The orange and white bands are probably the most recognisable livery in publishing, and they began with a straightforward complaint. Allen Lane, stuck at a railway station in 1935 with nothing decent to read, concluded that good books should cost roughly what a packet of cigarettes cost and look smart while doing it. Penguin was the result, sixpence a volume, sold in chain stores and chemists as readily as in bookshops.
Nearly a century later the house remains a byword for the accessible serious book. Penguin Classics put the canon within reach of anyone with a few coins, Penguin Modern Classics did the same for the twentieth century, and Puffin carried the idea to children. The typographic discipline Jan Tschichold imposed in the late 1940s still governs how a Penguin page looks.
Now part of Penguin Random House, the imprint brings that habit into audio: good work, well made, meant for everyone.
2 hours and 30 minutes
