Article
Penguin's next march
At 75, the venerable old bird now faces the kind of challenge that it once posed to publishing itself
The publishing industry is said to have been rocked back on its heels at news that ebooks have outsold US hardback books on Amazon. But the ghost of Allen Lane, publishing impresario and founder of Penguin, might raise an eyebrow at the notion that usurping hardback books via a new technology is really news at all. Seventy-five years ago he launched his paperback imprint and, as birthdays are one thing that Penguin does better than any other bird or beast in the publishing jungle, we're going to hear all about it.
As early as 1956 it produced a "Penguin Comes of Age" special written by Lane himself to mark its 21st. For the 60th anniversary of Penguin Classics, in 2006, it was commissioning artists – including shoe designer Manolo Blahnik and photographer Sam Taylor-Wood – to design covers for dinky limited editions of classic texts, each in its own Perspex box. For Penguin's 70th, it treated itself to 70 short books, in all colours of the rainbow, with texts excerpted from the work of its most illustrious authors.
By next week, when it arrives at the 75th anniversary of the very first book to roll off its presses it will be seven months into a celebration which began in January with a Waterstone's jamboree involving 50 writers recommending 50 titles, and frolicked into spring with the reissue of 20 novels "that helped shape modern Britain".
The self-image, then, remains strong. But what exactly does that image represent? And how well will the venerable old seabird be able to swim in the age of the ebook? One senses that Lane would be relaxed. He revolutionised the industry with the commercially brilliant idea in the depressed Britain of the 1930s of producing paperbacks for the people at sixpence a copy, available at Woolworths or from vending machines.
The contradictions – of high culture and low cunning, exclusivity and populism – that have become such a feature of the Penguin project are exemplified in that very first book, a 1924 biography of Shelley, garbed in stern purple livery. None of the first batch of 10 books were new – Lane's genius was as a snapper-up and spinner rather than as a literary originator. Even the idea of cheap paperbacks was pioneered first by a Hamburg publisher. And so, arguably, it has continued, with Penguin Classics becoming its most famous international brand, though the separate imprints are all big hitters in their fields – from the heavyweight non-fiction of Allen Lane to the commercial brio of Michael Joseph.
And then, of course, there is Puffin, which became an intrinsic part of middle-class British childhood for generations thanks to Kaye Webb's legendary Puffin club. Its slogan was Nuffin Like a Puffin, its Facebook was the Puffin Post, and it will warm every one-time Puffineer's heart to learn that it, too, is celebrating a birthday this month: its 70th.
Both Webb and Lane would no doubt be pleased to see the new Artemis Fowl novel published simultaneously this week in hardback and ebook. They will have to wait to see any of Puffin's many picture books following it into digital format – though the first ones are expected before the end of the year. That's because, for all Amazon's ebullience, illustrated ebooks are still in their infancy. Of the 3,458 ebooks currently available from Penguin, most are novels and serious non-fiction – "text-heavy" titles. So you won't find an e-version of Jamie Oliver either yet.
So, happy birthday, Penguin, but I would like to make a suggestion: perhaps your 80th birthday present to yourself should begin with the letter e. Because although, as a fan of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, I am delighted to have received a new Penguin edition, I searched in vain for the ebook to upload on to my new iPad and take on holiday with me.
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User Comments
Florence5
21 July 2010 10:37PM
It truly is amazing how much the industry has changed. I ride the commuter train every day, and see so many people with their Kindles and other electronic readers. Happy Birthday, Penguin and Puffin!
SD1000
21 July 2010 10:44PM
Amazon is currently advertising 'over 320,000' ebooks available for its Kindle. That's a tiny, tiny amount; I don't see how it can catch on except for the most casual reading. I'd bet that more than 320,000 books are published every year; it sounds like a lot but it's a miniscule fraction of the number of books in existence.
For those of us who want a bit more than the latest Stieg Larsson or Dan Brown or whatever, I think we don't have a choice but to stay in the world of real books. For now at least. And that's fine with me.
Semioclasm
21 July 2010 10:57PM
Amazon have a vested interest in claiming that ebooks are selling. Hardbacks don't sell that well anyway. I'd take this with a grain of salt.
There are loads of us who buy books and like to keep them on shelves after reading them. Or who put them in musty piles and have them where the breakfast cereals and pans are meant to be.
You can't do that with an ebook.
I doubt I'm so eccentric as to be the only one like this. And it isn't a case of fetishising books or making them a commodity. Part of the joy of owning a book (if it's one you love) is the joy of owning the secrets the book contains. Or coming to command the knowledge and feelings and ideas that you extracted from it.
If you no longer have a copy of a book you love, it's as if what you found in he book has got further away or been put in another room It's not just the book itself that is missing.
I've played around with ebooks and I found myself skimming texts very much as I do online. Fast and carelessly. It's especially hard to scan poetry on a screen. I have the sense 15 years of web browsing has rewired my brain in some ways I'm not happy about. But I still think reading a paper book is more than simply having immediate access to a text, which in the end is the experience that kindle and laptops offer. There's something else going on with paper, and I don't want to lose it yet.
Just like digital film and celluloid have different effects on alpha waves when you're in the cinema, which results in very different movie experiences, I believe that the physical interaction with the text on a printed paper page makes a huge difference to how I internalise what I read and process it into all the stupid ideas I have.
I don't believe I'm alone in this regard - in experiencing and relating to texts in fundamentally different ways, depending on the medium.
ElleGreen
21 July 2010 11:18PM
I don't think the e-book will ever truely wipe out the paper book but I think it will seriously hamper my favourite guilty habit; noisying at bookshelves when I'm over at other people's houses - just about socially acceptable; hunting down their ipad and looking at their recent downloads- probably not.
BoredomIsPower
21 July 2010 11:27PM
Last month I sent my wedding invitations out, handwritten on postcards of Penguin book covers. It was so much fun choosing the right book for each guest and also served as a reminder (as if looking up at my bookshelves isn't enough of one) of how beautiful books are as physical objects.
romannosejob
21 July 2010 11:31PM
they'r probably secretly evil and bind their books with baby otter spleens and what not, but they are one of those rare brands it's ok to love.
rongoklunk
21 July 2010 11:54PM
I much prefer paperbacks to hardcovers. I put off buying a needed hardcover book until it goes paper,. I read about ebooks, and consider switching - but I think I'm too old to appreciate the change. Penguins are my favourite. I've been reading them for years.
To "butwhatif" above - who likes puffin. I say give up the green papers. and the yellow and blue too. try a pipe. It's cleaner and you don't have to smoke paper - which I find spoils the toke. I would never go back to paper. Give it a try.
alisdaircameron
22 July 2010 12:05AM
Hmm. There are other bookstores, and the overtaking stat only applies to amazon.com, i.e. the US side of things. The future may well be with e-books, but the future's always a way away, and might not take the shape that you today think it will.Format wars,DRM,built-in obsolescence,the need to power the darn things:none of these apply to paper books, and the cost of e-books has to fall drastically for even a sizeable minority to switch. Retailers love -ebooks as their overheads shrink massively, so of course they will always herald them as the 'must-have'. Oh, and the range of titles (and actually the quality of their transfer on to digital formats: some horrible formatting errors in some) leaves a lot to be desired.
Oh, and there is evidence showing that reading paper rather than a screen gives higher levels and faster rates of comprehension and retention...the typical habit when screen-reading is to skim/scan in a less focused, rather than digest. This may change, but not quickly.
Udithd
22 July 2010 12:13AM
If the 60th anniversary of Penguin was in 2006, then the 70th would be in 2016, and the 75th in 2021.
Unless, of course, there is an editorial lapse here...
HomeBarsAndHiFis
22 July 2010 12:26AM
I'm baffled by the reported popularity of these Kindles.
They are the size of a paperback, the weight of a paperback, have been enhanced time and again to replicate the action of turning the page of a paperback but cost a relative fortune for the chance to read a limited amount of populist shite and will probably fuck your eyes up.
teldp
22 July 2010 12:35AM
'...have been enhanced time and again to replicate the action of turning the page of a paperback..'
And yet resolutely failed to do so.
ashiraz
22 July 2010 3:58AM
Bless the "puffin". I just got a book in the mail all the way from England and I am just filled with a warm feeling for you folks over there! God bless all of you (if God exists and no offense to either party; if He doesn't then "goodness" bless all of you, I suppose?) I just wished to say that its great that the puffin survived and it was very courageous of them to stand by freedom of expression; after the turmoil of the 80s -90s with the publication of all the controversial material and the violence etc. I hope we have peace and prosperity and love and learning for everyone :) I hope everyone is happy and lovely in Britain . One says this because we seem to have gotten in a bit of a mess over here "across the pond" but one hopes that one day our neighbors south of the border will be serenading us as opposed to feeling bad about us (because our love would be mutual). One hopes everyone's life is easy and light and learning continues to spread and makes gentle men out of us all.
MISCELLANEOUS
22 July 2010 5:48AM
I still prefer to hold a real book in my hands and feel it. It is nice to see them on the shelf. It is just a good feeling. And yes, when I go to people's house, I do the same thing, ElleGreen! ;)
It is just not the same. Going to the beach, let's say. I would want to abuse my books and throw them on thebeach mat, and flip them through. Not an ipad. Not an e-reader, so not cool...
adamcreen
22 July 2010 6:41AM
Udithd, it was the 60th birthday of Penguin Classics not of the brand itself
Lokischild
22 July 2010 7:03AM
I have been tempted to buy some sort of E book for a while. So far cost has stopped me, they seem overly expensive.
I love to read and am a sucker for new paperbacks, I cannot easily walk past a Waterstones, although I now mainly buy on-line. There is something more than just the sight of the printed word, it was a smell, a feel a sound and I guess a taste, although I have not yet got it that bad.
There is also the joy of re-discovering a favourite book, and as somebody mentioned above, the pleasure of checking through the contents of the bookcases of the friends that one visits. But the joy of re-discovery means that you kept the book and they take up space, and I have so many. I want the e book so that I can get my space back and be able to carry my library with me and perhaps share it.
But will there still be a Waterstones on the High St., that I can drop into and wander around? Or will there just be a warehouse on an anonymous Industrial Estate with only an e mail address?
Amadeus37
22 July 2010 7:43AM
You line your shelves with books until you don't need to decorate anymore. Now that is exclusive wallpaper.
I am not sure about e-books and the effect on the eyesight.
butwhatif
21 July 2010 10:10PM
I think the kids of today can well agree that there ain't "nuffin like puffin."
And they ain't thinking of The Ecologist when they go out to buy green papers.