Penguin Celebrations - a Checklist
In September 2007 Penguin issued a set of 36 books from across their range, designed specifically to be ‘collectable’. The books recalled the original 1935, horizontal band covers, colour-coded according to subject, and numbered on the spine (albeit supplemented by the full ISBN on the rear cover). Rather than reproduce the original cover style exactly, the front covers were framed in a white border. The colour coding largely followed Penguin’s original design; described on the rear cover of the new series as: ‘Light Blue for big ideas; Green for mystery; Orange for fantastic fiction; Pink for distant lands; Dark blue for real lives; Purple for viewpoints.’ These descriptions adopted a slightly more prosaic stance on the front covers; with ‘distant lands’ following the original designation of ‘Travel & Adventure’, and, respectively, Non-Fiction, Crime, Fiction, Biography and Essays (almost exactly matching the original Penguin designations).
In July 2009, some of these books were rebranded and given away with copies of The Times, in selected stores. Soon after, the project expanded, as detailed below. Some exact dates of issue have not yet been confirmed.
| 15 X Penguin Celebrations Monday 21 July – Friday 8 August 2008 |
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| Jonathan Safran Foer | Everything Is Illuminated | 21/07/08 |
| Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner | Freakonomics | 22/07/08 |
| Jeremy Clarkson | The World According To Clarkson | 23/07/08 |
| Claire Tomalin | Jane Austen: A Life | 24/07/08 |
| John Mortimer | Rumpole and The Penge Bungalow Murders | 25/07/08 |
| Ali Smith | The Accidental | 28/07/08 |
| James Lovelock | The Revenge Of Gaia | 29/07/08 |
| Alain De Botton | The Consolations Of Philosophy | 30/07/08 |
| Ryszard Kapuscinski | The Shadow Of The Sun | 31/07/08 |
| Alex Garland | The Beach | 01/08/08 |
| Pat Barker | Regeneration | 04/08/08 |
| Niall Ferguson | Empire | 05/08/08 |
| Nick Hornby | How To Be Good | 06/08/08 |
| Noam Chomsky | Hegemony Or Survival | 07/08/08 |
| Jeremy Paxman | The English | 08/08/08 |
10 X Penguin Film Classics (Black) Monday 2nd – Friday 13th February 2009 |
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| Anthony Burgess | A Clockwork Orange | 02/02/09 |
| Karen Blixen | Out Of Africa | ??/02/09 |
| Truman Capote | Breakfast At Tiffany’s | ??/02/09 |
| George Orwell | Animal Farm | ??/02/09 |
| Charles Webb | The Graduate | ??/02/09 |
| John Wyndham | The Day Of The Triffids | ??/02/09 |
| F Scott Fitzgerald | The Great Gatsby | 10/02/09 |
| D H Lawrence | Lady Chatterley’s Lover | 11/02/09 |
| Virginia Woolf | Mrs Dalloway | 12/02/09 |
| George Orwell | Nineteen Eighty-Four | 13/02/09 |
5 X Penguin Adventure (Lime Green) Monday 20th – Friday 24 July 2009 |
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| John Buchan | The Thirty-Nine Steps | 20/07/09 |
| Jules Verne | Around The World In Eighty Days | 21/07/09 |
| Robert Louis Stevenson | Treasure Island | 22/07/09 |
| Arthur Conan Doyle | The Lost World | 23/07/09 |
| Erskine Childers | The Riddle Of The Sands | 24/07/09 |
5 X Penguin Romance (Red) Monday 27th – Friday 31st July 2009 |
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| Anton Chekhov | The Lady With The Little Dog And Other Stories | 27/07/09 |
| Ford Madox Ford | The Good Soldier | 28/07/09 |
| Edith Wharton | The Age Of Innocence | 29/07/09 |
| D H Lawrence | Sons And Lovers | 30/07/09 |
| Gustave Flaubert | Madame Bovary | 31/07/09 |
5 X Penguin Crime (Violet) Monday 3rd – Friday 7th August 2009 |
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| Edgar Allan Poe | The Murders In The Rue Morgue | 03/08/09 |
| Wilkie Collins | The Moonstone | 04/08/09 |
| Raymond Chandler | The Big Sleep | 05/08/09 |
| Henry James | The Turn Of The Screw | 06/08/09 |
| Arthur Conan Doyle | A Study In Scarlet | 07/08/09 |
5 X Penguin Humour (Yellow) Monday 10th – Friday 14th August 2009 |
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| George and Weedon Grossmith | The Diary Of A Nobody | 10/08/09 |
| Geoffrey Chaucer | The Canterbury Tales | ??/08/09 |
| Jerome K. Jerome | Three Men In A Boat | ??/08/09 |
| Jonathan Swift | Gulliver’s Travels | ??/08/09 |
| Oscar Wilde | The Importance Of Being Earnest | ??/08/09 |
5 X Penguin Films (Sky Blue) Monday 12th – Friday 16th October 2009 |
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| James Fenimore Cooper | The Last Of The Mohicans | 12/10/09 |
| Barry Hines | A Kestrel For A Knave | ??/10/09 |
| Mary Shelley | Frankenstein | ??/10/09 |
| John Wyndham | The Midwich Cuckoos | ??/10/09 |
| Bram Stoker | Dracula | 16/10/09 |
5 X Penguin London (Pink) Monday 19th – Friday 23rd October 2009 |
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| Nancy Mitford | Love In A Cold Climate | 19/10/09 |
| George Orwell | Down And Out In Paris And London | 20/10/09 |
| Patrick Hamilton | Hangover Square | 21/10/09 |
| Sam Selvon | The Lonely Londoners | 22/10/09 |
| Muriel Spark | The Girls Of Slender Means | 23/10/09 |
5 X Penguin Chillers (Scarlet) Monday 26th – Friday 30th October 2009 |
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| Wilkie Collins | The Haunted Hotel | 26/10/09 |
| Ambrose Bierce | The Spook House | 27/10/09 |
| Edgar Allan Poe | The Masque Of The Red Death | 28/10/09 |
| M.R. James | Lost Hearts And Other Chilling Tales | 29/10/09 |
| Shirley Jackson | We Have Always Lived In The Castle | 30/10/09 |
5 X Penguin Science (Light Blue) Monday 2nd – Friday 6th November 2009 |
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| Richard Sennett | The Craftsman | 02/11/09 |
| John Gribbin | Deep Simplicity | 03/11/09 |
| Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza | Genes, Peoples And Languages | 04/11/09 |
| Richard P Feyman | QED | 05/11/09 |
| Charles Darwin | On Natural Selection | 06/11/09 |
5 X Penguin The Oscars (Black) Monday 22nd – Friday 26th February 2010 |
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| Ken Kesey | One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest | 22/02/10 |
| Julie Powell | Julie And Julia | 23/02/10 |
| Zoë Heller | Notes On A Scandal | 24/02/10 |
| F. Scott Fitzgerald | The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and Other Stories | 25/02/10 |
| Tennessee Williams | A Streetcar Named Desire | 26/02/10 |
