5ive Guys FC

82ASK

A A Gill

Andrew Swanston read law at Cambridge, but was inspired to write by his lifelong interest in early modern history. His Thomas Hill novels – The King’s Spy, The King’s Exile and The King’s Return – are set against the backdrops of the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early Restoration respectively. He is also the author of Waterloo: The Bravest Man and Beautiful Star and Other Stories. His first historical thriller set during the reign of Elizabeth I – Incendium (published in paperback as The Incendium Plot) – introduced readers to the academic, lawyer and intelligencer Dr Christopher Radcliff, whose adventures continue in Chaos. Andrew Swanston lives in Surrey.

A D Swanston

A E Langsford

A G Hopkins

A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California. Visit him at facebook.com/ajbaime and trumanbook.com.

A J Baime

A J Jacobs

A J P Taylor

Anthony James Pollard is a British medieval historian, specialising in the fifteenth century and in particular the Wars of the Roses. A leading authority in the field, he is profesor emeritus of Teesside University. His books include North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses, Richard III and the Princes in theTower, Imagining Robin Hood: the Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context and Warwick the kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame.

A J Pollard

A J Rochester

A K Benjamin is a clinical neuropsychologist and the author of Let Me Not Be Mad: A Story of Unravelling Minds.

A K Benjamin

A. L. Berridge read English at Oxford, and taught for ten years before moving into television, where her production credits range from period drama and thrillers to long-running soaps. She has written two previous novels, Top Ten besteller Honour and the Sword and In the Name of the King. Into the Valley of Death is her third novel.

A L Berridge

Alison Gaylin's first job was as a reporter for a celebrity tabloid, which sparked a lifelong interest in writing about people committing despicable acts. More than a decade later, she wrote and published her Edgar-nominated first novel, HIDE YOUR EYES. 
 
She's since published nine more books, including the USA Today and international bestselling Brenna Spector suspense series, which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Thriller awards and won the Shamus award. 
 
She lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, cat and dog.

A L Gaylin

A Maxwell-Hyslop

A McArthur

A P Wavell

A.S. Webb is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of Chaos, the first instalment of The Dark Pantheon Trilogy. She is inspired by stories rooted in history and mythology, that push the boundaries of imagination and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human.

A S Webb

A. A. Dhand is the author of six previous novels, and has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His DI Harry Virdee novels are currently being adapted for TV by the BBC. He was raised in Bradford and spent his youth observing the city from behind the counter of a small convenience store. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he worked in London and travelled extensively before returning to Bradford to start his own business and begin writing. The history, diversity and darkness of the city have inspired all his novels. For more information about A. A. Dhand and his books, follow him on X @aadhand, and on Instagram @aa_dhand.

A. A. Dhand

A. A. Gill

A. A. Milne

A. Anatoli

A. B. Poranek grew up sharing her time between Ontario, Canada and rural Poland, and eventually completed a veterinary degree at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. A lover of mythology and history, she enjoys exploring both in her writing. Her debut novel, Where the Dark Stands Still, an instant New York Times bestseller, is an ode to Poland's folktales, while A Treachery of Swans transports readers to a world inspired by 17th century France.

A. B. Poranek

A. Bradley

Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

A. C. Grayling

A.D. Miller is the author of Snowdrops, The Earl of Petticoat Lane and The Faithful Couple. Snowdrops was a bestseller and was shortlisted for many prizes including the Man Booker and the CWA Gold Dagger. It was translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist A.D. Miller has travelled across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor based in London. 
 
admillerbooks.com

A. D. Miller

A. E. Ellis

A. E. W. Mason

A. Humphreys

A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

David Hepworth

The Beatles landing in New York in February 1964 was the opening shot in a cultural revolution nobody predicted. Suddenly the youth of the richest, most powerful nation on earth was trying to emulate the music, manners and the modes of a rainy island that had recently fallen on hard times. 
 
The resulting fusion of American can-do and British fuck-you didn’t just lead to rock and roll’s most resonant music. It ushered in a golden era when a generation of kids born in ration card Britain, who had grown up with their nose pressed against the window of America’s plenty, were invited to wallow in their big neighbour’s largesse. 
 
It deals with a time when everything that was being done - from the Beatles playing Shea Stadium to the Rolling Stones at Altamont, from the Who performing their rock opera at the Metropolitan Opera House to David Bowie touching down in the USA for the first time with a couple of gowns in his luggage - was being done for the very first time. 
 
Rock and roll would never be quite so exciting again.

Overpaid, Oversexed and Over There

How a Few Skinny Brits with Bad Teeth Rocked America

Sophy Roberts

Siberia's history is traditionally one of exiles, bitter cold and suffering. Yet there is another tale to tell. Dotted throughout this remote landscape are pianos created during the boom years of the nineteenth century. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood. How these pianos travelled into this snow-bound wilderness in the first place is remarkable. That they might still be capable of making music in such a hostile landscape is nothing less than a miracle. 
 
The Lost Pianos of Siberia is an absorbing story about a piano hunt - a quixotic journey through two centuries of Russian history and eight time zones stretching across an eleventh of the world's land surface. It reveals not only an unexpected musical legacy, but profound humanity in the last place on earth you might expect to find it.

The Lost Pianos of Siberia

A Sunday Times Paperback of 2021

A Sunday Times Book of 2020

_________ 
 
‘Hepworth’s knowledge and understanding of rock history is prodigious … [a] hugely entertaining study of the LP’s golden age’ The Times 
_________ 
 
The era of the LP began in 1967, with ‘Sgt Pepper’; The Beatles didn’t just collect together a bunch of songs, they Made An Album. Henceforth, everybody else wanted to Make An Album. 
 
The end came only fifteen years later, coinciding with the release of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’. By then the Walkman had taken music out of the home and into the streets and the record business had begun trying to reverse-engineer the creative process in order to make big money. Nobody would play music or listen to it in quite the same way ever again. 
 
It was a short but transformative time. Musicians became ‘artists’ and we, the people, patrons of the arts. The LP itself had been a mark of sophistication, a measure of wealth, an instrument of education, a poster saying things you dare not say yourself, a means of attracting the opposite sex, and, for many, the single most desirable object in their lives. 
 
This is the story of that time; it takes us from recording studios where musicians were doing things that had never been done before to the sparsely furnished apartments where their efforts would be received like visitations from a higher power. This is the story of how LPs saved our lives.

A Fabulous Creation

How the LP Saved Our Lives

Pop music’s a simple pleasure. Is it catchy? Can you dance to it? Do you fancy the singer? 
 
But what’s fascinating about pop is our relationship with it. David Hepworth is interested in the human side of pop. He’s interested in how people make the stuff and, more importantly, what it means to us. 
 
In this collection of essays written throughout his career, Hepworth shows how it is possible to take music seriously and, at the same time, not drain the life out of it. From the legacy of the Beatles to the dramatic decline of the record shop via the bewildering nomenclature of musical genres; with characteristic insight and humour Hepworth asks some essential questions about music and, indeed, life: is it all about the drummer; are band managers misunderstood; and is it appropriate to play ‘Angels’ at funerals? 
 
As Pope John Paul II said ‘of all the unimportant things, football is the most important’. David Hepworth believes the same to be true of music and this selection of his best writing, covering the music of last fifty years, shows you precisely why.

Nothing is Real

The Beatles Were Underrated And Other Sweeping Statements About Pop

As heard on BBC 6 Music with Shaun Keveny, BBC Radio 5 Live and Talk Radio with Eamonn Holmes 
 
The age of the rock star, like the age of the cowboy, has passed. Like the cowboy, the idea of the rock star lives on in our imaginations. 
 
What did we see in them? Swagger. Recklessness. Sexual charisma. Damn-the-torpedoes self-belief. A certain way of carrying themselves. Good hair. Interesting shoes. Talent we wished we had. 
 
What did we want of them? To be larger than life but also like us. To live out their songs. To stay young forever. No wonder many didn’t stay the course. 
 
In Uncommon People, David Hepworth zeroes in on defining moments and turning points in the lives of forty rock stars from 1955 to 1995, taking us on a journey to burst a hundred myths and create a hundred more. 
 
As this tribe of uniquely motivated nobodies went about turning themselves into the ultimate somebodies, they also shaped us, our real lives and our fantasies. Uncommon People isn’t just their story. It’s ours as well.

Uncommon People

The Rise and Fall of the Rock Stars 1955-1994

Howard Sounes

**** COMPELLING - The Sunday Telegraph 
 
CONTROVERSIAL ... Sounes' book pushes the standard Reed narrative - The New York Times 
 
Lou Reed, who died in 2013, was best known to the general public as the grumpy New Yorker in black who sang 'Walk on the Wild Side'. To his dedicated admirers, however, he was one of the most innovative and intelligent American songwriters of modern times, a natural outsider who lived a tumultuous and tortured life. 
 
In this in-depth, meticulously researched and very entertaining biography, respected biographer Howard Sounes examines the life and work of this fascinating man, from birth to death, including his time as the leader of The Velvet Underground - one of the most important bands in rock'n'roll. 
 
Written with a deep knowledge and understanding of the music, Sounes also sheds entirely new light on the artist's creative process, his mental health problems, his bisexuality, his three marriages, and his addictions to drugs and alcohol. 
 
In the course of his research, Sounes has interviewed over 140 people from every part of Lou Reed's life - some of whom have not spoken publicly about him before - including music industry figures, band members, fellow celebrities, family members, former wives and lovers. 
 
This book brings Lou Reed and his world alive.

Notes from the Velvet Underground

The Life of Lou Reed

*THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER* 
As seen on Apple TV - 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything 
 
The Sixties ended a year late - on New Year's Eve 1970, when Paul McCartney initiated proceedings to wind up The Beatles. Music would never be the same again. 
 
The next day would see the dawning of a new era. 1971 saw the release of more monumental albums than any year before or since and the establishment of a pantheon of stars to dominate the next forty years - Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Marvin Gaye, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Rod Stewart, the solo Beatles and more. 
 
January that year fired the gun on an unrepeatable surge of creativity, technological innovation, blissful ignorance, naked ambition and outrageous good fortune. By December rock had exploded into the mainstream. 
How did it happen? This book tells you how. 
 
It's the story of 1971, rock's golden year.

1971 - Never a Dull Moment

Rock's Golden Year

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

1Q84

365 Days of Art

A BBC Christmas

A Black Book Thriller

A Box Full of Murders

A Cal Leandros Novel

A Christmas Mystery

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

A Commissario Brunetti Mystery

A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series

A Daisy Story

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

A Dance to the Music of Time

A Fairy Tale Revolution

A Frank Grasby Mystery

A Guide For the Curious

A Horatio Hornblower Tale of the Sea

A Jo Birmingham Thriller

A Jon Roscoe Thriller

A Ladybird Book

A Ladybird Magic Windows Book

A Look Back at

A Luke Carlton Thriller

A Max Mingus Thriller

A Michael Bennett Thriller

A Midge McGowan Mystery

A Mitchum Thriller

A Moneybunny Book

A Murder Most Unladylike Collection

A Murder Most Unladylike Mini Mystery

A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery

A Nigel Strangeways Mystery

biblio.categories.code

biblio.publicationStatus

biblio.brand

biblio.workEditions.format

biblio.ageRange

biblio.series.seriesName

biblio.imprint.description

biblio.type

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

Search Results

Hunt the Villain

White Nights

Wuthering Heights

Tempting Venom

Book adaptations of 2026, including Wuthering Heights, The Devil's Star, Project Hail Mary and People We Meet on Vacation

Features

17 book adaptations we're excited about in 2026

Competitions

Win a Family Ticket to TOTFest to celebrate Spot Goes to the Farm!

Uncategorized

Remembering Anita Brookner: Hermione Lee on the Writer Behind Hotel du Lac

Extract: This Immortal Heart by Jennifer Saint

Win one of five Bettys hampers worth £100 with How To Get Away With Murder from Rebecca Philipson!

Extracts

Read an extract of The Secret Thread by Eve Chase

How to start a book club

A selection of Great American Novels against the USA Stars and Stripes flag.

Reading lists

Great American Novels you should read

Maxine Lee-Mackie's Easter traditions

Children's reading lists

Books for kids who love music

Who History Leave Behind: The Women of Minbak

Image of Georgette Heyer surrounded by some of her best books: Frederica, The Grand Sophy, The Toll-Gate, The Black Moth, These Old Shades, and Regency Buck.

Where to start reading Georgette Heyer

The Exes by Leodora Darlington and GAIL's competition

Win a signed copy of The Exes by Leodora Darlington and a £30 GAIL's gift card!

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter