Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Anna Trewin

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language practise activities, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. The eBook edition does NOT include access to the audio edition and digital book. 
 
A Halloween in York, a Level 2 Reader, is A1+ in the CEFR framework. Sentences contain a maximum of two clauses, introducing the future tenses will and going to, present continuous for future meaning, and comparatives and superlatives. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear on most pages. 
 
It’s Halloween. Sanjay and his friends go trick-or-treating in the streets of York. They meet Joe and take him to a party. Then Joe runs away. But who is Joe, and why is he frightened of fire?

Penguin Readers Level 2: A Halloween in York (ELT Graded Reader)

Joseph Sassoon

The Sassoons were one of the great business dynasties of the nineteenth century, as eminent as traders as the Rothschilds were bankers. This book reveals the secrets behind the family's phenomenal success: how a handful of Jewish exiles from Ottoman Baghdad forged a mercantile juggernaut from their new home in colonial Bombay, the vast network of agents, informants and politicians they built, and the way they came to bridge East and West, culturally as well as commercially. 
 
Through the lives these ambitious figures built for themselves, the reader is drawn into a captivating world of politics and power, innovation and intrigue, high society and empire. The Global Merchants is thus at once a portrait of a single family and a panorama of the hundred and thirty years of their prominence: from the Opium Wars to the American Civil War, the establishment of the British Raj to India's independence. Together these give a fresh perspective on one of the defining forces of their age and the present: globalization. The Sassoons were variously its agents, advocates and casualties, and watching them moving through the world, we perceive the making of our own.

The Global Merchants

The Enterprise and Extravagance of the Sassoon Dynasty

Harlan Coben

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
Fool Me Once, a Level 5 Reader, is B1 in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to four clauses, introducing present perfect continuous, past perfect, reported speech and second conditional. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly. 
 
Maya’s rich husband Joe was murdered in New York. One day, Maya sees something on her nanny camera which makes her question everything that she knows about Joe’s murder. As she searches for answers, Maya gets pulled deeper and deeper into a world of lies and secrets.

Penguin Readers Level 5: Fool Me Once (ELT Graded Reader)

Abridged Edition

John Titford

The Penguin Dictionary of British Surnames is a useful and fascinating guide to the surnames that offer a unique insight into the place of origin, the occupations - and even the personality traits - of our ancestors. Detailed and informative, this dictionary covers the widest range of British surnames and is essential reading for anyone intrigued by the story of their name and by the history of their family. This edition replaces our out of date (and out of print) 1967 edition.

The Penguin Dictionary of British Surnames

Malorie Blackman

In this story, seventeen-year-old Dante is waiting for his exam results. If they are good, he'll go to university. But Dante's plans have to change when he hears that he is the father of a baby girl. With the help of his father and brother, Dante must learn how to be a single father. 
 
Our Penguin Readers books include: 
• Simple text (CEFR-levelled) 
• Pictures to help you understand the story 
• Fun exercises to help you learn and practise English 
 
With the print book, you can get even more help online: 
 
• Read the book online 
• Listen to the book being read out loud 
• Get lesson plans for teachers 
• Find answers to check your understanding 
 
Note: online resources not available with the eBook.

Penguin Readers Level 5: Boys Don't Cry (ELT Graded Reader)

James Joyce

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
Dubliners, a Level 6 Reader, is B1+ in the CEFR framework. The longer text is made up of sentences with up to four clauses, introducing future continuous, reported questions, third conditional, was going to and ellipsis. A small number of illustrations support the text. 
 
In these stories, Joyce describes the lives of ordinary Dubliners. Their lives are not always easy, and they have problems with their families. They were the people who Joyce grew up with and he knew them very well.

Penguin Readers Level 6: Dubliners (ELT Graded Reader)

Gervase Phinn

'Miss, who's that funny man at the back of the classroom? 
 
So begins school-inspector Gervase Phinn's second year among the frankly spoken pupils and teachers of North Yorkshire - the sight of Gervase with his notebook and pen provokes unexpected reactions from the children and adults alike. 
 
But Gervase if far from daunted - he is ready to brave the steely glare of the officious Mrs Savage, and even feels up to helping Dr Gore organize a gathering of the Feofees - just as soon as someone tells him what they are! He is still in pursuit of the lovely headteacher Christine Bentley, but will she feel the same? 
 
This is a delectable second helping of hilarious tales from the man who has been dubbed 'the James Herriot of schools'. It will have you laughing out loud.

Over Hill and Dale

Joseph E. Stiglitz

Why isn't globalization benefitting as many people as it should? Joe Stiglitz shows us that things can change and that an optimistic world can exist where globalization really does work. 
 
Stiglitz examines how change has occurred rapidly over the past four years, proposing solutions and looking to the future. He puts forward radical new ways of dealing with the crippling indebtedness of developing countries, a new system of global reserves to overcome international financial instability and a new framework, combining economic incentives and principles of equity, for dealing with the greatest threat to our planet, global warming &ndash; one which is more likely to be accepted both by the US and the developing world than previous proposals. He argues convincingly for the reform of global institutions such as the UN, the IMF and the World Bank to make them truly capable of responding to the problems of our age and shows why treating developing countries more fairly is not only morally right, but ultimately will be to the benefit of the developed countries as well.

Making Globalization Work

The Next Steps to Global Justice

Louisa May Alcott

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
Little Women, a Level 1 Reader, is A1 in the CEFR framework. Short sentences contain a maximum of two clauses, introducing the past simple tense and some simple modals, adverbs and gerunds. Illustrations support the text throughout, and many titles at this level are graphic novels. 
 
Little Women is the story of a poor American family in the American Civil War. The four sisters, Beth, Jo, Meg and Amy are very different. But together they work hard and help their mother and father. Sometimes their lives are very happy, and sometimes they are very sad. But the family's love always helps them.

Penguin Readers Level 1: Little Women (ELT Graded Reader)

Neil Oliver

For longer than recorded history there have been tales of spirits and of places where our hackles rise and our skin turns cold. 
 
Bestselling historian Neil Oliver travels the British Isles on a deliciously spine-chilling tour that spans several centuries and explores more than 20 sites - castles, vicarages and towers, lonely shorelines and forgotten battlefields - to unpick their stories.. 
 
Oliver invokes his family's history alongside that of kings and queens past as he probes why our emotions and senses are heightened in certain locations where the separation between dimensions seems gossamer thin. Our landscape is riven with these places, creaking from the weight of the secrets they hold, the echoes of tragedy and dark deeds . From Inverness to Devon, Co Dublin to Norfolk, Hauntings casts an enjoyably eerie glow with stories that, told generation after generation, are inextricable from place - and considers why they matter.

Hauntings

A Book of Ghosts and Where to Find Them Across 25 Eerie British Locations

Alice Mah

'Part of me knew what the hungry ghosts wanted all along, what they still want. It is not vengeance. No, they want something else, but we refuse to listen. They want us to face up to our broken obligations.' 
 
Every spring during the Qingming Festival, people return to their home villages in China to sweep the tombs of their ancestors, making offerings of food and incense to prevent them from becoming hungry ghosts that could cause misfortune. Yet for the past century, a time ruptured by war and revolution, many tombs have been left unattended. Following a record year of wildfires, Alice Mah returns to her family’s rice village in South China, and discovers that her ancestors are almost forgotten, and there are no tombs left to sweep. Instead, there are incalculable clan debts to be paid. 
 
Here Mah chronicles her journey from the rice villages of South China to her home in post-industrial England, through the Chinatowns of Western Canada where she grew up, to the isles and industry of Scotland where she now lives. As years pass and fires rage on, she becomes increasingly troubled by her ancestors’ neglected graves. Her research on pollution gives way to growing eco-anxiety, culminating in a crisis of spiritual belief. 
 
A haunting blend of memoir, cultural history and environmental exploration, Red Pockets confronts the hungry ghosts of our neglected ancestors, while searching for an acceptable offering. What do we owe to past and future generations? What do we owe to the places that we inhabit?

Red Pockets

An Offering

Thomas Hardy

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
Tess of the D'Urbervilles, a Level 6 Reader, is B1+ in the CEFR framework. The longer text is made up of sentences with up to four clauses, introducing future continuous, reported questions, third conditional, was going to and ellipsis. A small number of illustrations support the text. 
 
When Jack and Joan Durbeyfield learn that their ancestors were the d'Urbervilles - a rich and well-known family - they hope it will make their lives better. They send their eldest daughter, Tess, to introduce herself to some "relatives". There, Tess meets Alec d'Urberville, who immediately notices her beauty. The terrible event that follows changes her life forever.

Penguin Readers Level 6: Tess of the D'Urbervilles (ELT Graded Reader)

Mark Twain

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a Level 2 Reader, is A1+ in the CEFR framework. Sentences contain a maximum of two clauses, introducing the future tenses will and going to, present continuous for future meaning, and comparatives and superlatives. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear on most pages. 
 
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) is the story of a boy in Missouri in the 1840s. Tom Sawyer's parents are dead and he lives with his aunt in a small village next to the long Mississippi river. One night, Tom and his friend, Huckleberry Finn see Injun Joe kill Dr Robinson. "We can't say anything about it. Or we will die," says Tom. But then the wrong man goes to prison...

Penguin Readers Level 2: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (ELT Graded Reader)

Tracy King

When Tracy King was twelve she was exorcised. 
Unfortunately, the demons that beset Tracy could not be so easily displaced. 
While her life was filled with creativity, curiosity, and love, it was also constricted by poverty, by Tracy’s father’s alcoholism and her mother’s agoraphobia. 
 
By the time she turned twelve Tracy’s father had been killed, her sister taken into care and her mother ensnared by the promises of born-again Christianity. 
 
This is the story of an ordinary family trapped in a broken system. It is a story that could happen to anyone without the tools to transform their circumstances. 
But it is also a tale with a twist. And one full of humour and hope. 
Because with courage, perseverance and self-education, Tracy learnt to think for herself and found her way out.

Learning to Think.

make believe, injustice and searching for truth – a memoir

A memoir about hardship, education, hellfire, family, finding a way to break free

Jenny Han

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
We'll Always Have Summer, a Level 5 Reader, is B1 in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to four clauses, introducing present perfect continuous, past perfect, reported speech and second conditional. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly. 
 
We&rsquo;ll Always Have Summer is the last of three famous books about Belly and her feelings for Conrad and his brother, Jeremiah. Belly is now dating Jeremiah and their relationship is serious. Belly has known Jeremiah since she was a child. But she has known Conrad, too. Which of the brothers does she really love?

Penguin Readers Level 5: We'll Always Have Summer (ELT Graded Reader)

Saroo Brierley

In this story, five-year-old Saroo gets on the wrong train in India and is taken thousands of miles to the city of Kolkata. After months of living on the streets, he is adopted by a family in Australia. Many years later, Saroo decides to try and find his Indian family. 
 
Our Penguin Readers books include: 
• Simple text (CEFR-levelled) 
• Pictures to help you understand the story 
• Fun exercises to help you learn and practise English 
 
With the print book, you can get even more help online: 
• Read the book online 
• Listen to the book being read out loud 
• Get lesson plans for teachers 
• Find answers to check your understanding 
 
Note: online resources not available with the eBook.

Penguin Readers Level 4: Lion (ELT Graded Reader)

James Poskett

In this major retelling of the history of science from 1450 to the present day, James Poskett explodes the myth that science began in Europe. 
 
The blinkered Western gaze focusing on individual 'genius' - Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Einstein - was only one part of the story. The reality was an utterly global, non-linear pattern of cross-fertilization, competition, cooperation and outright conflict. Each rupture in history carved fresh channels for global exchange. 
 
Here, for the first time, Poskett celebrates how scientists from Africa, America, Asia and the Pacific were integral to this very human story. We meet Graman Kwasi, the African botanist who discovered a new cure for malaria; Hantaro Nagaoka, the Japanese scientist who first described the structure of the atom; and Zhao Zhongyao, the Chinese physicist who discovered antimatter.

Horizons

A Global History of Science

Charles Dickens

In this story, Ebenezer Scrooge hates Christmas. He is angry that people are not working. Then, he meets the ghost of his old partner, Jacob Marley. Can Scrooge be a good person before it is too late? 
 
Our Penguin Readers books include: 
• Simple text (CEFR-levelled) 
• Pictures to help you understand the story 
• Fun exercises to help you learn and practise English 
 
With the print book, you can get even more help online: 
• Read the book online 
• Listen to the book being read out loud 
• Get lesson plans for teachers 
• Find answers to check your understanding 
 
Note: online resources not available with the eBook.

Penguin Readers Level 1: A Christmas Carol (ELT Graded Reader)

Graphic Novel

Charlie Higson

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
Silverfin, a Level 1 Reader, is A1 in the CEFR framework. Short sentences contain a maximum of two clauses, introducing the past simple tense and some simple modals, adverbs and gerunds. Illustrations support the text throughout, and many titles at this level are graphic novels. 
 
On Loch SilverFin in Scotland, a bad man lives in a castle with his son. James Bond and his new friend Red Kelly go to the castle. They must find Red's missing cousin, Alfie. But what do they find in the castle? Do they find Alfie, or is it too late?

Penguin Readers Level 1: Silverfin (ELT Graded Reader)

Colm Tóibín

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
Brooklyn, a Level 5 Reader, is B1 in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to four clauses, introducing present perfect continuous, past perfect, reported speech and second conditional. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly. 
 
When Eilis gets a job in Brooklyn, New York, she leaves her family in Ireland to travel to a new country. It is an exciting adventure, with lots of new people and things to learn, but Eilis misses Ireland. When she meets someone special, Eilis must choose between her past and her future.

Penguin Readers Level 5: Brooklyn (ELT Graded Reader)

Katriona O'Sullivan

As the middle of five kids growing up in dire poverty, the odds were low on Katriona O'Sullivan making anything of her life. When she became a mother at 15 and ended up homeless, what followed were five years of barely coping. 
 
This is the extraordinary story - moving, funny, brave, and sometimes startling - of how Katriona turned her life around. How the seeds of self-belief planted by teachers in childhood stayed with her. How she found mentors whose encouragement revitalised those seeds in adulthood, leading her to become an award-winning academic whose work challenges barriers to education. 
 
Poor is not only Katriona's story, but is also her impassioned argument for the importance of looking out for our kids' futures. Of giving them hope, practical support and meaningful opportunities.

Poor

Madeleine L'Engle

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
A Wrinkle in Time, a Level 3 Reader, is A2 in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing first conditional, past continuous and present perfect simple for general experience. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear on most pages. 
 
Meg's father has disappeared, and her family wants him back. One day, Meg and her little brother meet three strange women. The women know about Meg's father, and they want to help her.

Penguin Readers Level 3: A Wrinkle in Time (ELT Graded Reader)

David Pickering

What's in a name? Rather more than you might at first suspect, for names are steeped in history and myth and have much to tell us about our past, our beliefs - even our personality traits. Now fully updated for its second edition, with 150 new entries, The Penguin Dictionary of First Names takes a close look at over 5,000 examples, ranging from the familiar to the comparatively obscure, drawn from all parts of the English-speaking world. Detailed and informative, it is essential reading for expectant parents and for anyone who is intrigued by the story attached to each name.

The Penguin Dictionary of First Names

Kate Scott

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
The Extraordinary Life of Anne Frank, a Level 2 Reader, is A1+ in the CEFR framework. Sentences contain a maximum of two clauses, introducing the future tenses will and going to, present continuous for future meaning, and comparatives and superlatives. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear on most pages. 
 
Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis in the Second World War. Anne wrote a diary of that time, and later it became very famous. This is the story of Anne's short life.

Penguin Readers Level 2: The Extraordinary Life of Anne Frank (ELT Graded Reader)

James Holland

Part of the Ladybird Expert History of the Second World War series, The Eastern Front 1941-1944, is an authoritative and accessible introduction to the brutal confrontation between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union along a 1,200 mile front. 
 
Historian, author and broadcaster James Holland draws on the latest research and interviews with participants to bring colour, detail and a fresh perspective to the story of a front defined by unprecedented destruction. 
 
Inside, you'll discover how tactics, organisation and new technologies were brought to bear, about the different challenges faced by both the Axis and the Allies, and, above all, the skill, bravery and endurance of those engaged in a contest that was of critical importance to the outcome of the war.

The Eastern Front 1941-43

Book 5 of the Ladybird Expert History of the Second World War

Ed Moloney

For decades the British and Irish had 'got used to' a situation without parallel in Europe: a cold, ferocious, persistent campaign of bombing and terror of extraordinary duration and inventiveness. At the heart of that campaign lies one man: GerryAdams. From the outbreak of the troubles to the present day he has been an immensely influential figure. The most compelling question about the IRA is: how did a man who condoned atrocities that resulted in huge numbers of civilian deaths also become the guiding light behind the peace process? Moloney's book is now updated to encompass the anxious and uneasy peace that has prevailed to 2007.

A Secret History of the IRA

In this story, Cameron Kelsey is 13 years old. He is not well and needs a new heart. Doctors want to give him a pig's heart. Cameron cannot decide if he wants the pig's heart, and some groups are very angry about doctors using animals in this way. 
 
Our Penguin Readers books include: 
• Simple text (CEFR-levelled) 
• Pictures to help you understand the story 
• Fun exercises to help you learn and practise English 
 
With the print book, you can get even more help online: 
• Read the book online 
• Listen to the book being read out loud 
• Get lesson plans for teachers 
• Find answers to check your understanding 
 
Note: online resources not available with the eBook.

Penguin Readers Level 4: Pig-Heart Boy (ELT Graded Reader)

Tove Jansson

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
Penguin Readers Level 2: Moomin Shorts, a Level 2 Reader, is A1+ in the CEFR framework. Sentences contain a maximum of two clauses, introducing the future tenses will and going to, present continuous for future meaning, and comparatives and superlatives. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear on most pages. 
 
Say hello to the Moomins! In these beautiful stories by Tove Janssen, we meet the wonderful Moomin family and their friends.

Penguin Readers Level 2: Moomin Shorts (ELT Graded Reader)

Karen M. McManus

A geek, a jock, a criminal, a princess. A murder. 
 
In this story, everyone has secrets. How far would you go to protect yours? In this sotry, five students at Bayview High must stay late at school ... but only four of them leave alive. Bronwyn, Cooper, Nate and Addy all become suspects in a murder. Who do you believe? 
Our Penguin Readers books include:• Simple text (CEFR-levelled)• Pictures to help you understand the story• Fun exercises to help you learn and practise English 
 
With the print book, you can get even more help online:• Read the book online• Listen to the book being read out loud• Get lesson plans for teachers• Find answers to check your understandingNote: online resources not available with the eBook.

Penguin Readers Level 6: One Of Us Is Lying (ELT Graded Reader)

Dodie Smith

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
I Capture the Castle, a Level 4 Reader, is A2+ in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing more complex uses of present perfect simple, passives, phrasal verbs and simple relative clauses. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly. 
 
The poor Mortmain family move to an old castle. Mr Mortmain&rsquo;s daughter Rose wants a rich husband. Her sister, Cassandra, wants to be a writer like her father. But when the Mortmains meet their two rich neighbours, Simon and Neil Cotton, both Rose and Cassandra have their lives changed forever.

Penguin Readers Level 4: I Capture the Castle (ELT Graded Reader)

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