Toluu

The Penguin Blog

The In-BetweenersDecember 3

Anybody who knows me knows that I am a complete sap. I have been known to well up watching advertisements on television (This one gets me every time). So naturally I was crying as I watched Obama’s victory speech when he won the elections last month. After the initial elation however, I felt strangely deflated. Why were the media obsessed with declaring that America had elected the nation's first black president? Being half Korean and half English, I felt robbed of what I considered a triumph for all of those with a mixed race heritage background.

The politics of identity are never straightforward. I know this from being asked a million times by strangers to define myself. Am I Korean or English or American (it’s the accent, apparently), they want to know (though invariably no matter what answer I give, to Koreans I am English and to the English I am Korean), for in their eyes, I can never be both. People like simple answers.

But life isn’t that simple. The Map of Me is a testament to this. On the one hand, people describe being mixed race as having the best of both worlds. On the other, it may mean feeling lost in between them, never feeling fully part of either. Not everyone is hap

Designing classicsNovember 18

A couple of months ago, I interviewed Penguin designer Coralie Bickford-Smith in a video about her covers for the Gothic horror series. This last week we had another conversation, this time by email. I'd send her an image file with a question at the top, and then she'd fill the rest of the picture with anything she wanted and send it back, and then I'd send her another one.

This is the conversation, and that's me in the Helvetica:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enter the School of LifeNovember 14

The School of Life is a little shop with big ambitions. Tucked away on Marchmont Street and on the cusp of Bloomsbury this cultural apothecary specialises in providing its patrons with ideas to live by. Be they guided holidays to discover the splendour of the everyday, meals with a menu of conversation topics, secular sermons from cultural mavericks, a course from the curriculum of play, family, work, politics and love, or just answers to those really big questions from one of the many experts on hand, this remarkable little place is something of a revelation.

And, there are also books. This is one of the reasons I popped in on a sunny Tuesday morning for a chat and a cup of Earl Gray with the School’s director, Sophie Howarth. It is quite refreshing to browse by need rather than genre, so it’s something from the shelf “for those whose jobs are too small for their spirits” (not me then) or perhaps something “for those who have fallen profoundly and unexpectedly in love” (more like it).

When I think back on my school days, which even at the tender age of twenty-seven seem a depressingly long time

Penguin SetsNovember 10

I'm a bit of a completist. Once I find something I like, I want more. For a time I want it all (usually until something else captures my attention – ooh puppies).

When I was younger I spent years collecting the novels of Michael Moorcock and Philip K Dick, which were fitfully in print. I'd scour secondhand bookshops for battered old editions, not because I was a cheapskate (I mean obviously I was: I was a kid and had to spend my pocket money wisely) but because secondhand were the only available editions. Any flea market was an opportunity to hunt out those rare and much-sought after titles I'd still to find. It took me years and even trips to America (post-pocket money, I should add) to accumulate a near-complete collection of the works of authors I had fallen in love with as a teenager.

This could never happen now. The Internet has changed everything. If I want something I can get hold of it in just a few clicks. Amazon,

Limited Edition Shepard Fairey PrintsNovember 7

As we previously announced on this blog, we have some pretty apt and snazzy new cover art for George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm and I am delighted to announce that Shepard has taken time out from his busy schedule of shows in Washington D.C, as well as his campaigning for Obama, to produce, sign and number 200 prints of each of these covers.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should point out