From Page to Screen: Watch the Movie Trailer for This Summer’s Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing, the #1 New York Times bestselling book by Delia Owens has been adapted into a major motion picture, coming to theaters nationwide on July 15.  For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found

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Dolen Perkins-Valdez on her new book, Take My Hand

“I believe that in order to heal, we must remember. Once we remember, we acknowledge. Once we acknowledge, we can take more significant action.”   Watch Dolen Perkins-Valdez discuss her inspiration for writing Take My Hand:   Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend intends to make a difference, especially in her African

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One World Presents Its First Ideas In Action Workshop: Poetic Writing/Editing with Yanyi

Penguin Random House’s One World imprint is thrilled to announce the Ideas In Action Workshop: an inclusive space to give creatives direct access to our authors, as well as strengthen the trust, resource-sharing, and support between readers and writers. The first workshop will be a six-week virtual poetry manuscript class, taught by Yanyi, author of

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The Turning Point: 1851—A Year That Changed Charles Dickens and the World By Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst discusses his recently published book The Turning Point   Thomas Hardy described the year 1851 as a “precipice in Time”; the Times newspaper saw it as the century’s pivot, the moment when the “Old World” became the “New World.” It was a period that was as inventive in terms of language as it

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“Genie in a Bottle,” a poem by Ian Manuel, author of My Time Will Come

Ian Manuel, author of My Time Will Come, was sentenced to life without parole at 14 years old. His memoir is a paean to the capacity of the human will to transcend adversity through determination and art—in Manuel’s case, through his dedication to writing poetry. Here is his brand new poem, “Genie in a Bottle”:

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Facts into Fiction: How genealogy and local history enriched the narrative of What Sammy Knew

By David Laskin   After a long career successful in narrative nonfiction (The Children’s Blizzard, The Long Way Home, The Family), I decided a few years ago to jump the fence to fiction. My first novel, What Sammy Knew, is the story of a high school senior named Sammy Stein who, in the first months

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A Monthly Update from Penguin Classics

Because what you read matters.   Subscribe to the Penguin Classics Newsletter here.   Happy February! While winter persists outside, we’re staying warm inside with brand-new classics, a celebration of a favorite alternative holiday, and an exciting read-a-thon featuring a beloved Penguin Classic. Read on to see all the bookish happenings this month, and let us

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Comparative American Literature

  Are you teaching Comparative American Literature? You can find books across this discipline through the course lists on our website. Here is a small selection of the books available:   African American Fiction   Arab American Fiction   Asian American Fiction   Jewish American Fiction   Latino/a and Chicano/a Fiction     Native American

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Remembering Joan Didion (1934–2021)

Joan Didion, who passed away on December 23, 2021, was one of the country’s most trenchant writers and astute observers. Her works of fiction, commentary, and memoir have received numerous honors and are considered modern classics. Parul Sehgal described the prolific writer as “preoccupied with, and troubled by, mythos—of youth, of America’s founding, of social

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WHEN THE EMPEROR WAS DIVINE has been honored with the Phoenix Award

Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine has been honored with the 2022 Phoenix Award, which encourages high standards of criticism, scholarship, research, and teaching in children’s literature. The only prize of its kind, the award recognizes a book of exceptional literary merit published twenty years prior that did not win a major award at the time

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A Monthly Update from Penguin Classics

Because what you read matters.   Subscribe to the Penguin Classics Newsletter here.   Welcome to the annual Penguin Classics Holiday Gift Guide! Check out what our editors recommend for the different people in your world. And if you’d like to explore more, here’s our list of 75 recommended reads—some familiar and some surprising—to lead you

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