A good book makes you fall in love with its characters, but a great book makes you rethink the world around you – including your relationships. Penguin has always been at the forefront of this publishing, with novels and memoirs that have reshaped the romance genre, created new trends, and sparked conversations about our personal relationships.
Below, we’ve chosen 10 of the most influential Penguin books to redefine love and relationships over the past 90 years (and you can jump to our selection by clicking here). But first, musician, author and podcast host Paloma Faith shares her experience of witnessing how books can shape people’s relationships, and the Penguin title that changed her own perspective.
Paloma Faith on how books can redefine relationships
I have seen first-hand that books can shape relationships. After I published my memoir, MILF, one man approached me, crying, to thank me for saving his marriage. I was really moved by that. I’ve also had younger girls say thank you because they were giving their mum such a hard time about the fact she broke up with their dad. One girl came up to me and said, “I feel a lot of empathy for her now. I’ve called her and I’m taking her out for a meal on Saturday because I want to apologise.” I thought that was so sweet.
Books have changed my own perspective on relationships, too. I was raised by a feminist of the Sixties and my mother lent me The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer when I was about 13. I also read Simone de Beauvoir and Anaïs Nin, but when I found Jeanette Winterson it was like a shot of electricity. It was like a new generation of feminist writer, and it was bloody and beautiful at the same time. It was the beginning of my understanding of how feminism is always redefined throughout generations. And it made my mum’s feminist books look dated.
My top pick: Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
Reading Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson was pivotal for me in my youth. An older cousin of mine gave it to me when I was probably too young to read it, at 13 or 14, and it was revolutionary.
It’s like a feminist fairytale, where instead of seeing the woman as a victim or only being soft, you see the strength of femininity. You also see the grotesque being beautiful: bleeding, body hair, those kind of things that in a fairy story you’d wash over, in this story they are made stunning.
I found it a really important thing to read as a young girl growing up. The stand-out moment that I remember is the story of 12 dancing princesses who were never allowed to put their feet on the ground. That’s how I felt as a young girl, that you had to subscribe to certain social expectations and, if you went against them, it was like your gravity would be in danger.
I’ve read Sexing the Cherry three times – the last time I was in my 20s – and I feel like it’s a book that you should read at different stages of your life because you pick up on different things. It grows with you. I’ve got it on my bookshelf, and it’s annotated to shit! When my daughters are old enough, I’ll be lending them my copy.
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10 more Penguin books that redefined love and relationships
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
Jane Austen published her most famous novel in 1813, but Penguin was the first publisher to release it in paperback, as part of the Penguin Illustrated Classics series in 1938 designed to make good quality books affordable and accessible to all. In the decades since, beautiful clothbound editions of the novel have become staples on book lovers’ bookshelves, and the story has stood the test of time. The OG enemies-to-lovers romance has inspired numerous spin-offs, including Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’ Diary, as well as multiple adaptations, with the 1995 BBC series becoming the benchmark for period adaptations ever since.
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (1956)
James Baldwin’s seminal novel, about the doomed relationship between American expat David and Italian bartender Giovanni, had a moderately positive reception when it was first published, but its impact has rippled in the decades since. The novel is now celebrated as part of the LGBTQ+ literary canon, with its unflinching exploration of the naturalness of queer love and the unnatural societal forces that can stand in its way. Giovanni’s Room has been popular with readers and critics alike, taking pride of place in Vogue and The New York Times’ lists of must-read queer classics.
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence (1960)
In 1960, Penguin was the first British publisher to print an uncensored version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover – complete with explicit sex scenes and multiple uses of controversial four-letter words. The novel was immediately prosecuted under the recently passed Obscene Publications Act of 1959. To avoid conviction and protect the freedom to read, Penguin went to court to prove the book had literary merit, calling on 35 witnesses, including Allen Lane, E.M. Forster, the sociologist Richard Hoggart and even the Bishop of Woolwich, to argue its worth. Ultimately, the court ruled in favour of Penguin – a move that paved the way for more liberal publishing and more frank conversations about sex, both on and off the page.
The Millstone by Margaret Drabble (1965)
It was the sixties, but London was not quite swinging: the contraceptive pill was available in 1965 but only for married women, and attitudes towards sex were not as liberal as they would be by the end of the decade. Against this backdrop, Margaret Drabble wrote her novel about a young single woman who becomes pregnant after a one-night stand and, against her sister’s wishes, decides to keep and raise the baby. It’s a story that combines humour and heart, and one that The Guardian has called "the seminal 60s feminist novel”.
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin (1978)
Tales of the City started as a newspaper column in 1976 that chronicled the residents of a fictional LGBTQ+ house-share in San Francisco as they navigated the ups and downs of love and life. The story found a larger audience when it was published as a novel in 1978, and it has since become a cult classic as a comedy of manners that celebrates queer joy. The book has been adapted for screen, most recently a 2019 Netflix adaptation and even a 2011 musical, with a score by John Garden and Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears. Talking about the impact of the novel, Shears said he first read Tales of the City when he was 13. “I fell in love with the characters and read the entire series,” he told Rolling Stone. “The books were, for me, a rite of passage.”
Lace by Shirley Conran (1982)
Before there was Sex and the City, before there were Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles, there was Lace by Shirley Conran. The novel, described by The Guardian as a “feminist bonkbuster” is about four female friends who enjoy clothes, champagne, work and sex. Friendship is at the heart of this book, but so is female desire; Conran herself described it as “intensely researched sexual information dressed up as a novel”. Lace was wildly popular, selling more than 3 million copies, and opened the door to other books where sex abounds.
Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James (2011)
When E L James’ novel was first published, you could not enter a train carriage, park or holiday resort without being surrounded by people burying their noses behind its iconic cover. Fifty Shades of Grey topped bestseller lists around the world, was translated into 52 languages, and remains the fastest-selling adult novel to sell one million paperbacks: it took the book just 11 weeks to pass the one-million mark (for context, the previous record was The Da Vinci Code at 36 weeks). The book’s enormous popularity sparked a renewed interest in erotic literature and brought conversations around BDSM into the mainstream.
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton (2018)
Journalist and author Dolly Alderton’s memoir charts the romances, heartbreaks and misadventures of her 20s. But, above all, it is a testament to the power of female friendships and their capacity to teach us more about love – and about ourselves – than romantic relationships. The book sparked a cultural conversation about the value of friendship, and its message has since resonated with a new generation of readers: it became a Sunday Times bestseller in September 2022, and won an award at the TikTok Book Awards in August 2024.
Arrangements in Blue by Amy Key (2023)
Against the backdrop of modern-day dating app fatigue and chosen singledom came the trailblazing memoir, Arrangements in Blue. Poet Amy Key takes inspiration from the Joni Mitchell album Blue to write about her life spent without a partner, and the moments of connection, with herself and others, that largely go unnoticed in society. The result? A book that feels like a mirror to the culture we live in, encouraging new perspectives around love and being alone. As The Guardian notes, this is a powerful memoir that “marks an important shift in ideas about intimacy and solitude”.
Love in Exile by Shon Faye (2025)
Published this year, Shon Faye’s memoir has already become a modern classic in reshaping the conversation around love. The bestselling author blends razor-sharp analysis with personal storytelling as she explores her own experiences as a trans woman navigating romantic love, exclusion, heartbreak, spiritual love and the thorny issue of self-love, and, taking a step back, the way in which broader political systems shape even the most individual and intimate aspects of our lives. At once personal and universal, Love in Exile will make you question the relationship dynamics you might otherwise have taken for granted.