'Lolita is comedy, subversive yet divine' Martin Amis, ObserverPoet and pervert, Humbert Humbert becomes obsessed by twelve-year-old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and then artistically,...

'I read On the Road in maybe 1959. It changed my life like it changed everyone else's' Bob DylanSal Paradise, a young innocent, joins his hero, the mystical traveller Dean Moriarty, on a breathless, exuberant...

The great novel of 1920s Berlin life, in a new translation by Michael Hofmann, translator of Alone in Berlin Franz Biberkopf is back on the streets of Berlin. Determined to go straight after a stint in...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World''My favourite book of all time... it stays with you long after you have read it - for your whole life, in fact' Billy ConnollyA monument to sloth, rant...

It is Warsaw in the 1930s. Aaron Greidinger is an aspiring young writer and the son of a rabbi, who struggles to be true to his art when he is faced with the chance of riches and a passport to America....

Drifters in search of work, George and his childlike friend Lennie, have nothing in the world except the clothes on their back - and a dream that one day they will have some land of their own. Eventually...

A definitive annotated edition of one of the greatest of Terry Pratchett’s multi-million-bestselling Discworld novels'A master storyteller' A.S. Byatt‘Both comic and dark, blending high fantasy, twisted...

The legendary 1951 scroll draft of On the Road, published word for word as Kerouac originally composed it.On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend...

A novel constructed around the last great poem of a fictional American poet, John Shade, and an account of his death. The poem appears in full and the narrative develops through the lengthy, and increasingly...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'Baldwin's ground-breaking second novel, which established him as one of the great American writers of his timeDavid, a young American in 1950s Paris,...

The companion novel to Mrs Bridge, this is a pitch-perfect portrayal of marriage and family life and a poignant dissection of the unexamined life.Walter Bridge, husband to India and father to three, is...

Evelyn Waugh's celebrated tale of decadence and social disintegration, with an introduction by Philip EadeAfter seven years of marriage, the beautiful Lady Brenda Last is bored with life at Hetton Abbey,...

'Utterly, agonisingly compulsive ... a masterpiece' Liz Jensen, GuardianFollowing one woman's journey from a troubled girlhood in working-class Copenhagen through her struggle to live on her own terms,...

'The story of the negro in America is the story of America ... it is not a very pretty story'James Baldwin's breakthrough essay collection made him the voice of his generation. Ranging over Harlem in...

'A fantasy, impossible but delicious ... an exuberance of life and wit' The Times Literary SupplementFirst masculine, then feminine, Orlando begins life as a young sixteenth-century nobleman, then gallops...

Welcome to America at the turn of the twentieth century, where the rhythms of ragtime set the beat. Harry Houdini astonishes audiences with magical feats of escape, the mighty J. P. Morgan dominates the...

In the spring of 1948 Arthur Miller retreated to a log cabin in Connecticut with the first two lines of a new play already fixed in his mind. He emerged six weeks later with the final script of Death...

Drawn from journals, this book is an account of a woman's sexual awakening, covering a single momentous year - 1931-32, in Paris, when June fell in love with Henry Miller, undermining her own idealized...

'Wonderfully poetic ... extraordinary freshness ... a Virginia Woolf quality' Margaret DrabbleIt is Spring. A young woman, left by her husband, starts a new life in a Tokyo apartment. Territory of Light...

'The new crime and espionage series from Penguin Classics makes for a mouth-watering prospect' Daily TelegraphAn apparent suicide. A deepening mystery. A letter from a dead man...Secret agent George Smiley...

The electrifying first novel from James Baldwin, whose life and words are immortalized in the Oscar-nominated film I Am Not Your Negro'I had to deal with what hurt me most. I had to deal with my father.'Drawing...

Discover the new Penguin Crime and Espionage seriesA Russian mole has infiltrated the British establishment - and the spymaster Smiley must dig them out...George Smiley, formerly of the Secret Intelligence...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'A worldwide bestseller and the first part of Achebe's African Trilogy, Things Fall Apart is the compelling story of one man's battle to protect his community...

How do we see the world around us? The Penguin on Design series includes the works of creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision forever. Bruno Munari was among...

'Here, even if I had a thousand dollar in my pocket, I know of no sight which could arouse in me the feeling of ecstasy'Looking back to Henry Miller's bohemian life in 1930s Paris, when he was an obscure,...

A portrait of New York City, drawn by describing the interconnected lives of dozens of people - bankers, chefs, bums, cabdrivers and others. Written in an impressionistic style, with vivid descriptions...

'I do not know of any other writer who has done as much with language ... a very funny book' William S. Burroughs Fifteen-year-old Alex doesn't just like ultra-violence - he also enjoys rape, drugs and...

Ranging from the age of slavery to contemporary injustices, this groundbreaking history of race, gender and class inequality by the radical political activist Angela Davis offers an alternative view...

The bestselling epic novel of family, treachery, rivalry, religious fervour and the turbulent fate of a royal African dynastyIt is 1797 and the African kingdom of Segu, born of blood and violence, is...

'How could such a book speak so powerfully to our present moment? The short answer is that we, too, live in dark times' Washington PostHannah Arendt's chilling analysis of the conditions that led to...