Penguin Books

A lyrical and life-affirming book that teaches us as much about birds as it does ourselves – a balm for the soul’ Raynor Winn, author of The Salt Path ‘Totally absorbing and completely engaging on so many levels… Charlie has opened my eyes to the constant joy of the sights and sounds of the birds […]

Artists are uniquely situated to present new ideas about how we are living, the materials that make up our lives and how we can begin to work together to tackle the most urgent crisis of our time. Featuring Ed Ruscha’s memorial plaques to trees that didn’t make it, Judy Chicago’s urge to make a mark […]

Olivia Potts’ mother died when she just twenty-five. Stricken with grief, she did something life changing and rather ridiculous: she gave up a high-flying legal career to study at the notoriously difficult Le Cordon Bleu

A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making-from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, […]

‘The greatest find in American crime fiction since Raymond Chandler’ Sunday Times Jackson’s woman has found him a foolproof way to make money – a technique for turning ten dollar bills into hundreds. But when the scheme somehow fails, Jackson is left broke, wanted by the police and desperately racing to get back both his […]

‘But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction – what has that got to do with a room of one’s own?’ A Room of One’s Own grew out of a lecture that Virginia Woolf had been invited to give at Girton College, Cambridge in 1928 and became a landmark work […]

This is the story of pasta. In it, Guardian columnist and award-winning food writer Rachel Roddy condenses everything she has learned about Italy’s favourite food in a practical, easy-to-use and mouth-watering collection of 100 essential pasta and pasta sauce recipes. Along with the recipes are short essays that weave together the history, culture and the […]

A story of love and redemption, faith and forgiveness, Ask Again, Yes reveals the way childhood memories change when viewed from the distance of adulthood – villains lose their menace, and those who appeared innocent seem less so.

‘Bad Island is an extraordinary, unsettling document: a silent species-history in eighty frames, a mute future archive.I can imagine it discovered in the remnants of a civilisation; a set of runes found amid the ruins. Stark in its lines and dark in its vision, Bad Island reads you more than you read it’ Robert Macfarlane […]

In 12 Rules for Life, acclaimed public thinker and clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson offered an antidote to the chaos in our lives: eternal truths applied to modern anxieties. His insights have helped millions of readers and resonated powerfully around the world. Now in this much-anticipated sequel, Peterson goes further, showing that part of life’s […]

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and

Sharp as a blade and compulsively readable, Burnt Sugar slowly untangles the knot of memory and fiction that binds two women together, revealing the truth that lies beneath.

This bitterly funny Cold War satire on the end of the world expresses our deepest fears of Armageddon, and has become a counter-culture classic.

Today, Facebook is nearly unrecognizable from the simple website Zuckerberg’s first built from his dorm room in his Sophomore year. It has grown into a tech giant, the largest social media platform and

The book that influenced writers from Carl Sagan to Stephen Hawking, Flatland is set in a two-dimensional world where life exists only in lines and shapes – until one of its inhabitants, ‘A. Square’, has his perspective transformed forever. This brilliantly eccentric classic is an invitation to see beyond our own reality. ‘At once a […]

Discover the tales behind the ties in Stephen Fry’s witty companion to our most distinguished accessory, the perfect gift for the tie-wearer in your life. ‘A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life’ Oscar Wilde ‘What do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this?’ ‘There is no time, sir, at which ties […]

Nina Dean has arrived at her early thirties as a successful food writer with loving friends and family, plus a new home and neighbourhood. When she meets Max, a beguiling romantic hero who tells her on date one that he’s going to marry her, it feels like all is going to plan. A new relationship […]

What was Pol Pot eating while two million Cambodians were dying of hunger? Did Idi Amin really eat human flesh? And why was Fidel Castro obsessed with one particular cow? Traveling across four continents, from the ruins of Iraq to the savannahs of Kenya, Witold Szablowski tracked down the personal chefs of five dictators known […]

Deeply personal and powerfully moving, a short and timely series of essays on the experience of lockdown, by one of the most clear-sighted and essential writers of our time

SHORTLISTED FOR THE LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE For fans of Where the Crawdads Sing and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, a richly atmospheric debut about lost innocence and rural America… ‘Remarkable. This novel reads like a miracle’ NPR ‘Brimming with longing, with heartbreak’ New York Times Jude is popular, beautiful, wealthier than most in Deep […]

For thousands of years, mending was a deep craft that has for too long been a secret history. But now it’s back, bigger and better than ever. In this book Kate Sekules introduces the art of visible mending as part of an important movement to give fashion back its soul. Part manifesto, part how-to, MEND! […]

A gripping account of one man’s ten year expedition from a village in West Africa to the Arctic Circle. Scorching heat, rich, fertile soil, and treacherous snakes marked the landscape in which Tété-Michel grew up in 1950s Togo, West Africa. When he discovered a book on Greenland as a teen, this distant land became an […]

Misfits is a triumphant call for honesty, empathy and inclusion. This timely, necessary book is a rousing coming-to-power manifesto dedicated to anyone who has ever worried about fitting in.

A decade ago, Caitlin Moran thought she had it all figured out. Her instant bestseller How to Be a Woman was a game-changing take on feminism, the patriarchy, and the general ‘hoo-ha’ of becoming a woman. Back then, she firmly believed ‘the difficult bit’ was over, and her forties were going to be a doddle. […]

Richly expansive and deeply moving, an intimate novel of secret lives and painful histories from one of the finest storytellers we have ‘This brilliant novel examines lives lived, losses accumulated, and the slipperiness of perception. Yiyun Li writes deeply, drolly, and with elegance about history, even as it’s happening. She is one of my favorite […]

The bestselling French graphic novel about the mind-bending world of quantum physics Take an incredible journey through the quantum universe with explorer Bob and his dog Rick, as they travel through a world of wonders, talk to Einstein about atoms, hang out with Heisenberg on Heligoland and eat crepes with Max Planck. Along the way, […]

The infamous literary hoax that fooled the art world On January 8 1960, artist Nat Tate set out to burn his entire life’s work. Four days later he jumped off a Staten Island ferry, killing himself. His body was never found. When William Boyd published his biography of Abstract Expressionist Nat Tate, tributes poured in […]

Eerie, unsettling and hauntingly beautiful – a new collaboration from the bestselling creators of Holloway, Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood ‘Ness goes beyond what we expect books to do. Beyond poetry, beyond the word, beyond the bomb — it is an aftertime song’ Max Porter, Booker-longlisted author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers Somewhere […]

In 1961, a Douglas DC-6B aeroplane transporting the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld, disappeared over the Congolese jungle at the height of the Cold War. Soon afterward, Hammarskjöld was

Nineteen Arab women journalists speak out about what it’s like to report on their changing homelands in this first-of-its-kind essay collection, with a foreword by CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour “A stirring, provocative and well-made new anthology . . . that rewrites the hoary rules of the foreign correspondent playbook, deactivating the old clichés.” […]

Following the international critical acclaim of The Cost of Living, this final volume of Deborah Levy’s ‘Living Autobiography’ is an exhilarating, thought-provoking and boldly intimate meditation on home and the spectres that haunt it.

Following the international critical acclaim of The Cost of Living, this final volume of Deborah Levy’s ‘Living Autobiography’ is an exhilarating, thought-provoking and boldly intimate meditation on home and the spectres that haunt it.

Two long-time friends share an intimate and urgent conversation about life, music and their enduring love of America, with all its challenges and contradictions, in this stunningly-produced expansion of their ground-breaking Higher Ground podcast, featuring more than 350 photographs, exclusive bonus content, and never-before-seen archival material. Renegades: Born in the USA is a candid, revealing, […]

Julian Lawndsley has renounced his high-flying job in the City for a simpler life running a bookshop in a small English seaside town. But only a couple of months into his new career, Julian’s evening is disrupted by a visitor. Edward, a Polish émigré living in Silverview, the big house on the edge of town, […]

Written under the pseudonym James Tiptree Jr., the pioneering and outlandish tales of Alice B. Sheldon are some of the greatest science fiction short stories of the twentieth century, telling of dystopian chases

The Bomber Mafia is a case study in how dreams go awry. When some shiny new idea drops from the heavens, it does not land softly in our laps. It lands hard, on the ground, and shatters.

The master of weird fiction, H. P. Lovecraft combines cosmic fantasy with creeping horror in these three tales of malevolent alien forces, body-switching and travel across the space-time continuum. ‘Evil, in Lovecraft, is universal, pervasive’ Michael Chabon ‘His prescience and novelty seem more and more remarkable … shows a deeply modern horror at the universe’ […]

The Cypher Files is an utterly unique reading experience. In this brain-bending interactive game, you’ll solve puzzles on every page, and obtain keys to move forward by submitting answers online. To solve each puzzle, you’ll need to think outside the book. You are an agent of CY.P.H.E.R., the secret international agency working on ‘unsolvable’ code-based […]

What do we really need in order to live a happy life? Over two thousand years ago the Greek philosopher Epicurus offered a seemingly simple answer: pleasure. All we really want is pleasure. Today we tend to associate the word ‘Epicurean’ with the enjoyment of fine food and wine and decadent self-indulgence. But, as philosopher […]

In a dazzling fusion of Quentin Fiore’s bold and inventive graphic design and Marshall McLuhan’s unique insight into technology, advertising and mass-media, The Medium is the Massage is a unique study of human communication in the twentieth century, published in Penguin Modern Classics Marshall McLuhan is the man who predicted the all-pervasive rise of modern […]

The perfect gift this Christmas season: a generous selection of some of the greatest festive stories of all time This is a collection of the most magical, moving, chilling and surprising Christmas stories from around the world, taking us from frozen Nordic woods to glittering Paris, a New York speakeasy to an English country house, […]

Part pulp adventure, part otherworldly meditation, this is the story of Trafalgar Medrano: intergalactic trader and lover of bitter coffee and black cigarettes. In the bars and cafés of Rosario, Argentina, he recounts

As a child Gifty would ask her parents to tell the story of their journey from Ghana to Alabama, seeking escape in myths of heroism and romance. When her father and brother succumb to the hard reality

An inventive and breathtaking exploration of a woman finding her voice in the wake of trauma, True Story is part psychological thriller, part fever dream, and part timely comment on sexual assault, power, and the

The intense, caustically funny first novel from the bestselling author of Bad Behaviour ‘Dark, menacing and original’ Joanna Briscoe, Guardian Dorothy Never – fat – lives alone in New York, eats and works the night shift as a proofreader. Justine Shade – thin – is a freelance journalist who sleeps with unsuitable men. Both are […]

‘Married five times. Mother. Lover. Aunt. Friend. She plays many roles round here. And never Scared to tell the whole of her truth, whether Or not anyone wants to hear it. Wife Of Willesden: pissed enough to tell her life Story to whoever has ears and eyes . . .’ Zadie Smith’s first time writing […]

Every life has the power to change the world. Ndaba Mandela was raised by his grandfather, the man known to the world as Nelson Mandela. Here Ndaba offers a rare and personal insight into the man behind the myth, sharing with us his memories – charming, intimate and sometimes surprising – to illuminate Mandela’s much-loved […]

The #1 Sunday Times and International Bestseller from ‘the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now’ (New York Times). What are the most valuable things that everyone should know? Acclaimed clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has influenced the modern understanding of personality, and now he has become one of the world’s most popular […]

Fully restored edition of Anthony Burgess’ original text of A Clockwork Orange, with a glossary of the teen slang ‘Nadsat’, explanatory notes, pages from the original typescript, interviews…..

In this nightmare vision of youth in revolt, fifteen-year-old Alex and his friends set out on a diabolical orgy of robbery, rape, torture and murder. Alex is jailed for his….

‘One of his most enthralling creations’ -Daily Telegraph Broke and working as a tour guide in Germany, rootless Englishman Ted Mundy catches a glimpse of an old friend hiding in the shadows. A friend he thought was lost to him. A friend who took him from radical 1960s Berlin to life as a double agent. […]

In a working-class neighbourhood in 1940s Stockholm, a young man named Bengt falls into deep, private turmoil with the unexpected death of his mother. As he struggles to cope with her loss, his despair slowly transforms to rage when he discovers that his father had a mistress. Bengt swears revenge on behalf of his mother’s […]

Set in the tragic arena of the Middle East conflict, this compelling story of love and torn loyalties plays out against the backdrop of an unwinnable war.

Keep all of your stationery together in this beautiful purple pencil case, inspired by Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own – a blazing 1929 feminist polemic, which was a powerful call for women’s financial independence and intellectual freedom. Product Information: Made from natural cotton with a nylon liner.  22mm width x 135mm height x […]

Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance……

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is bestselling author Marina Lewycka’s hilarious and award winning debut novel, now available as a Penguin Essential for the first time. ‘Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcée. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into […]

‘One of his most enthralling creations’ -Daily Telegraph Broke and working as a tour guide in Germany, rootless Englishman Ted Mundy catches a glimpse of an old friend hiding in the shadows. A friend he thought was lost to him. A friend who took him from radical 1960s Berlin to life as a double agent. […]

An intimate conversation about music and creativity, between the internationally bestselling writer and a world-class conductor. ‘My only purpose in this book was for me, as a music lover, to have a discussion of music with the musician Seiji Ozawa that was as open and honest as possible. I simply wanted to bring out the […]

An intimate conversation about music and creativity, between the internationally bestselling writer and a world-class conductor. ‘My only purpose in this book was for me, as a music lover, to have a discussion of music with the musician Seiji Ozawa that was as open and honest as possible. I simply wanted to bring out the […]

Kathy Acker: Rich girl, street punk, scholar, stripper, victim, media-whore … and cultural icon. The late Kathy Acker’s legend and writings are wrapped in mythologies, many of them created by her. Twenty years after her untimely death aged just 50, Acker’s legend has faded, but her writing has become clearer. A few years ago, the […]