The Penguin Press

NW: A Novel

by Zadie Smith

New York Times Ten Best Books of 2012

“A boldly Joycean appropriation, fortunately not so difficult of entry as its great model… Like Zadie Smith’s much-acclaimed predecessor White Teeth (2000), NW is...

Interventions: A Life in War and Peace

by Kofi Annan & Nader Mousavizadeh

"[A] resolute, detailed, and unflinching review of [Annan’s] most difficult hours…No one ever came closer to being the voice of “we the peoples” and no one paid a higher price for it. The world still...

A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald

by Errol Morris

Academy Award-winning filmmaker and former private detective Errol Morris examines the nature of evidence and proof in the infamous Jeffrey MacDonald murder case

Early on the morning of February 17, 1970, in...

More Than Freedom: Fighting for Black Citizenship in a White Republic, 1829-1889

by Stephen Kantrowitz

A major new narrative account of the long struggle of Northern activists-both black and white, famous and obscure-to establish African Americans as free citizens, from abolitionism through the Civil War, Reconstruction,...

Saving the School: The True Story of a Principal, a Teacher, a Coach, a Bunch of Kids and a Year in the Crosshairs of Education Reform

by Michael Brick

Inside the race to save a great American high school, where making the numbers is only the beginning

Being principal was never her dream. Anabel Garza, the young widow of a young cop, got by teaching English...

The Odyssey of KP2: An Orphan Seal, a Marine Biologist, and the Fight to Save aSpecies

by Terrie M. Williams

When a two day-old Hawaiian monk seal pup is attacked and abandoned by his mother on a beach in Kauai, environmental officials must decide if they should save the newborn animal or allow nature to take its course....

The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran

by David Crist

The dramatic secret history of our undeclared thirty-year conflict with Iran, revealing newsbreaking episodes of covert and deadly operations that brought the two nations to the brink of open war

For three decades,...

Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

by Kay Larson

A “heroic” and “fascinating” biography of John Cage showing how his work, and that of countless American artists, was transformed by Zen Buddhism (The New York Times)

Where the Heart Beats is the story...

Inherent Vice

by Thomas Pynchon

A Best Book of the Year for the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Los Angeles Times

Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon—private eye Doc Sportello surfaces, occasionally,...

Against the Day

by Thomas Pynchon

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year    

Spanning the era between the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, and constantly moving...

Mason & Dixon

by Thomas Pynchon

A Time magazine and New York Times Best Book of the Year 

Charles Mason (1728–1786) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733–1779) were the British surveyors best remembered for running the boundary between Pennsylvania...

Vineland

by Thomas Pynchon

“Later than usual one summer morning in 1984 . . .” On California’s fog-hung North Coast, the enchanted redwood groves of Vineland County harbor a wild assortment of sixties survivors and refugees from...

Slow Learner

by Thomas Pynchon

Compiling five short stories originally written between 1959 and 1964, Slow Learner showcases Thomas Pynchon’s writing before the publication of his first novel V. The stories compiled here are “The Small...

Gravity's Rainbow

National Book Award for Fiction 1974

by Thomas Pynchon

Winner of the 1974 National Book Award

“A screaming comes across the sky. . .” A few months after the Germans’ secret V-2 rocket bombs begin falling on London, British Intelligence discovers that a map...

V.

by Thomas Pynchon

The wild, macabre tale of the twentieth century and of two men—one looking for something he has lost, the other with nothing much to lose—and “V.,” the unknown woman of the title.

The Crying of Lot 49

by Thomas Pynchon

The highly original satire about Oedipa Maas, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy, meets some extremely interesting characters and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self-knowledge.   ...

The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk Taking, Gut Feelings and the Biology of Boom and Bust

by John Coates

A successful Wall Street trader turned Cambridge neuroscientist reveals the biology of boom and bust and how risk taking transforms our body chemistry, driving us to extremes of euphoria and risky behavior or...

The Queen's Lover: A Novel

by Francine du Plessix Gray

A “deeply intelligent” and “spellbinding” historical novel of Marie Antoinette on the eve of the French Revolution (The Washington Post)

Francine du Plessix Gray’s beautifully realized historical novel...

Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution

by Lindsey Hilsum

Over a quarter century, the renowned British international correspondent Lindsey Hilsum has covered crisis and conflict around the world. In February 2011, at the first stirrings of revolt, she went to Libya,...

Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power

by Steve Coll

Winner of the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2012

An “extraordinary” and “monumental” exposé of Big Oil from two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Coll (The Washington...