Literary

The Postmistress

by Sarah Blake

The New York Times bestseller- "A beautifully written, thought-provoking novel." -#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathryn Stockett.

In 1940, Iris James is the postmistress in coastal Franklin, Massachusetts....

Still Life with Woodpecker

by Tom Robbins

Still Life with Woodpecker is a sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the...

The New York Trilogy

by Paul Auster

The New York Trilogy is the series that made New York Times-bestselling author Paul Auster a renowned writer of metafiction and a special sort of genre-rebelling detective fiction which the New York Review...

Girl in Translation

by Jean Kwok

Introducing a fresh, exciting new voice, an inspiring debut about a Chinese immigrant girl forced to choose between two worlds and two futures. 

When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to...

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt: A Novel

by Beth Hoffman

Read Beth Hoffman's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community.

Steel Magnolias meets The Help in this Southern debut novel sparkling with humor, heart, and feminine wisdom

Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt...

Native Son

by Richard Wright

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught...

Invisible Man

National Book Award for Fiction 1953

by Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952.  A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen...

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Oprah's Book Club 2.0 Digital Edition)

by Ayana Mathis

The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: this special eBook edition of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the...

A Fine Balance

by Rohinton Mistry

Set in the mid-1970s in India, A Fine Balance tells the story of four unlikely people whose lives come together during a time of political turmoil soon after the government declares a 'State of Internal Emergency'....

Freedom

by Jonathan Franzen

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul—the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you...

Atonement: A Novel

National Book Critics Circle for Fiction 2002, Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction 2002

by Ian Mcewan

The novel opens on a sweltering summer day in 1935 at the Tallis family’s mansion in the Surrey countryside. Thirteen-year-old Briony has written a play in honor of the visit of her adored older brother Leon;...

Blindness

by Jose Saramago

A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations...

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

by Ken Kesey & Robert Faggen

Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the seminal novel of the 1960s that has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Here is the unforgettable...

A Lesson Before Dying: A Novel

National Book Critics Circle for Fiction 1993

by Ernest J. Gaines

A Lesson Before Dying, is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s.  Jefferson, a young black man, is an unwitting party to a liquor store shoot out in which three men are killed; the only survivor,...

In One Person: A Novel

by John Irving

"His most daringly political, sexually transgressive, and moving novel in well over a decade" (Vanity Fair).

Winner of a 2013 Lambda Literary Award

A New York Times bestselling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual...

The Orchard Keeper

by Cormac Mccarthy

Set in a small, remote community in rural Tennessee in the years between the two world wars, The Orchard Keeper is an early classic from one of America's finest and most celebrated authors. It tells of John...

Oryx and Crake: A Novel

MaddAddam Trilogy #1

by Margaret Atwood

Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may...

How It All Began: A Novel

by Penelope Lively

A vibrant new novel from Penelope Lively-a wry, wise story about the surprising ways lives intersect.

When Charlotte Rainsford, a retired schoolteacher, is accosted by a petty thief on a London street, the...

Damned

by Chuck Palahniuk

“Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison,” declares the whip-tongued thirteen-year-old narrator of Damned, Chuck Palahniuk’s subversive new work of fiction. The daughter of a narcissistic film star and...

The Art of Fielding: A Novel

by Chad Harbach

At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five...