Penguin Books Ltd: 3539 books

In a world of the short and swift, of texts and Twitter, there's something of special value about a carefully composed letter. In homage to this most civilised of activities, Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire created the literary afternoons of Women of Letters. Some of Australia's finest dames of...

The hero of this curious novel is des Esseintes, a neurasthenic aristocrat who has turned his back on the vulgarity of modern life and retreated to an isolated country villa. Here, accompanied only by a couple of silent servants, he pursues his obsessions with exotic flowers, rare gems, and complex...

Chevalier d'Albert fantasizes about his ideal lover, yet every woman he meets falls short of his exacting standards of female perfection. Embarking on an affair with the lovely Rosette to ease his boredom, he is thrown into tumultuous confusion when she receives a dashing young visitor. Exquisitely...

One of Soseki's most beloved works of fiction, the novel depicts the 23-year-old Sanshiro leaving the sleepy countryside for the first time in his life to experience the constantly moving 'real world' of Tokyo, its women and university. In the subtle tension between our appreciation of Soseki's lively...

Basho, one of the greatest of Japanese poets and the master of haiku, was also a Buddhist monk and a life-long traveller. His poems combine 'karumi', or lightness of touch, with the Zen ideal of oneness with creation. Each poem evokes the natural world - the cherry blossom, the leaping frog, the summer...

Simon Kelly's involvement in property development began when, as a computer-mad child in the 1980s, he started making spreadsheets for his father, the developer Paddy Kelly. By 2008, when the Irish property market crashed, Simon and Paddy owed their creditors nearly a billion euro. In 2009, they were...

'What a life. Tony Fernandes has accomplished amazing things - and who's to say what he can go on to achieve?' Sir Richard Branson The inspiring story of business hero and Apprentice Asia star Tony Fernandes As a boy, Tony Fernandes wanted to be a pilot, a footballer or a racing driver....

In what remains one of his most seminal papers, Freud considers the incompatibility of civilisation and individual happiness, and the tensions between the claims of society and the individual. We all know that living in civilised groups means sacrificing a degree of personal interest, but couldn't...

'A book that had to be written and it's really well written ... fascinating.' Ray D'Arcy, RTÉ Radio 1 'A great book ... really comprehensive' Miriam O'Callaghan, RTÉ 'Fascinating' Pat Kenny, Newstalk 'It is very rare for murder to involve the degree of calculation revealed in this case' Irish Times For...

A delicous new novel from the bestselling author of Amazing Face and fruitybeauty.com. Lily is a producer on a successful cooking segment for a daily morning show. The new chef has just arrived on set and he is drop dead gorgeous. And despite everything - the sabbatical that Lily and her flatmate...

On the eve of the First World War, Fleurette, the only daughter of the wealthy Delacroix perfume house, is being forced to marry a man she loathes, Aimery De Lasset, head of the pre-eminent perfume manufacturer in France. It is only the cathedral bells tolling the rally to the frontlines on her wedding...

Do you start every day with a 'to do' list? Every year with new resolutions? Do you fantasise about winning the lottery, travelling the world or retiring at forty? Many of us dream big but we never truly believe we can achieve our life's ambitions. But it doesn't have to be like this. It is...

The path to success is rarely straightforward, especially for women. However, with more female trailblazers out there than ever before, achieving their career goals in the worlds of fashion, entertainment, business, politics and beyond, the game is being changed forever. Television journalist...

'Poverty is a very exacting teacher and I had been taught well' The post-war urban jungle of the Glasgow tenements was the setting for Molly Weir's childhood. From sharing a pull-out bed in her mother's tiny kitchen to running in terror from the fever van, it was an upbringing that was cemented...