We refused to let our staff leave for Christmas and threatened to set the reindeer on them unless they told us their favourite Penguin book of 2009, and the book they would most like to find in the stocking (we just share one between us) on Christmas morning. Enjoy.
JESSIE PRICE, Marketing Assistant, Penguin Pres
1) Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, because not only is it a brilliant, involving story that sweeps you up into its world but it also made me see London through different eyes.
2) Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan because it looks completely wonderful or Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Mervyn Peake because Alexis Kirschbaum showed me her husband’s copy and inspired massive jealousy. His collection of Alices beats mine hands down.
JULIET ANNAN, Publishing Director, Fig Tree
1) The Penguin book I most enjoyed reading this year was Henry James's Daisy Miller: I have never been a fan of his before, just respected him in a rather distant, dismal way. Now I think he is a genius, and this is one of the most subtle and devastating books I have ever read.
2) The book I'd like to receive this Christmas is one of the two Booker shortlist writers who I have never read: so either Foulds or Mawer. Oh, and The Vegetarian Option by Simon Hopkinson, please.
HELEN FRASER
1) My favourite Penguin book of 2009 is The Help. There were lots of other great candidates but The Help wins for its absolute unputdownability - and for its great characters.
2) The book I'd most like to find in my Christmas stocking is Robert Harris's Lustrum. I loved Imperium and this next episode in
NATALIE RAMM, Marketing Manager, Penguin Press
1) Penguin's Poems for Love, a surprising, satisfying collection, beautifully designed, with a heart-warming preface. I just keep going back to it.
2) The Fountain Overflows, by Rebecca West: I've heard great things about this and it's next on my reading list.
TOM WELDON
1) My favourite Penguin book of 2009 was David Vann's Legend of a Suicide. As a reader, I found it incredibly moving and the beginning of one of the great writing careers of the next fifty years. As an industry insider, I was heartened by a brave and outstanding piece of publishing.
2) I am hoping to find Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall in my Christmas stocking which, incidentally, even before the Booker win, was also a great piece of publishing.
PHILLIP BIRCH, Assistant Editor, Penguin Press
1) My Penguin book of the year is Alone in Berlin because I like to consider loneliness in locations other than my heart. A loneliness holiday, if you will.
2) I would like Belle de Jour's book in my stocking. Spicy.
TONY LACEY, Publishing Director, Viking
1) I was very pleased to read Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin. Unusual at my age to be introduced to an author long since dead who you'd never even heard of. And of course it's a fascinating time and place to be writing about: Philip Kerr, but from the horse's mouth, as it were.
2) I've spent a lot of time in bookshops browsing through Red Star Over Russia: A Visual History of the Soviet Union (published by the Tate) which a couple of friends have recommended, and I've resisted buying it on the grounds that I'm bound to get it on Christmas Day.
EMILY HILL, Publishing Co-ordinator, Penguin Press
1) Penguin Poem's for Love is my favourite Penguin book of the year, not just because I'm newly engaged and in search of the perfect wedding poem, but because Laura Barber has collected a diverse, comprehensive selection of love poetry in an easy to navigate, fun and interesting way. Whether you're in the mood for sudden, secret, tentative, passionate or hapless love - this is the volume to find it in.
2) This year, I would most like to find Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall in my stocking. I'm not always struck by the Booker Prize winners, but this year, the outstanding reviews won me over and the prospect of diving into the treacherous, violent, grand world of Cromwell and Wolsey's Tudor England is appealing and enticing.
JENNY LORD, Assistant Editor, Fig Tree
1) Anita Brookner: Strangers. This incredible novel has sparked quite an embarassing obsession with Anita Brookner in my household. Anita may be old as the hills but her themes - death, loneliness, failed relationships, the annoying necessity of communing with strangers - are dazzingly relevant. Her books are horribly depressing and curiously uplifting in a way I've never encountered before.
2) Lorrie Moore: The Collected Stories. One of the most talked about (in front of me anyway) books of 2009, I predict 2010 will be the year of the short story - that may be wishful thinking but this collection would be the perfect place to start.
NIKKI LEE, Editorial Assisant, Penguin Press
1) My Penguin recommendation for 2009 would be Penguin's Poems for Love - sigh...
2) My stocking choices would be The Glass Room by Simon Mawer and Home-Made: Contemporary Russian Folk Artifacts by Vladimir Arkhipov.
CHANTAL NOEL, Rights Director
1) I'll go with The Help by Kathryn Stockett.
2) Been wanting Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture.
JOEL RICKETT, Editorial Director, Viking
1) My favourite Penguin of 2009 is actually due in 2010, but beg, borrow or steal a proof of Joshua Ferris's The Unnamed now. It's elemental and devastating; without doubt the most original piece of American fiction since The Road. But read it after 25th December or you'll be weeping into your Christmas pud.
2) I'm hoping to unwrap a copy of A Face to the World, Laura Cummings' study of self-portraits. I'm intrigued by the changing ways that painters see themselves. And staring at pictures is just about all I can manage by Boxing Day.
JANE ROSE, Literary Marketing Director
1) My favourite Penguin book of 2009 was a toss-up between Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked and Marina Lewycka's We Are All Made of Glue; both very funny, very wise, and both make you like the human race a bit more than before.
2) For Christmas, I see my Amazon basket contains George Orwell's Diaries (he is a God) and one of those Jackie Annual reissues (currently experiencing a late 70s nostalgia thing).
MATT CLACHER, Literary Marketing Executive
1) We have published some fantastic novels this year, with Legend of a Suicide being my personal pick, but the book that has given me the most pleasure is Scott Schuman's The Sartorialist. Elegant and engaging, Schuman's vision of a well dressed world is endlessly revisitable.
2) It has to be Leviathan by Philip Hoare. I've been trying to find time to read this all year.
AMELIA FAIRNEY, Literary Publicity Director
1) My favourite Penguin book of the year was Penelope Lively's Family Album which combines brilliant prose with an awe-inspiring insight into human nature.
2) The book I'm hoping for in my Christmas stocking is Roger Lewis's Seasonal Suicide Notes - the bile-ridden memoirs of a second-rate book critic.
KATHERINE STROUD, Literary Senior Publicity Manager
1) Looking forward to next year, my favourite Penguin book has to be Julie Orringer's eagerly awaited first novel ... Her short stories blew me away so I have very high hopes for The Invisible Bridge.
2) The book I’d like to receive this Christmas is Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving – I have a thing for these old American boys. The reviews have suggested that this is John Irving back on form in a novel that spans fifty years in
ANDY TAYLOR, Sales Rep
1) My favourite Penguin book of 2009 would be Morris Gleitzman’s Then, an incredibly moving and also funny account of Felix and Zelda and their attempts to evade the Nazis in occupied
2) On my Christmas list, well, it’s tempting to ask for the Complete Van Gogh Letters at £325, to see who really loves me, but more realistically, and a book that I actually do want to read, is Ben Lewis’s Hammer And Tickle – A History Of Communism Told Through Communist Jokes.
CLAIRE BENNET, Sales
1) My favourite Penguin book of the year is Alone in Berlin – I was engrossed in it from beginning to end. It was in turns moving, fascinating, darkly humorous and shocking.
2) The book I want for Christmas is A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore. I love her short stories and can't wait to get stuck into a whole novel over Christmas.
JULIETTE MITCHELL, Editor, Hamish Hamilton
1) My favourite Penguin book of 2009 is Hackney, partly because it's a brilliant and unusual book that doesn't fit into any categories or preconceptions; and partly because I think we got everything right in the way we published it. So the author did his job well, and so did we.
2) For Christmas, I would like to receive Tender, the new book by Nigel Slater. I'll read – and cook from – anything by him.
JOE PICKERING, Literary Publicity Manager
1) It will come as no surprise to anyone that my favourite Penguin book of 2009 is Legend of a Suicide by David Vann; I thought I was actually going to expire on publication day, having worked on the publicity for it for the best part of a year. When I read it back in January I was left exhausted at how relentless and intense it was and breathless at the beauty of the writing. Over the months my opinion of it has grown and grown and it’s been one of the most satisfying things in my career so far to see it and David getting the reception, praise and attention I always thought they deserved.
2) For Christmas, I’d like Perfumes: the A-Z Guide, by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. Smell is one of the most evocative senses and the way it impacts on and informs memory can be both wonderful and frightening. Creating a fragrance, at its best, is like alchemy: it’s an attempt to conjure something that will generate memory, mood and emotion, and a classic fragrance has a personality and an identity that means something completely different to each person. Of course that could all be rubbish and I just like nice smells but this book has had wonderful reviews and from the unlikeliest of sources, including the columnist
ROSAMUND HUTCHISON, Publicity Assistant
1) My favourite Penguin General book of 2009 is probably
2) For Christmas I would like Why Italians Love to Talk About Food: A Journey Through
I, meanwhile, 1) have been mainly taken by houses this year: astounded by the perfection and the exquisite writing in The House of Mirth, and blown away by Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House - DON'T LOOK BEHIND YOU. 2) I'm hoping very much for some Richard Matheson short stories. But we'll see. I'm not sure if I've made the Nice List this year.
Wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year from all of us at Penguin,
Sam the Copywriter
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