Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to...

The material world is itself emptiness. Emptiness is itself the material world. Powerful, mystical and concise, the Heart Sutra is believed to contain the condensed essence of all Buddhist wisdom. This brief poem on emptiness has exerted immense influence throughout Asia since the seventh century and is woven into the fabric of daily life. Yet even though it rivals the teachings of Laozi and...

Nutshell is a classic story of murder and deceit, told by a narrator with a perspective and voice unlike any in recent literature. A bravura performance, it is the finest recent work from a true master.§§ To be bound in a nutshell, see the world in two inches of ivory, in a grain of sand. Why not, when all of literature, all of art, of human endeavour, is just a speck in the universe of...

In Into? North Morgan shines a coolly mesmerizing light on the modern generation of gay men that are living firmly outside the closet, elevated by popular culture, but plagued by a new set of problems, insecurities and self-destructions. As the men of Into? swipe right from bed to bed, North Morgan spins a darkly hilarious, and shockingly perceptive story of excess and love that’s like...

'Beware the novelist . . . intimate and indiscreet . . . pompous, prophetic airs . . . here is the fact of fiction . . . an American tale where, naturally, evil conquers good, and none live happily ever after, for the complicated pangs of the empty experiences of flesh-and-blood human figures are the reason why nothing can ever be enough. To read a book is to let a root sink down. List of...

The Diary of a Nobody is so unassuming a work that even its author, George Grossmith, seemed unaware that he had produced a masterpiece. For more than a century this wonderfully comic portrayal of suburban life and values has remained in print, a source of delight to generations of readers, and a major literary influence, much imitated but never equalled. If you don’t recognise yourself at...

The ingredients: Why can't Gus find time to organise her own birthday party? Because shes too busy sorting out the problems of her friends and family; it seems everyone is facing a career challenge or a romantic dilemma. The recipe: A series of Sunday suppers (televised, of course) that show real people making real food. And over delicious dishes, relaxed chat and a few bottles of...

Considered by many to be Dickens' finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book's narrator, Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with depth of character. From its famous dramatic opening on the bleak Kentish marshes, the story abounds with some of Dickens' most memorable characters. Among them are the kindly blacksmith Joe Gargery, the mysterious...

Edgar Poe was born the son of itinerant actors on January 19th, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. Abandoned by his father and the later death of his mother, he was taken into the foster care of John Allan, a Virginia tobacco farmer. Now styled as Edgar Allan Poe, he distinguished himself at the University of Virginia, bu was equally adept at collecting debts from his assiduous gambling. His...

Richard II is one of Shakespeare’s finest works: lucid, eloquent, and boldly structured. It can be seen as a tragedy, or a historical play, or a political drama, or as one part of a vast dramatic cycle which helped to generate England’s national identity. Today, to some of us, Richard II may appear conservative; but, in Shakespeare’s day, it could appear subversive: ‘I am Richard II’, declared...

First published in 1961, following the successful Cuban Revolution, this is Che Guevara's handbook for guerrilla war. Che considered that the Cuban Revolution taught would-be insurrectionists three fundamental lessons: (1) Popular forces can win a war against the army. (2) It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them. (3) In...

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Nathan Law has experienced first-hand the shocking speed with which our freedom can be taken away from us, as an elected politician arrested simply for speaking his mind. He remembers what it is like to lack freedom - and his father's precarious three-day escape from China in a small rowing boat. When authoritarianism makes gains around the world, demanding our...

Ces personnages vont vous jouer l'histoire d'Antigone. Antigone, c'est la petite maigre qui est assise la-bas, et qui ne dit rien. Elle regarde droit devant elle. Elle pense. Elle pense qu'elle va etre Antigone tout a l'heure, qu'elle va surgir soudain de la maigre jeune fille noiraude et renfermée que personne ne prenait au sérieux dans la famille et se dresser seule en face du monde, seule en...

Retired four-star general Stan McChrystal has lived a life associated with the deadly risks of combat; he has seen how individuals and organizations, too often and to great cost, fail to mitigate risk. Why? Because they focus on the probability of something happening instead of the interface by which it can be managed. In Risk, McChrystal offers a new system of responding to risk, through ten...

Mateo Lemoine est un prodige du football. A dix-huit ans, il surprend son entourage et ses fans en s'inscrivant a la fac de Vernet, la petite ville ou il vit avec sa mere, pour conquérir le titre universitaire que son pere, entraîneur de talent disparu prématurément, était sur le point de remporter avant sa mort. Malgré son niveau, ou a cause de lui, Mateo peine a trouver sa place au sein de...

A day without laughter is a day wasted.' It is Christmas Day when Charlie Chaplin receives a visit from Death. The great actor is 82 years old, but not yet ready to face the final curtain. Desperate to see his teenage son grow up, the actor strikes a deal: if he manages to make Death laugh, he will win an extra year of life.

The State We're In is the first new collection in a decade from the writer that John Updike credited with creating 'an entirely different kind of short story'. Cool, ironic and witty, these stories are sharply observed, but underpinned with a quiet tenderness. Told through the voices of vivid and engaging women of all ages, The State We're In explores their doubts and desires and reveals the...

jPod Prenez six programmateurs un tantinet autistes, dont Ethan Jarlewski. Enfermez-les dans jPod, un studio de jeux vidéo a Vancouver. Torturez-les a coups d'idées marketing absurdes, comme intégrer une tortue dans un jeu de skateboard. Ils se rebelleront, c'est sur. Et si en plus la famille un brin timbrée d'Ethan s'en mele, c'est la chance de se voir embarqué dans un rodéo...

In general, when we think about media, and especially mass media, we seldom associate them with economy. Meanwhile, the freedom of communication is closely related to the fi nancing sources. The Americans say: “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” In the modern world, it is diffi cult to establish who pays and what they actually pay with. Very few of us realize that the currency we pay...