Books and popular culture have always been symbiotic: since the printing press made cheap books widely available, up to the present ‘digital’ day, there simply hasn’t been one without the other. From classics to modern tomes, books have seeped from the page into other art forms, bringing them to life.
Someone who knows this better than most is Jack Edwards, TikTok influencer of books and pop culture. Below, he explains why books have such an impact – and the book that has influenced him the most. Plus, we reflect on the 10 Penguin books that have become pop culture classics over the past 90 years (you can jump straight to the list by clicking here).
Jack Edwards on the books that impacted pop culture
Without Nineteen Eighty-Four, we wouldn’t have Big Brother or Room 101. Without Pride and Prejudice, there’d be no Bridget Jones’s Diary or Bridgerton. Without Lord of the Flies, there’d be no Yellowjackets or Lost.
When Taylor Swift chimes that she’s “feeling so Gatsby”, Lana Del Rey quotes Lolita, or The Rolling Stones replace their heads with bugs for their Metamorphosis album cover… Penguin books are shaping culture.
Since their founding 90 years ago, Penguin books have ignited pop culture phenomena, whether it’s the modern classic The Secret History, which countless “dark academia” authors have been inspired by, In Cold Blood sparking a true crime craze, or The Fault in Our Stars banding together a community of like-minded readers on BookTube, Bookstagram, and – subsequently – BookTok. When someone is raving about the gem they’ve just (re-)discovered, look to the cover’s corner: chances are you’ll spot the iconic Penguin logo lurking there.
Penguin books have championed voices from around the world; they’ve even been banned for the way they challenge hegemonic ideologies, as Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye does. They are disruptive, galvanising, and empowering.
They’ve inspired modern retellings, like The Odyssey, and even introduced new terms to our lexicon – our concept of “nostalgia” originated as nostos in Homer’s epic poem. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary added the adjectives Homeric, Kafkaesque, and Orwellian, codifying these authors’ immense impact in our language.
Over nine impressive decades, Penguin authors have explained and explored the world, and shaped it along the way.
My Top Pick: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
First published in 1949, and by Penguin in 1954, George Orwell’s epic dystopia Nineteen Eighty-Four is undeniably a cultural touchstone, as pertinent today as ever before. The book has shaped our lexicon – terms like “Big Brother” and “Room 101” are ubiquitously understood, and “doublethink” and “Newspeak” are terms that are still applicable to our political climate. Think about when people started using the term “unalived” to replace both “dead” and “killed” in order to avoid social media censorship, or when right-wing commentators weaponised the words “woke” and “snowflake” to undercut anyone seeking social justice. Orwell understood: language is powerful.
Nineteen Eighty-Four has inspired generations of writers, from Margaret Atwood and Suzanne Collins to Sandra Newman, not to mention readers. Picking up a copy of the orange Penguin classic in my school library over a decade ago, I was first struck by the iconic “redacted” title design. I had no idea my life was about to change forever. Reading it for the very first time taught me the capabilities of writing – the power of words on a page to critique, satirise, challenge, and galvanise; the fact that books could be both deeply political and exquisitely entertaining.
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10 more Penguin books that became pop culture classics
The Odyssey by Homer (c. 8th Century BC)
Published as the first Penguin Classic in 1946, The Odyssey dates back to the 8th Century but that’s just when it was written; it’s unclear just how many decades, centuries even, it first spent as part of an oral performance tradition. How incredible, then, that it remains such a significant influence on so much of Western culture: in literature, of course, such as Dante’s Inferno and James Joyce’s Ulysses, but also in music (Monteverdi’s opera Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria), on film (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming adaptation), and television (The Simpsons’ spin featuring their very own Homer).
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
The question isn’t whether Austen’s Regency masterpiece made waves in popular culture, but when those waves rocked you most: when Lizzy Bennet first leapt off the printed page of the book; when Colin Firth emerged from the lake; or when Matthew Macfadyen made you “completely, and perfectly, and incandescently happy”? This impact is remarkable, given the book’s humble original context: after publishing her first novel, Sense and Sensibility, anonymously (“By a Lady”, it famously declared), Pride and Prejudice was first attributed to “the Author of Sense and Sensibility”. Not just a popular culture behemoth, Pride and Prejudice helped shape culture by paving an early path for women in literature.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1915)
The first line says it all: one morning, Gregor Samsa awakens in his bed transformed into a gigantic insect. It’s a story conceit so beguiling and horrifying that it has transcended language and time, not only captivating readers but leaping off the page and into the dictionary. To this day, we use the word Kafkaesque to describe any situation as odd and unique as it is vaguely terrifying. Yet this unforgettable story’s weirdness also provides its beating heart, exploring the deeply human feeling of otherness, and the shallow fragility of our connections to those we call our kin. No wonder its popularity and influence persist far into the digital age.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
It’s been 100 years since F. Scott Fitzgerald published his literary masterpiece, and to this day, nothing says Jazz Age glamour like it. When Taylor Swift sings, like Jack pointed out above, that she’s “feeling so Gatsby”, you know exactly what she means: lavish, decadent fun, tinged with an element of chaos.
But The Great Gatsby is more than just an aesthetic; because of its rich themes, deep symbolism and elegant prose, it stands as one of the quintessential ‘Great American Novels’, revered by writers and story lovers for its gripping story as much as by aesthetes for its beauty.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954)
Didn’t Jack sum it up perfectly, above? “Without Lord of the Flies, there’d be no Yellowjackets or Lost” – nor any story in which the author intends to show, acutely, how finely balanced our notion of civilisation is perched. Golding’s 1954 novel about schoolboys stranded on a desert island worked on multiple levels. On one, his depiction of the boys’ descent into ferality subverted the idea that children are somehow pure and innocent. On another, deeper level, he asked timeless questions about the fundamental tension at the centre of humanity’s duality: what if, just below our desire for unity, fairness and democracy, instinctual drives for individual power and destruction simmer?
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
Only Vladimir Nabokov could pull off a feat like turning the escapades of a self-involved sexual abuser into award-winning literature. In Lolita, Nabokov makes readers the jury as we consider the case of one Humbert Humbert, who becomes obsessed with the young daughter of the woman he is dating. Yet, somehow, Nabokov imbues Humbert with enough pathos that we are not only disgusted by him but charmed, too, by his pathetic desperation and humanity.
In popular culture, though, the hero remains Dolores Haze, the titular Lolita, who escapes with his money and a future still full of promise – a timeless hero for the starlets of pop music, Hollywood and beyond, up against an exploitative, patriarchal machine themselves.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1966)
Without In Cold Blood, there would be no Making a Murderer documentary, no Serial podcast, no True Detective; indeed, it’s hard to overestimate the influence of journalist Truman Capote’s “non-fictional” account of the 1959 Clutter family murder. Those quotation marks are on purpose – today, Capote’s book is remembered as much for its style as its substance, as he pioneered a writing method that employed as much narrative flourish as journalistic rigour. With In Cold Blood, journalism and entertainment were becoming one; crime television, podcasts, films, documentaries and news wouldn’t be the same without it.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970)
Either of Toni Morrison’s masterpieces might have landed on this list: her Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved, which has inspired countless adaptations, or The Bluest Eye, her debut novel and pointed examination of racism and beauty standards. Recently, The Bluest Eye made headlines for being the target of book bans across America, many of which cite the book’s offensive language and sexual abuse as the reason, but its politics have come under question, too. There’s no better demonstration that Morrison’s influence on literature and popular culture remains as powerful as ever, cementing Morrison as one of the greatest authors of our time.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992)
Haunting, irresistible and seductive, The Secret History is a bestseller that defined an age. It didn’t just become a #BookTok favourite but an entire new subgenre was inspired by it: 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. The Secret History is now considered a modern classic, but its second life proves a book’s influence on pop culture can come in waves – even decades after its initial publication.
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (2012)
Before The Fault in Our Stars, YA (shorthand to describe books for young adults) was a term used with condescension; derision, even. Afterward, it became a buzzword. John Green’s masterful, poignant story about two teenagers who meet in a cancer support group and fall in love challenged notions of what books for young readers could be. The resulting film adaptation was a box-office smash, but what it did for literature was even bigger, paving the way for YA literature to be taken seriously. A decade since publication, The Fault in Our Stars continues to resonate with online book communities on TikTok, fostering a whole new generation of fans.