Penguin presents the audiobook model of Airhead, written and browse by Emily Maitlis.

As anchor for the BBC’s key political news programme, Newsnight, Emily Maitlis has interviewed a few of the most powerful and controversial statistics around the political picture. She plans each interview meticulously, knowing what she wants to talk to and where she wants it to look, but among the most experienced journalists in her field she knows that no interview will ever head to program. Anything can throw it – from the about Airhead: The Imperfect Artwork of Making Information atmosphere in the room to her very own feelings at that time to the disposition of the subject. Often she leaves the interview with an entirely different perception from the interviewee, while it is sometimes all too sadly re-confirmed.

Airhead explores just these moments. All we normally find will be the interviews, but what had been the discussions that preceded them or the shouting fits that ended them? From her interviews with US Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton as well as the last five British Perfect Ministers, to Hollywood film directors and effective internet and entertainment moguls like Sheryl Sandberg and Simon Cowell, Emily Maitlis explores how these effective personalities found. Along the way she throws an illuminating torch on them, not just for what they represent, but as people in their own best – with all their defects and charms.