Popular Penguins

Dorothy thinks she's lost forever when a tornado whirls her and her dog, Toto, into a magical world. To get home, she must find the wonderful wizard in the Emerald...

Anthony and Gloria are the essence of Jazz Age glamour. A brilliant and magnetic couple, they fling themselves at life with an energy that is thrilling. New York is a...

In his final years, Freud devoted most of his energies to a series of highly ambitious works on the broadest issues of religion and society. Here, he argues that civilized...

Originally designed as a story for boys, Stevenson's novel is narrated by the teenage Jim Hawkins, who outwits a gang of murderous pirates led by that unforgettable avatar of amorality,...

Over the course of his short life, John Keats (1795-1821) honed a raw talent into a brilliant poetic maturity. This wide-ranging selection of Keats's poetry contains youthful verse, such as...

On the banks of the Mississippi, Tom Sawyer and his friends seek out adventure at every turn. Then one fateful night they witness a murder. The boys swear never to...

With his face swaddled in bandages, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses and his hands covered even indoors, Griffin, the new guest at The Coach and Horses, is at first...

The Communist Manifesto changed the face of the twentieth century beyond recognition, inspiring millions to revolution, forming the basis of political systems that still dominate countless lives and continuing to...

Life is good for Buck in Santa Clara Valley, where he spends his days eating and sleeping in the golden sunshine. But one day a treacherous act of betrayal leads...

Beowulf tells the story of the heroic Beowulf and of his battles, first with the monster Grendel, then with Grendel's avenging mother, and finally with a dragon that threatens to...

Nausea is both the story of the troubled life of a young writer, Antoine Roquentin, and an exposition of one of the most influential and significant philosophical attitudes of modern...

To the Lighthouse is at once a vivid impressionist depiction of a family holiday, and a meditation on a marriage, on parenthood and childhood, on grief, tyranny and bitterness. Its...

Moral allegory and spiritual autobiography, The Little Prince is the most translated book in the French language. With a timeless charm it tells the story of a little boy who...

Dickens's story of solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of Christmas by a series of ghostly visitors, has proved one of his most well-loved works. Ever...

Richard Hannay has just returned to England after years in South Africa and is thoroughly bored with his life in London. But then a murder is committed in his flat,...

'Somebody must have laid false information against Josef K., for he was arrested one morning without having done anything wrong.' From this first sentence onwards, Josef K. is on trial...

First published in the 1920's, The Prophet, Gibran's hugely popular guide to living, has sold millions of copies worldwide and is the most famous work of religious fiction of the...

Meet Ignatius J. Reilly- flatulent, eloquent and pretty much unemployable . . . The ordinary folk of New Orleans seem to think he is unhinged as well. Ignatius ignores them...

Charles Ryder, a lonely student at Oxford, is captivated by the outrageous and decadent Sebastian Flyte. Invited to Brideshead, Sebastian's magnificent family home, Charles welcomes the attentions of its eccentric,...

Eight years ago Moose Malloy and cute little redhead Velma were getting married - until someone framed Malloy for armed robbery. Now his stretch is up and he wants Velma...

Set in the volatile Paris summer of 1938, The Age of Reason follows two days in the life of Mathieu Delarue, a philosophy teacher, and his circle in the cafes...

The Hell's Angels erupted into 1960s America, paralysing whole towns with fear. Determined to discover the truth behind the terrifying reputation of these marauding biker gangs, Hunter S. Thompson spent...

In her opulent novel, Eva Luna, Isabel Allende uses exquisite prose to describe the survival of a young Latin American woman whose powers as a storyteller bring her friendship and...

In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing 'never to make England my home again'. This is his superb account of his life from his childhood and desperately...

This Faust-like and magical story of the humanization of a middle-aged misanthrope was described in The New York Times as a 'savage indictment of bourgeois society'. But, as the author...

The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into...

For many people watching football is mere entertainment; to some it's more like a ritual; but to others, its highs and lows provide a narrative to life itself. For Nick...

When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, she...

Fifteen-year-old New Yorker Daisy thinks she knows all about love. Her mother died giving birth to her, and now her dad has sent her away for the summer, to live...

Dr Felix Hoenikker, has left a deadly legacy to humanity. He is the inventor of ice-nine, a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. Writer Jonah's search for its...

The night after a shooting star is seen streaking across the sky, a cylinder is discovered near London. Armed with just a white flag, the locals approach the mysterious object...

'Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment in life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.' Burrough's cult classic is a...

In the din and stink that is Cannery Row a colourful blend of misfits - gamblers, whores, drunks, bums, and artists - survive side by side in a jumble of...

William Shakespeare's sonnets are a beautiful expression of a range of human emotions - from love to grief, anger, jealousy and lust. Including the instantly recognisable 'Shall I compare thee...

Flame-haired Grady McNeil is beautiful, rich and defiant. Her privileged society life leaves her wanting, and excitement comes in the form of the highly unsuitable Clyde, a Brooklyn-born, Jewish parking...

This brutal glimpse of Russia under Stalin shocked the world when it first appeared. Discover the importance of a piece of bread or an extra bowl of soup, the incredible...

Jonathan Noel, bank security guard, has spent 30 years protecting himself from people and events. But an encounter with a glaring pigeon upsets his ordered life and flings him into...

Dick and Nicole Diver have turned the French Riviera into the playground of the rich and glamorous. Among their circle is Rosemary Hoyt, the beautiful starlet, who is unaware of...

Wild child Huck has to get away. His violent drunk of a father is back in town again, raising Cain. He won't rest until he has Huck's money. So the...

Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs...

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. Ranging over Jane Austen and Charlotte...

E. H. Carr's What Is History? is the classic introduction to the theory of history. Exploding the Victorian myth of history as a simple record of fact, Carr draws on...

Simon Winchester's The Surgeon of Crowthorne was an international bestseller and tells an extraordinary true story of murder, madness and an extraordinary friendship in the nineteenth century. It is the...

Paul Davies' The Mind of God is a scientific search for the meaning of the universe. Ranging across the cosmos, Davies explores the origin of the universe, the laws of...

Brian Greene'sThe Fabric of the Cosmosis an astonishing grand tour of the universe and the best layman's guide to current thinking on 'how everything works'. Brian Greene's The Fabric of...

Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep is the definitive hardboiled detective story and Philip Marlowe the perfect expression of the cynical, world-weary gumshoe. Hired by the crippled General Sternwood to shake...

Alex Garland's The Beach was published to immediate acclaim, and has since become a bestselling cult classic and a Hollywood blockbuster. Richard, a gap-year student, is introduced to a beautiful...

Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected is a delightfully dark collection of sixteen stories, each with a startling end. Among the unforgettable characters lurk the homicidal wife and her deadly...