Over the past eight weeks, leading up to Penguin’s 90th birthday, we've been reflecting on 90 years of Penguin publishing - celebrating the books that have shaped our lives and the world around us. Through a series of themed reading lists , covering everything from pop culture to love and relationships , politics to the environment , we’ve revisited the stories behind iconic books that have stood the test of time.
As we delved into our archives and raided our bookshelves, we invited editors, storytellers, musicians, podcasters and influencers to help us gather the books that have shocked us, comforted us, raised us, and set our imaginations alight. We also asked you, our readers, to vote for your favourite title from each list - and over 10,000 of you did, alongside Penguin staff, who also voted to help curate the ultimate Penguin reading list.
Below, we share the 16 books that made the final cut: an array of titles – new and old – that have shaped our lives and the world around us.
Nineteen Eighty-Four offers a chilling vision of an authoritarian surveillance state. Orwell’s words have become part of our everyday language - without this book, we wouldn’t have had “ Big Brother” or “Room 101” or the cultural touchstones they inspired. More than just a classic, Nineteen Eighty-Four has shaped the way we think about power, truth and control. It continues to challenge us to imagine a better future – and to stand up against an authoritarian world.
Haunting, irresistible and seductive, The Secret History is a bestseller that defined an age. It didn’t just become a #BookTok favourite; it inspired an entire subgenre: dark academia. The word-of-mouth sensation spread like wildfire and led to an influx of books that featured poetry, plaid skirts and murder in the most aesthetically pleasing red-brick universities. Now considered a modern classic, The Secret History proves that a book’s influence on pop culture can come in waves – even decades after it was first published.
For readers today, it’s almost impossible to believe that Lady Chatterley’s Lover once caused such outrage that it led to one of the most famous literary trials of all time .
When the court ruled in favour of Penguin, a second edition was published, selling more than 3 million copies within a year. Without this classic story of a passionate love affair between the Lady of the Manor and her groundsman, we might never have had Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles or E.L James’ Fifty Shades of Grey – a shocking prospect indeed!
Irvine Welsh’s iconic and generation-defining novel Trainspotting left readers divided. Many praised its use of bad language, sex, violence and unflinching drug abuse written largely in the Scots dialect, while others saw it as morally repugnant on account of its portrayal of heroin use. The book proved so controversial that, after being longlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize in 1993, it was reportedly culled from the shortlist after two judges threatened to walk out over the matter. Today, the novel is recognised as a fearless, irreverent portrait of a generation – one that pushed boundaries just as much as it reflected them.
Jane Austen published her most famous novel in 1813, but Penguin was the first publisher to release it in paperback in 1938 as part of the Penguin Illustrated Classics series, designed to make good quality books affordable and accessible to all. The original enemies-to-lovers romance has inspired numerous spin-offs, most famously, Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’ Diar y. Written over 200 years ago Austen’s reflection on love and relationships still resonates with readers today. Whether you are a hopeless romantic looking for your own Mr Darcy or more like the practically minded Charlotte Lucas, who believed love could grow with time, Pride and Prejudice continues to be considered the perfect romantic novel.
Giovanni’s Room has been popular with readers and critics alike, taking pride of place in Vogue The New York Times
Margaret Atwood’s chilling vision of a patriarchal theocratic state has had a far-reaching cultural and political impact that endures to this day. The fictional Republic of Gilead, where a class of women known as “Handmaids” are made to redress a fertility crisis through forced reproduction, was inspired by real-world events from America to Romania to Iran.
Alongside a timely TV adaptation that aired during President Donald Trump’s first term, the Handmaids’ recognisable uniform of red cloaks and white bonnets have been donned as a symbol of feminist protest and resistance the world over.
Journalist and author Sathnam Sanghera’s bestselling book Empireland was hailed by critics for its “balanced” and “unflinching” examination of Britain’s imperial legacy but also made the author a target for personal attacks and racist abuse amid burgeoning culture wars. Published in 2021, after a wave of Black Lives Matter protests had brought conversations about racism in Britain to the fore, Empireland covered everything from money to health to politics, to illustrate how colonialism has shaped modern Britain. Sanghera also fronted the accompanying Channel 4 docuseries Empire State of Mind , and in 2024 he returned to the public eye with his follow-up book Empireworld , which explored the far-reaching global impact of the British Empire.
Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has captivated young readers for generations. Alongside beloved characters like Matilda, the BGF and the – albeit more terrifying than beloved – Witches, Willy Wonka has become a fixture of childhood imagination and has spawned multiple movie adaptations, video games and real-life Wonka bars.
This book, along with Dahl’s other work, has also become synonymous with the illustrator Quentin Blake. “His work means children’s books somehow,” children’s author David Walliams told BBC Newsnight in 2012. Perhaps it is time to indulge your sweet tooth and step back into the Chocolate Factory once more.
Noughts & Crosses remains a groundbreaking work for explaining racism to young readers, told within the unique and devastating framework of a doomed, Romeo and Juliet -esque love story. It was an instant hit when it was first published, but it has stayed with readers ever since – including the rapper Stormzy, who said, “The Noughts & Crosses series are still my favourite books of all time and showed me just how amazing storytelling could be.” End Game
Sir David Attenborough remains one of the most influential voices of our time, as your vote demonstrates. His decades-long career has brought the beauty – and at times the brutality – of the natural world to life through his books and ground-breaking TV programmes.
In recent years, however, Attenborough’s work has also shone a light on the urgent environmental and biodiversity crises facing our planet. A Life on Our Planet , accompanied by a powerful Netflix documentary of the same name, is his “witness statement”: a stark, unflinching warning about the devastating effects of climate change on our ecosystems. It’s also a galvanising call for us - and future generations - to act before it’s too late.
First published as a Penguin paperback in 1965, biologist Rachel Carson’s book about the dangers of pesticides became a – perhaps unlikely – runaway bestseller. Silent Spring ’s stark revelations about the threat that misusing pesticides posed to wildlife and the food chain spurred on the formation of a grassroots environmental movement which, in turn, led to the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency. Some six decades later, the book has gone down in history as a hugely influential and prophetic examination of how destructive unfettered human intervention can be for the environment we depend on.
For many readers, the phrase “books that helped us through hard times” will naturally have summoned to mind Charlie Mackesy’s lovingly told, magnificently hand-drawn picture story The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse , whose pages of warm-hearted musings brought comfort to millions during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond. Now fixtures in the British imagination, thanks in part to a BAFTA- and Academy Award-winning animated short film released in 2022, Mackesy’s spellbinding storytelling has proven the value and popularity of illustrated books as a refuge for adults seeking literary solace during troubled times.
Can the activities of our childhood help us find a sense of soothing calm and playfulness when times get hard? The answer is yes; just ask Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford, whose books of magical, meticulously detailed black-and-white line drawings are designed to be coloured in by (grown-up) readers. Her incredible work evidently struck a chord with fans: within a few years, colouring books for adults had become a booming industry – particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, when so many were looking for a calming way to reconnect with their creative selves.
The premise of Ultra-Processed People is compelling: that, thanks to the industrialisation of modern food production, we now consume enormous quantities of Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs) that are detrimental to our health. The book’s impact has already been huge, with millions of copies sold since 2023. UPF discussion has exploded on social media, with influencers routinely sharing videos scrutinising the ingredients in the products we buy. Meanwhile, supermarkets are racing to update their lines to reflect the population’s new-found desire for less ‘engineered’ food. The way we shop and eat is changing radically, thanks to this groundbreaking book.
Cookery writer Elizabeth David burst onto the scene just as Britain started to emerge from the long, dreary years of rationing and post-war austerity. A cosmopolitan art student and actress, she travelled extensively across Europe, exploring parts of the continent previously closed off by war. Her books celebrated the real food she discovered in homes across southern Europe and inspired a generation of British cooks to embrace what were considered exotic new ingredients. The most notable was olive oil, which – prior to the publication of her A Book of Mediterranean Food – had only ever been sold in pharmacies for medical use.
