For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Christopher Hitchens (introducer; 1949-2011) was the author of more than twenty books and pamphlets, including the #1 New York Times bestseller God Is Not Great, which was a finalist for the National Book Award; the bestselling memoir Hitch-22, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and the essay collection Arguably, which was one of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2011. He was named by Foreign Policy and Britain's Prospect one of the world's "Top 100 Public Intellectuals."
Simon is a journalist and the Observer's games critic.
A footnote in Geoff Dyer's latest led me to Rebecca West's 1942 narrative non-fiction book 'Black Lamb and Grey Falcon' and goodness me it's an amazing piece of work - so breezy and alive! Also, 'footnote brought me here' is a v pleasing way to find a good thing.
"Surely one of the great books of our century." --Diana Trilling
"Everyone should read . . . Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. If you're looking to take a really large, totally insane travelogue about the complexities of Balkan Eastern European history with you to a world where your cell phone won't disturb you and Twitter won't bother you, you really can't do better than this book. . . . It's . . . a great example of an individual talent going to a particular place and yielding just a really, really, really fascinating document." --Ross Douthat, The New York Times's Matter of Opinion podcast ("33 Reading Recommendations for Your Summer Vacation")