Penguin Celebrations

The world is an exciting and confusing place for Jeremy Clarkson - a man who can find the overgrown schoolboy in us all. In The World According to Clarkson, one of the country's funniest comic writers has free reign to expose absurdity, celebrate eccentricity and entertain richly in the process.And the net is cast wide: from the chronic unsuitablity of men to look after children for long periods or as operators of 'white goods', Nimbyism, cricket and PlayStations, to astronomy, David Beckham, 70's rock, the demise of Concorde, the burden of an Eton education and the shocking failure of Tom Clancy to make it on to the Booker shortlist, The World According to Clarkson is a hilarious snapshot of the life in the 21st century that will have readers wincing with embarrassed recognition and crying with laughter.It's not about the cars!

Light Blue for big ideas Green for mystery Orange for fantastic fiction Pink for distant lands Dark Blue for real lives Purple for viewpoints John Mortimer's 'Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders' sees our eponymous hero tackle his first-ever case. It is just after the war and two RAF heroes are found shot dead. Simon Jerold, the son of one of the victims, is the only suspect and young Rumpole is given the hopeless task of defending him. But Rumpole is determined to save his client from the gallows and make a name for himself. His bid to do so opens the first chapter in the story of the law's finest comic creation. Whether orange, blue, green, pink or purple, Penguin Celebrations give readers everywhere unique voices, enthralling stories and quite simply the best books of their kind to be published in recent years. What's not to celebrate?

To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar Amerca. Though created by a handful of mavericks, the fast food industry has triggered the homogenization of our society. Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled the juggernaut of American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning. Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from the California subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many of fast food's flavors are concocted. He hangs out with the teenagers who make the restaurants run and communes with those unlucky enough to hold America's most dangerous job -- meatpacker. He travels to Las Vegas for a giddily surreal franchisers' convention where Mikhail Gorbachev delivers the keynote address. He even ventures to England and Germany to clock the rate at which those countries are becoming fast food nations. Along the way, Schlosser unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths -- from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate. He also uncovers the fast food chains' efforts to reel in the youngest, most susceptible consumers even while they hone their institutionalized exploitation of teenagers and minorities. Schlosser then turns a critical eye toward the hot topic of globalization -- a phenomenon launched by fast food. FAST FOOD NATION is a groundbreaking work of investigation and cultural history that may change the way America thinks about the way it eats.

The Accidental is a 2005 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith. It follows a middle-class English family who are visited by an uninvited guest, Amber, while they are on holiday in a small village in Norfolk. Amber's arrival has a profound effect on all the family members. Eventually she is cast out the house by the mother, Eve. But the consequences of her appearance continue even after the family has returned home to London. The novel was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, the Man Booker Prize and James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and it won the Whitbread Award.