If you’re reading the Penguin blog then it’s very likely that you’re an avid reader and know the virtues of getting kids reading from a young age. We all know that reading is fundamental for developm...
That’s it. Dickens has broken me. Not because Dombey and Son, the ninth in our attempt to read all of his novels, was too long, or too hard, but because it is so utterly, utterly heartbreaking. Why i...
Oliver Twist is Cityread’s Dickens novel for April. London’s libraries launch the first ever Cityread London in partnership with Penguin Classics, focusing on Oliver Twist as part of Dickens 2012. Ov...
The Fever Tree took me down a rabbit warren of research - a world of dust, diamonds and disease. I began with an idea: what was life like for the British on the diamond fields of South Africa? Who we...
We made it! With Martin Chuzzlewit we have officially reached the peak of our Dickens mountain – 8 books down and 8 to go – and it’s downhill all the way from now on (in a good way, obviously). Unfor...
Hearing about an exciting new novel is up there with hearing that your favourite band have got a new tour coming up, or that Mad Men have finally got a new series planned. You want to pass judgemen...
We’re nearly halfway through our Dickens readathon with Barnaby Rudge, a story of family secrets set amid the riots that nearly destroyed 18th-century London. I don’t know if it’s because it’s Januar...
‘Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?’Ah, Dickens and Christmas, two things that go together just like chestnuts roasting and open fires, or... I don’t know... raindrops on roses and wh...
There is something very satisfying about reading an entire book in one sitting. Part of the pleasure of Julian Barnes’ Booker Prizing winning novel, The Sense of an Ending, is that you can spend a de...
We were giddy with excitement this month talking about Nicholas Nickleby in our Dickens readathon gang – in fact if I were a Victorian heroine I might have had to lie down with some smelling salts. T...
In 1964, Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, set off on an epic road trip across America with his ‘Merry Band of Pranksters’. They shot footage of the journey, intending to turn the...
Art Spiegelman’s Maus is one of the most significant graphic novels in existence; a fact signalled most obviously by its status as the only graphic novel to have won the Pulitzer Prize (in 1992, by s...
'I'll beat you with an iron rod, I'll scratch you with a rusty nail, I'll pinch your eyes!' I love the thought of someone's eyes being pinched. How is this even possible...
Here’s a question: what do Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, Edward “Teddy-Bear” Grylls and the ill-fated Taiwanese zoo-keeper Mr Chang Po-yu all have in common? Answer: parts of them appea...
UPDATE: The designers – Coralie Bickford-Smith, Katy Finch, Richard Green, Benjamin Hughes, Lee Motley and Matthew Young – will be here TODAY between 1 and 2pm to answer your questions about what the...
David Copperfield: not just an 80’s magician with a mullet but, as I have now discovered, one of the greatest novels ever created by a human hand. Ever. Eagle-eyed readers may note that David Copperf...
As autumn creeps into view and the cold sets in, the only real way to lift one’s spirits is to settle down with a period drama, a behind-the-scenes tour of the Brontë’s home, and a talk on the moors ...
A month ago I blogged about the Herculean task some of us are undertaking at Penguin, reading all of Dickens’s novels. Second on our list – Oliver Twist! Is it possible to mention this book without u...
‘The characters simply go on and on, behaving like idiots, in a kind of eternity.’ This is what reading The Pickwick Papers is like, according to George Orwell. I heard this quote the other day, whic...
We're up to our knees in the mud of festival season. Every Monday morning, bedraggled revellers return to their desks with tales of drunkeness, debauchery and life-changing epiphanies while watc...
The copywriters – Sam Binnie, Colin Brush, Sarah Kettle and Louise Willder – will be here today between 1 and 2pm to answer your questions about what they do at Penguin: the first in a series of live...
At Penguin, we often get asked about how publishing works and who exactly does what, so with this in mind we've decided to set up a series of live webchats with people working in different roles...
The only thing better than the books that come with this job are the trips that come with the books that come with this job. Last night, my three-year-old daughter and I headed over the river to Wate...
It isn't a comfortable book to read, and it's precisely because it isn't that it can be both heart-breaking and inspiring. The first time I read Tiger, Tiger, a memoir by Margaux Frago...
There is MUCH excitement at Penguin Towers today. Why? Because Penguin Children’s Books won the much-coveted Children’s Publisher of the Year Award at The Bookseller Industry Awards last night. Hoora...
John le Carré is famous for writing dazzling novels about the contemporary world - whether he is writing about the Cold War in the 1960s, the 'War on Terror' in the early twenty-first centu...
How times change, no? In 1962 the world had yet to be introduced to the internet, solar panels or Justin Bieber. Over 90% of houses in Britain didn't even have running water. So it was interesti...
We asked our publicists which departed writers they would most like to hang out with, and the results were rather revealing! Leave a comment to let us know which literary figure you would bring back ...
For those of you who - like me - find themselves with some free time over the next several weeks of holiday, please enjoy this lovely blog post and video by Alan Trotter, interviewing the wonder that...
Yesterday, quite a few people were freaked out by this news story, which dominated the Guardian's homepage. In essence, it’s been revealed that an iPhone not only keeps track of your location bu...
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