Classics

A runaway teen and an ageing cat whisperer collide in this fabulist extravaganza that showcases all of Murakami’s philosophical playfulness and surreal exuberance. Kafka on the Shore effortlessly siphons the legacy of magic realism into...

You may not recognize Elaine Kraf's name now, but you won't forget it after reading this rediscovered novel about a woman's deeply complicated life. (With an introduction by Melissa Broder, author of Death Valley).“That rare thing: a true...

Shocking, banned and the subject of obscenity trials, Henry Miller's first novel Tropic of Canceris one of the most scandalous and influential books of the twentieth century -- new to Penguin Modern Classics with a cover by Tracey EminTropic of...

The ground-breaking cult classic about a young woman's battle with schizophreniaWith a Foreword by Esme Weijun Wang and an Afterword by the author'She fought them with her head and her teeth while the restraints were being tied, trying, doglike, to bite...

The American poet John Shade is dead; murdered. His last poem, Pale Fire, is put into a book, together with a preface, a lengthy commentary and notes by Shade's editor, Charles Kinbote. Known on campus as the 'Great Beaver', Kinbote is haughty,...

‘One of the masters of the short story’ -- Guardian.‘I have to tell you – you see, this is just about the strangest experience I have been through...’These six stories of obsession, secrets, delusions and desires from one of...

A pithy and brilliant introduction to Susan Sontag’s writing on women, gathering early essays on aging, equality, beauty, sexuality, and fascism.Susan Sontag was one of the most formidable, original, and influential thinkers of the last century...

#26 on The Guardian's list of 100 best nonfiction books of all time, the essays explore what it means to be Black in AmericaIn an age of Black Lives Matter, James Baldwin's essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, and African Americans abroad...

Dostoesky's drama of sin, guilt and redemption transmutes the sordid story of an old woman's murder by a desperate student into the nineteenth century's profoundest and most compelling philosophical novel. Grim in theme and setting, the book nevertheless...

A captivating selection of short stories in the original Japanese alongside their English translationsThis new dual-language edition of ten stories selected from The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories celebrates some of the very best Japanese...

NADJA is a Surrealist romance, and has come to be known as a book which defined that movement's attitude towards life. With its blend of intimate confession and sense of the marvellous, NADJA weaves a myterious and compelling tapestry of daily life as...

First masculine, then feminine, Orlando begins life as a young sixteenth-century nobleman, then gallops through the centuries to end up as a woman writer in Virginia Woolf's own time. Written for the charismatic, bisexual writer Vita Sackville-West, this...

I would never have chosen this path, but I am very glad to be who I am, here. The Cancer Journals is an intimate, poetic and invigorating account of the experience of breast cancer, from biopsy to mastectomy, told by the great feminist and activist Audre...

In The Sundial Shirley Jackson, author of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, blends family politics and apocalyptic terror to create a disturbing world of sinister relations and the macabre. 'An amazing writer' Neil Gaiman Mrs Halloran...

Wes Anderson on Stefan Zweig:  "I had never heard of Zweig...when I just more or less by chance bought a copy of Beware of Pity. I loved this first book.  I also read the The Post-Office Girl.  The Grand Budapest...

A woman's weekend away in the Austrian mountains takes an inexplicable and sinister turn - and becomes a fight for survival. A woman takes a holiday in the Austrian mountains, spending a few days with her cousin and his wife in their hunting lodge. When...

“With a pinch of John Dickson Carr and a dash of Agatha Christie, solver of impossible crimes” Kosuke Kindaichi returns for another murder mystery (The New York Times)As several bodies are discovered staged in bizarre poses echoing the lyrics...

One of the great short novels of the twentieth century-in an edition marking the 100th anniversary of the author's birth. An unforgettable psychological novel of obsessive love, The Tunnel was championed by Albert Camus, Thomas Mann, and Graham...

Translated by Constance Garnett with an introduction by Anthony Briggs. Dostoevsky's fascination for mental breakdown and violence (20 murders in his four main novels) was based on his own life, and these two unmistakably autobiographical works bear this...

Julio Cortazar's crazed masterpiece, the forbearer of the Latin Boom in the 1960s - published in Vintage Classics for the first time'Cortazar's masterpiece. This is the first great novel of Spanish America... A powerful anti-novel but, like deeply...