Penguin Books

I think I really truly became aware of Penguin books only after they started merchandising. Sure, I'd read Penguin books ever since I started reading books in English, but I never really took notice of the publisher - or should I say brand? But there they were: lovely, captivating, must-have Penguin book mugs!

It must have been over 10 years ago when I noticed them in a bookshop in London and like in a flash realized that I absolutely needed to have one. And once you buy one you really need a whole bunch of them. I mean, how can you possibly always be in the mood for a cup of A Room of My Own-coffee? Over the years I've managed to collect quite a library of these novels, detective stories, travel books and plays. Sometimes it takes more time to choose the cup you're drinking from than it takes to make the coffee...

But the mugs (and later the tea towels, the note books, the address tags...) made me more interested in Penguin. And I realized I had been reading them for years without even noticing. I'd read a ton of P.G.Wodehouse all in Penguin, detective stories too numerous to mention, possibly some Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Orwell, definitely some Woolf, Brontë, maybe Homer... When you really get into it the list is almost endless. And wasn't it a Penguin competition that my friend won receiving her height in books? That's a competition that any reading person would love to win. For a more detailed list of Penguin authors, not to mention the newcomers, please visit http://www.penguin.co.uk. The mugs are there too...

I think in the end I prefer the classics. The orange of fiction or the green of detective stories, the purple of non-fiction and so on. The books are so thin, so small - they make you fully appreciate the pocket book genre. And when they are old enough they carry that special smell that makes it just so much more interesting to read. The smell of history, I guess, of belonging to another era, a more leisurely time when paper was softer and less shiny. Don't get me wrong, I love the smell of a new book too; but it's a different kind of smell, more modern and efficient.

I've started to buy old Penguin books from flea markets and used books stores - they really do seem to call out to me. Sometimes I buy them even though I know I could borrow them from my mother, sometimes even in the exact same edition. But you see one of those volumes and you just feel like you must have it, or you must save it because let's face it: will the next person appreciate it as much as you do?

My friends know of my passion, I got a On the Road name tag for my luggage and a The Lost Girl passport cover for Christmas and a few years ago Postcards From Penguin which I've used for example to decorate my coffee table! My love of all things Penguin went a tad overboard with the Great Penguin Bookchase - a board game that should have been fun but really needed a lot of guesswork or very detailed knowledge (Which famous author's grandmother...?) to be any fun. 

But my love for Penguin continues.