Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Harper Lee was a close friend of Truman Capote. To Kill a Mockingbird was her only published novel. It was adapted into a film in 1962, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch.   See also: Truman Capote; James Baldwin; Ernest Hemingway; John Steinbeck                

An award-winning American author, Kay Hooper cut her teeth writing Regency novels. She is perhaps better-known today for the excellent Bishop/Special Crimes Unit series of paranormal-suspense books. Hooper has written more than 60 books, including Finding Laura, Raven on the Wing and Blood Ties.    BLOOD TRILOGY: Blood Dreams; Blood Sins; Blood Ties   See … Continue readings →

A former children’s book editor, Irish-born Jane Casey has written several crime-fiction titles featuring DC Maeve Kerrigan. The books have been critically acclaimed.   DC MAEVE KERRIGAN SERIES: The Burning; The Reckoning; The Last Girl; The Stranger You Know                                 … Continue readings →

  I love old Penguin books. I have an abiding passion for them: I love the look of them, the feel of them, the size of them – and, of course, most of all I love the authors Penguin, in particular under Allen Lane, chose to publish. It’s thus no surprise that my first ‘Book … Continue readings →

  adj.   First-known usage: 14th century.    n. opprobriousness   1. Expressing scorn, contemptuous reproach. 2. Disgrace; shameful or infamous.   First known usage: 14th century   Example of usage – from C.S. Lewis’s Studies in Words   The purpose of all opprobrious language is, not to describe, but to hurt — even when, like Hamlet, … Continue readings →

  To leave a book unread, usually in a pile of other such unread books on the floor, shelves or other surfaces. From the Japanese words ‘Tsumo’, meaning ‘a pile of’ and ‘doku’, meaning ‘to read’.   EDITOR’S CHOICE: top tip – makes a useful table, plant stand or chair.          

  1. ceremonial festival at which gifts are bestowed on the guests by the host according to rank or importance and valued items are destroyed by the owner to illustrate his/her superior wealth (Native American origin, especially the Kwakiutl). 2. a party or celebration.          

EDITOR’S CHOICE   Highly influential Scottish singer–songwriter Bert Jansch died in 2011, leaving behind a huge canon of music. His unique guitar technique and innovative style, which blended folk, jazz and blues, brought Jansch critical acclaim following his move from Edinburgh to London in the early 1960s. Jansch said of that time, ‘I was a … Continue readings →

Lovely Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling play and sing ‘The Water’. One of our favourite songs of recent times.  

  The Bodley Head found itself, at the beginning of the week, sold out of ‘Penguins’, 150,000 having been sold out in four days.… — The Bookseller, 8 August 1935, a week after Penguin’s launch   In the early 1930s, Allen Lane, then director of The Bodley Head publishers, was returning from a weekend stay … Continue readings →

Tags : 'The Penguin 10', Agatha Christie, Allen Lane, Ariel, Edward Young, Penguin Books, Penguin grid, The Bodley Head

  We’ve always loved poetry and WB Yeats‘s beautiful poems are amongst our favourites. This is a rare and rather scratchy recording of the author reading his own work. It’s rather shouty, but it is YEATS! See also: A Poet to His Beloved            

An opening line can be a thing of beauty, drawing us into a novel. There are many great lines but here are our Top 10 favourites.     1. ‘He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.’ — Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche (1921)       2. ‘It … Continue readings →

This review is dedicated to Elizabeth Hoyt’s new title, Duke of Midnight, the sixth and – in my opinion – best of the ‘Maiden Lane’ books. It features protagonists, Maximus, Duke of Wakefield by day, Ghost of St Giles at night, and Artemis Greaves, a lady’s companion, struggling to survive, while endeavouring to free her … Continue readings →

In a time of quite frequently over-complicated plots, with subplots and substrands in hundreds of thousands of words, it’s refreshing to read a good old-fashioned feel-good romance, in which girl meets boy, girl likes boy, boy likes girl – and they live happy ever after. A garish bridesmaid dress, a Bridezilla and a plane, train … Continue readings →

  EDITOR’S CHOICE   Probably one of the most famous and celebrated speeches in certainly our recent history, ‘I have a dream…’ was the address made by the civil rights activist Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, at the March on Washington; Washington DC, 28 August 1963. In 2013, on the 50th anniversary of the March, … Continue readings →