Focus titles zoomed 1800×1200

Reading lists

9 Vintage Paperback Novels to Add to Your Summer TBR Pile

An illustration of a person, small against a big, dark teal background, with an open book casting light upwards on their face.

Books-For-Feeling-Isolated_Hero-Desktop_Penguin.jpg

Books to read if you’re feeling lonely

Image featuring all of Ottessa Moshfegh's book covers on a black background

Otessa20Catalogue20Image.png

Where to start reading Ottessa Moshfegh

A collage of images, including a painting of a woman, some drugs, a pile of books and newspaper headlines

main-My20Year20of20Rest-1800×1200.jpg

Features

My Year of Rest and Relaxation: how Ottessa Moshfegh’s book pre-empted lockdown

eileen_reading_guide.png

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

McGlue

Dive into this gloriously sordid story of love and murder on the high seas. 
 
Somewhere in the Indian Ocean, 1851: McGlue is down in the hold, still too drunk to be sure of his name, situation or orientation – but he has blood on his hands. He may have killed a man. That man may have been his best friend. As the ship makes its voyage home to Salem, Massachusetts, intolerable memory accompanies reluctant sobriety. 
 
A-sail on the high seas of literary tradition, Ottessa Moshfegh gives us a nasty heartless blackguard on a knife-sharp voyage through the fogs of recollection. 
 
'One of America's most exciting - and most provocative - young novelists' Financial Times 
 
'You’re in safe, if sticky, hands... A wild ride' The Times

A gorgeously sordid story of love and murder on the high seas and in reeky corners of mid-nineteenth-century New York and points North. McGlue is a wonderwork of virtuoso prose and truths that will make you squirm and concur

You’re in safe, if sticky hands with an Ottessa Moshfegh story… Everything bulges and reeks in this novella, which feels as if it was written in a permanent state of nausea… The plot spins faster than its main character’s head. What elevates this novella are the scalpelsharp observations about McGlue’s nihilism and her prose, which is as distilled as the liquor McGlue necks. It’s a wild ride.

Moshfegh is… a superlative short-story writer… McGlue, which owes as much to Cormac McCarthy as it does to Poe or Melville, is an entertaining curio with some lovely baroque flourishes.

The mixture of brutality and tenderness was so surprising and moving to me

Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England and the author of six books. Eileen was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Death in Her Hands and Lapvona were all New York Times bestsell­ers. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World. She lives in Southern California.

Read the novel that catapulted Ottessa Moshfegh to literary stardom: a gorgeously sordid story of love and murder on the high seas 
 
'One of America's most exciting - and most provocative - young novelists' Financial Times 
 
'You’re in safe, if sticky hands... A wild ride' The Times 
 
Somewhere in the Indian Ocean, 1851: McGlue is down in the hold, still too drunk to be sure of his name, situation or orientation – but he has blood on his hands. He may have killed a man. That man may have been his best friend. As the ship makes its voyage home to Salem, Massachusetts, intolerable memory accompanies reluctant sobriety. 
 
A-sail on the high seas of literary tradition, Ottessa Moshfegh gives us a nasty heartless blackguard on a knife-sharp voyage through the fogs of recollection.

Eileen

VINTAGE CLASSICS' AMERICAN GOTHIC SERIES 
Spine-tingling, mind-altering and deliciously atmospheric, journey into the dark side of America with nine of its most uncanny classics. 
 
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE* 
**FROM THE AUTHOR OF TIKTOK SENSATION MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION** 
 
Trapped between caring for her alcoholic father and her job as a secretary at the boys' prison, Eileen Dunlop dreams of escaping to the big city. 
 
In the meantime, her nights and weekends are filled with shoplifting and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father's messes. 
 
When the beautiful, charismatic Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counsellor at the prison, Eileen is enchanted, unable to resist what appears to be a miraculously budding friendship. But soon, Eileen's affection for Rebecca pull her into a crime that far surpasses even her own wild imagination. 
 
'Fully lives up to the hype. A taut psychological thriller, rippled with comedy as black as a raven's wing, Eileen is effortlessly stylish and compelling' The Times 
 
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA NEW BLOOD DAGGER AWARD*

Lapvona

Compelling... Moshfegh's bold venture beyond her comfort zone in Lapvona is a welcome promise of how much more she has to offer American literature today.

What impresses here is not so much Moshfegh's abilities with character or narrative, or even her language . . . as the qualities Lapvona shares with a Francis Bacon painting: depicting in blood-red vitality, without morals or judgment, the human animal in its native chaos.

Moshfegh expertly creates a world with its own superstitions and laws, both timeless and topical.

Moshfegh's genius is her ability to rip away the veil, revealing the horrors beneath, in writing so compelling, and bleakly funny, that we can't bear to look away.

A witty, vicious novel.. . Moshfegh is one of our most thrilling chroniclers of the abject

Booker-shortlisted Ottessa Moshfegh is likely to out-weird most things published next year - set in a medieval fiefdom, could it be a work of genius, too?

Deliriously quirky medieval tale . . . Moshfegh brings her trademark fascination with the grotesque to depictions of the pandemic, inequality, and governmental corruption, making them feel both uncanny and all too familiar. It's a triumph.

Moshfegh writes brilliantly bizarre. Her arresting fourth novel continues this tradition.

Despite its medieval milieu, Lapvona is a quintessential Moshfegh book. It has the warped earthiness of the author's first two novels... [and] a powerful undercurrent of allegory.

Enjoyably disgusting - an effective...medieval fantasy.

One of America's most celebrated authors continues her exploration of what fiction has to offer with a further digression from the standard realist purview and into fantasy... a fascinating premise, and I'm excited to see the yarn Moshfegh is able to weave.

No one is quite who he first seems in the latest wicked tale from macabre master Moshfegh . . . Sculpting an eerily canny fabular world of contrasts and evil, cartoonish cruelty, in her signature way, Moshfegh conjures a grotesque, disturbing story of gross inequality and senseless strife.

A thrilling dissection of illusion and reality.

Lapvona is a sublime work in the truest sense - mighty, irrepressible and terrifying.

Like a twisted reworking of A Hundred Years of Solitude... readers will no doubt relish its icy intensity and Old Testament grimness.

Strange, subversive and utterly unique.

Weird, unsettling and exciting...Moshfegh writes like a dream - or perhaps a nightmare?

[A] strange, disturbingly funny faux-historical novel.

A brazen, mordantly comic and decidedly odd examination of corruption... proving to be one of the most provocative and divisive reads of the year.

Brace yourself for a daring, dizzying fable about corruption.

An addictive read... a curious, unjudging journey into humanity's craters.

Lapvona is an interrogation of faith, greed, and abuse - yet Moshfegh's dark humour cackles right through it.

This unsettling read is unlike anything else.

[Lapvona] is unlike anything she's [Moshfegh] written before... a rollercoaster ride exploring the themes of poverty, religion and greed.

Moshfegh's novel is bitterly comic, compelling reading, ever-pulsing with perversity.

[A] wry, bewitching and slightly dark novel.

Moshfegh is one of the most original and astute young novelists working today.

The superabundantly talented...Moshfegh's sentences are piercing and vixenish... she is always a deep pleasure to read.

New York Times (on MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION)

Welcome to Lapvona. In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself at the centre of a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test . . . 
 
Discover the Sunday Times bestselling novel from the author of TikTok sensation My Year of Rest and Relaxation. 
 
'One of the most provocative reads of the year' 
i NEWSPAPER 
 
'Disturbingly funny' 
OBSERVER, BOOKS OF THE YEAR 
 
'An addictive read . . . with a chequered cast of misfits, despots and unholy souls' 
THE FACE 
 
'One of America's most exciting - and most provocative - young novelists' 
FINANCIAL TIMES 
 
'Lapvona deserves all the hype it's received and more' 
i-D 
 
'Brace yourselves' 
STYLIST

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

The cult New York Times bestseller

Moshfegh's stunning 2018 novel has a haunting ending... [and] relentlessly vicious humour.

This razor sharp satirical novel has achieved near mythical status... [a] compelling and clever take on a female character that isn't afraid to speak her mind

Ottessa is one of our newest, most dazzling, daring and outrageous voices in literature

Dark, but very funny… an interesting take on something like self care, and quite addicting

'When I'd slept enough, I'd be okay. I'd be renewed, reborn.' 
 
 This is the story of a woman with no name. Young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, she lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like everything else, by her inheritance. Yet she longs to lose herself completely. 
 
 It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a savagely funny novel of a woman looking out from the abyss. 
 
Meet ten of literature's most iconic heroines, jacketed in bold portraits by female photographers from around the world.

Homesick For Another World

An electrifying, prizewinning short story collection from the Booker-shortlisted author of Eileen

Moshfegh is consistently as sparky and gripping as she is inventive… She could become one of the most outstanding US writers of her generation.

The characters in this collection are an unlovely bunch but make for an irresistible read… She writes terrific, attention-grabbing openings, and impactful last lines that don’t strain for a lapidary effect. Her damaged-girl deadpan snark is second to none, but she inhabits other character types with ease.

She can really write and has a pitch-black sense of humour.

Moshfegh’s writing is cinematic – vivid, immediate.

Moshfegh’s powerful, pristine prose shines a light on the dark side of these characters […] Her endings are never happy, but they often contain hope – which can be more convincing.

Moshfegh delights in exploring the seamy underside of life… Once encountered these characters are not easily forgotten.

An impressive study of human vulnerability and self-deception, through which the reader is guided by a cynical and darkly funny literary voice.

Homesick for Another World showcases her mastery.

A perfect showcase to Moshfegh’s brilliant and sui generis mind… brilliant as was Eileen, Moshfegh is near virtuosic in short story form, and newcomers to her work would do well to begin with this collection.

Dark, confident, prickling stories… [Moshfegh] has a wicked sort of command. Sampling her sentences is like touching a mildly electrified fence… Moshfegh is a penetrating observer of class and social mores… Do not come to these stories if your own guts are easily stirred.

In her excellent first collection, Homesick for Another World, Ottessa Moshfegh… homes in on characters in states of weirdly dynamic paralysis, trapped between the pains of the past – bad childhoods, bad relationships, bad marriages – and dreams of the future… The stories… give us a sense of watching a fluent, deeply talented artist extend herself and take risks in her quest to master the form… Magnificent examples of how a short story can become expansive beyond expectation.

Provocative… Moshfegh presents characters who evince a flinching disgust for bodily functions and human intimacy. There’s no shortage of colourful sociopaths here… The stories draw a picture of an America that has lost its way, a bigoted, insular nation in the grip of an obesity epidemic... It’s a bracing, brilliant collection.

Moshfegh’s style is a blend of nihilism and drollery that feels hyper-contemporary in its relentless sassiness, moving in the same breath from biting human observation to casual one liners about anal sex.

Efforts to contrive a sensationalist buzz around the author are not surprising. But Moshfegh needs no extra edge. Her works make enough of an impression, and they are exceptional: dark, violent and grotesquely intelligent. This new story collection, Homesick for Another World, is probably her most accomplished work to date, and it does not scrimp on obscenity, on esoteric rituals, or on harsh, uncomfortable realities… These stories paint a stunningly unique picture of contemporary disenchantment that goes beyond glassy-eyed millennial ennui.

There’s something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh’s stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful, and even laugh-out-loud funny… Homesick for Another World is a master class in the varieties of self-deception across the gamut of individuals representing the human condition. But part of the unique quality of her voice, the echt Moshfeghian experience, is the way the grotesque and the outrageous are infused with tenderness and compassion. Moshfegh is our Flannery O’Connor, and Homesick for Another World is her Everything That Rises Must Converge or A Good Man is Hard to Find… The dark energy surging through these stories is powerfully invigorating.

Moshfegh’s stories are sharp, dark and often horribly funny.

'Razor-sharp’ Zadie Smith 
 
An electrifying, prizewinning short story collection from the Booker-shortlisted author of Eileen and My Year of Rest and Relaxation. 
 
There’s something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh’s stories, something almost dangerous while also being delightful – and often even weirdly hilarious. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet; all yearning for connection and betterment, in very different ways, but each of them seems destined to be tripped up by their own baser impulses. 
 
The flesh is weak; the timber is crooked; people are cruel to each other, and stupid, and hurtful, but beauty comes from strange sources, and the dark energy surging through these stories is oddly and powerfully invigorating. 
 
 
One of the most gifted and exciting young writers in America, she shows us uncomfortable things, and makes us look at them forensically – until we find, suddenly, that we are really looking at ourselves. 
 
‘Moshfegh’s writing is cinematic – vivid, immediate’ TLS

Ottessa Moshfegh

Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. 
 
While on her daily walk with her dog in the woods near her home, Vesta comes across a chilling handwritten note. 
 
Shaky even on her best days, Vesta is also alone, and new to the area, having moved here after the death of her husband. Her brooding about the note grows quickly into a full-blown obsession: who was Magda and how did she meet her fate? 
 
From the Booker-shortlisted author of Eileen comes this razor-sharp, chilling and darkly hilarious novel about the stories we tell ourselves and how we strive to obscure the truth. 
 
The Vintage Classics Weird Girls series: Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of weird fiction with nine books by nine pioneering female authors. Bold, disruptive, chilling and enchanting, these tales of the weird are strange enough to get lost in. 
 
PRAISE FOR DEATH IN HER HANDS: 
 
'This is a story about what might happen when a woman takes charge' The Times 
'Routinely hailed as one of the most exciting young American authors working today' Guardian 
'A new kind of murder mystery' New Yorker 
'A fine line between shocking realism and the absurd' New Statesman 
'A brilliant off-kilter detective story' Evening Standard 
'A beautiful novel' Sunday Times 
'Dark, devious' Observer

Death in Her Hands

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

sectionTitle

isEnabled

anchor

anchorLabel

prhuk/featured-book

prhuk/praise-section

maxBooks

showViewMore

prhuk/books-section

hideAuthorAlert

formName

iterableDivision

iterableBrand

buttonText

description

heading

legalText

successHeading

successText

image

alignment

variation

prhuk/email-section

prhuk/series-section

prhuk/biography-section

prhuk/articles-section

prhuk-authors

author-hero

author-avatar

author-menu

Penguin Shop: 15% off with code PENGUINXMAS2025

Vintage American Gothic

Vintage Heroines

Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of weird fiction with nine books by nine pioneering female authors.

Ottessa Moshfegh

Books by Ottessa Moshfegh

Articles featuring Ottessa Moshfegh

9 Vintage Paperback Novels to Add to Your Summer TBR Pile

Books to read if you’re feeling lonely

Where to start reading Ottessa Moshfegh

My Year of Rest and Relaxation: how Ottessa Moshfegh’s book pre-empted lockdown

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter