monks and cake-obsessed evil fairies, but it will be a lot of fun and The Book of Ultimate Truths must be republished. The survival of Mankind depends upon it.

The Book of Ultimate Truths is the first instalment of a three part Epic Adventure to out-Epic- that have gone before.

The further adventures of Cornelius, Tuppe and Hugo Rune can be found in Raiders Of the Lost Car Park and The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived.

©1993 Robert Rankin (P)2013 Audible Ltd
Literature & Fiction Science Fiction Fiction Funny Comedy

Listeners also enjoyed...

Nostradamus Ate My Hamster cover art
The Greatest Show off Earth cover art
Armageddon: The Musical cover art
Truckers cover art
Sprout Mask Replica cover art
The Garden of Unearthly Delights cover art
The Antipope cover art
A Dog Called Demolition cover art
Apocalypso cover art
The Brightonomicon cover art
Good Intentions cover art
Paul Temple: The Complete Radio Collection: Volume One cover art
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: A Second Treasury cover art
Protest cover art
Hide and Seek cover art
Silenced for Good cover art

Critic reviews

"Stark raving genius... alarming and deformed brilliance" (Observer|)
"He becomes funnier the more you read him." (Independent)
"Everybody should read at least one Robert Rankin in their life." (Daily Express)
"One of the rare guys who can always make me laugh." (Terry Pratchett)
"To the top-selling ranks of humorists such as Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, let us welcome Mr. Rankin." (Tom Hutchinson, The Times)
All stars
Most relevant  
Authors should not be allowed the vanity of reading their own prose. Enjoyed reading a long time ago, but do read the reviews as it just not enjoyable to listen to. Accents are awful, and the flow is slow, stilted and stumbling. It's very off putting. For a credit I would have had requested it back.

good author, poor narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The wonderful if slightly disturbing mind of mr rankin comes up trumps. Now where is my bloody biro?

Far fetched fiction

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Some Very Funny bits. Hard to follow. My husband enjoyed. I got to the end but was glad it finished.

Very strange tale

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This is such a clever, self-aware, absurd and brilliant story. Like all of the Robert Rankin books I’ve read, these are so inventive and convincing in their own internal logic to tell a tall tale, I find myself wanting to repeat the ideas to friends and relatives to see what they make of it! It is the stuff of epics, very smart. Highly, highly, recommended.

Such fun, very inventive

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

While the now infamous Brentford Trilogy remain my favourites, I thoroughly enjoy the Cornelius books too.

Robert Rankin (author and narrator) is a great story teller.

Favourite bits are anything with Hugo Rune in it but the way Cornelius gets out of taking gainful employment as a mime artist is hilarious.

Far Fetched Fiction

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

a very entertaining book, only made better by having the author read it himself. no quibbling pronunciation or accents when you can hear the whole story exactly the way the author intended. definitely recommend.

very entertaining.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I find rankins stories entertaining but sometime hard to follow. Sometimes being absurd for the sake of it it sometimes details you from the flow of the story. This may be intentional as the author does have a habit and a penchant for the b

An exercise in ridiculousness

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

What was most disappointing about Robert Rankin’s story?

It wasn't funny, I didn't like any of the characters and I didnt get in with the narrator.

Bored from the outset...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Utterly pointless and has an out of context rape at the end. This isn't a trashfire, but it has no message and is not funny or interesting enough to manage without it.

Not worth it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Finding it almost impossible to listen to this or even follow the story because I am sorry to say Mr Rankin's delivery is atrocious and distracting beyond belief. Random pauses throughout sentences, and really odd intonation - like the word after each superfluous pause is somehow a surprise. I am finding it so annoying I don't think I can even finish listening to this.

It's such a shame because I LOVED reading his books the old-fashioned way, and enjoyed The Brightonomicon audiobook immensely - which was narrated by other people. I shall do my very best to avoid ANYTHING narrated by Mr Rankin, I'm afraid.

Dreadful narration. Truly awful.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews