Fiction > Popular Penguins - Fiction

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby brilliantly captures the disillusion of a society obsessed with wealth and status. Young, handsome and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby appears to have it all, yet he yearns for the one thing that will always be out of his reach, the absence of which renders his life of glittering parties and... read more

"Junk is not, like alcohol or a weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life." In his debut novel, "Junky," Burroughs fictionalized his experiences using and peddling heroin and other drugs in the 1950s into a work that reads like a field report from the underworld of post-war America.... read more

A Room of One's Own grew out of a lecture that Virginia Woolf had been invited to give at Girton College, Cambridge in 1928. Ranging over Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte and why neither of them could have written War and Peace, over the silent fate of Shakespeare's gifted (and imaginary) sister, over the effects of poverty a... read more

Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest captured the radical anti-establishment mood of 1960s America. Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her psychiatric ward with an iron fist and a penchant for electric shock therapy, so when the boisterous McMurphy arrives - intent on disruption and showing the other patients a good time -... read more

D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover scandalized the world when it was first published in paperback, and helped put Penguin Books on trial. The powerful depiction of the sexual liaison of Constance Chatterley with the gamekeeper Mellors, while her invalid husband quietly seethes, brilliantly captures the perennial struggl... read more

Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is a dark and daring story of obsessive love and transgression. Humbert Humbert's lust for his pubescent stepdaughter, Lolita, shocked readers when it was first published in the 1950s; yet the novel was also celebrated for its beautifully lyrical writing. Almost fifty years after its first publicatio... read more

Anais Nin's Delta of Venus is a stunning collection of sexual encounters from the queen of literary erotica. From Mathilde's lust-filled Peruvian opium den to the Hungarian baron driven insane by his insatiable desire, the passions and obsessions of this dazzling cast of characters are vivid and unforgettable. Delta of Venus ... read more

The mid-seventies: at an all-boys Catholic school in Melbourne, Timothy Conigrave falls wildly and sweetly in love with the captain of the football team. So begins a relationship that weathers disapproval, separation and, ultimately, death. With honesty and insight, Holding the Man explores the highs and lows of any partnersh... read more

Jack Kerouac's On the Road rocked the establishment with its seminal, stream-of-consciousness portrayal of 1950s underground America. Amidst a whirlwind of sex, drugs and jazz, writer Sal Paradise and his hero 'the holy conman with the shining mind', Dean Moriarty traverse the country in search of life and experience. Wild an... read more

First published in the 1920's, The Prophet, Gibran's hugely popular guide to living, has sold millions of copies worldwide and is the most famous work of religious fiction of the twentieth century. The Prophet became the bible of 1960s culture and was credited with founding the New Age movement, yet it still continues to insp... read more

Leonard Cohen made his name as a poet before he came to worldwide attention as a singer and songwriter. Book of Longing was twenty years in the making and written in Montreal, Mumbai and during his retreat in Mt Baldy. These poems show the full range of one of the most influential and enigmatic writers of his generation.

First published in 1972, Pounamu Pounamu introduced an exciting new voice into New Zealand literature. Most of Witi Ihimaera's stories, based on the East Coast, describe a traditional rural, communal way of life facing huge pressures from the drift by many Maori to the cities. This was to be a constant theme in Ihimaera's future writing.

The Fabric of the Cosmos is an astonishing grand tour of the universe and the best layman's guide to current thinking on 'how everything works'. This rollercoaster ride explores the mysteries of space and time; asks questions about the nature of reality, dark matter, space warps and wiggles; and will fundamentally alter the p... read more

Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's is a brilliant glimmer of the excitement of 1940's New York. Holly Golightly - brashly beautiful with a slim black dress, a mysterious past and dark glasses over varicoloured eyes - entrances all the men she meets, including the young writer living above her, though her recklessness may ... read more

Jonathan Noel, bank security guard, has spent 30 years protecting himself from people and events. But an encounter with a glaring pigeon upsets his ordered life and flings him into a state of fear and insecurity. From the author of the international bestselling Perfume.

David Crystal's How Language Works is a fascinating tour through the world of language from one of today's most renowned experts. It ranges over everything from how children learn to read to what makes words rude or polite, from eyebrow flashes to whistling languages. Unlocking the secrets of communication in an accessible, e... read more

Nausea is both the story of the troubled life of a young writer, Antoine Roquentin, and an exposition of one of the most influential and significant philosophical attitudes of modern times - existentialism. The book chronicles his struggle with the realisation that he is an entirely free agent in a world devoid of meaning; a ... read more

When Benjamin Button's father arrives at hospital, he is surprised and ashamed to find his new baby boy is a weathered, aged man, to all appearances no younger than seventy years old. As time goes by, young Benjamin comes to no longer require a cane, his hair ceases to be grey, his limbs become less frail, his wrinkles less d... read more

In these haunting reflections, Primo Levi, a chemist by training, takes the elements of the periodic table as his inspiration. He ranges from young love to political savagery; 'Iron' honours the mountain-climbing resistance hero who put iron in Levi's student soul, while 'Cerium' recalls the improvised cigarette lighters whic... read more

This novel was Barry Crump's sequel to the bestselling A Good Keen Man.
The main character is Sam Cash, an engaging, yarn-spinning vagabond, who takes young Jack Lilburn under his wing on a roundabout journey. The pair drift from one job to another - forestry, horse-breaking, fencing, mustering, farming - but of equal i... read more