Books in the Wild: Penguin Pop-up

Happy Saturday everyone and did you know that there is a pop-up in the basement of Waterstones Piccadilly celebrating 90 years of Penguin books?

There very much is, as well as books it’s got this little mini exhibit in the middle – literally one display case – but it’s got this really cool pasteboard for the cover design among a few other bits.

It’s also got a section for the special archive shorts that they’ve released for the anniversary. If my maths is right there is space for 80 on this display, but I didn’t check to see exactly how many different ones there are on it. And they’ve also got another display of them on one of the other floors so if anywhere has a chance of having all 90, Piccadilly does!

And there is a huge selection of the clothbound special editions – again, the biggest variety of them that I remember seeing anywhere because often it’s the usual suspects that you see: Pride and Prejudice and David Copperfield and similar, but this has got some books I didn’t even know had versions in this format – like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Around the World in Eighty Days and Phantom of the Opera.

But there’s still loads more – the Puffin special editions, some vintage books, a load of non-fiction including memoirs, history and science writing.

And there’s loads more – lots of fiction in the various different special lines, but also normal (so to speak) Penguin new releases and similar. I really enjoyed my wander, and yes I bought a book – but you’ll have to wait until Books Incoming (next weekend) so see what it was!

Have a great Saturday.