In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
The masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence.
“He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink.” ―Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, published on this day in 1925 🌻
If you already binged Netflix's adaptation of Lord of the Flies and want more stories that illuminate the complexities of human nature, pick up another one of William Golding's novels that explores the social tendencies and psychological underpinnings of human consciousness.
📚 Pincher Martin
📚 The Inheritors
📚 The Spire
📚 Free Fall
Read and reflect this #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth with a selection of Penguin Classics that explore Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, share intimate and visceral depictions of mental illness, and investigate the breathtaking multiplicity of ways humanity has responded to the divine across place and time.
📖 Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
📖 Buddhist Meditations
📖 I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg
📖 Roots of Yoga
📖 The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse edited by @kavehakbar.kavehakbar
Let us know in the comments which book you want to pick up for mindful reading this #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth 👇
Graduation Caps 🤝 Penguin Drop Caps
This graduation season, give the gift of a good book. With eye-catching cover art designed by lettering artist and illustrator @jessicahische , our gorgeous Penguin Drop Cap series is a collection of 26 hardcovers of classic literature—from Jane Austen to Carlos Ruiz Zafón—and the perfect gift for the literature-loving graduate in your life.
May is #AANHPIHeritageMonth and we’re celebrating with a selection of 16 classic works by Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander writers to discover (or dip into for the first time) this month.
Spanning generations and geographies, these books reflect a wide range of voices and experiences that have shaped the literary world and offer perspectives beyond our own. Which one are you picking up first? 📚
First published 50 years ago, R. K. Narayan’s The Painter of Signs is a wry, bittersweet book showcasing how a quiet, routine life can become unpredictable when love intervenes 📚
To close out #ArabAmericanHeritageMonth, we’re highlighting a selection of Classics from Arab and Arab American authors to add to your TBR and return to year-round.
📖 The Cheapest Nights by Yusuf Idris
📖 The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition by Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri
📖 The Book of Contemplation by Usama ibn Munqidh
📖 The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman
📖 Merits of the Plague by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani
📖 The Arabian Nights by Anonymous
Which one will you be picking up?
To read Borges is to enter a world where the familiar turns strange and the infinite feels within reach.
Across his fiction, poems, and nonfiction, Jorge Luis Borges reimagined what literature could be by transforming detective stories into metaphysics, essays into reviews of imaginary books, and poetry into meditations on time, memory, and more.
Whether you're returning to Borges or encountering him for the first time, these collected editions offer a remarkable entry point into Borges’s indelible body of work. 📚
We've rounded up 20 Penguin Classics poetry collections and epics to add to your TBR. Swipe to see our selections and save this post to return to when you're looking for your next poetry read! 📌
William Golding’s modern classic novel, Lord of the Flies, remains as provocative today as when it was first published in 1954. Read the book, or listen to the audiobook, and check out the new series adaptation arriving on Netflix in the US May 4th.
Happy Shakespeare Day! We’re celebrating with a round-up of our favorite Shakespeare adaptations and the plays that inspired them. Swipe to see what our staff picked and let us know which Shakespeare adaptation is your favorite in the comments! ⬇️
