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Hot off the presses - new collectible posters (14 x 22.5) featuring our most popular jacket art available are for sale now in the Holiday Store. Also, Penguin shirts, hats, ornaments, and much more - make it a Penguin holiday! Get 15% off everything on our site by using the code Holiday09 at checkout! (offer ends on December 31, 2009)

The posters:

(left) Jacket art from the Graphic Classics 25th Anniversary Edition of White Noise by Don DeLillo designed by Michael Cho

(right) Jacket art from the Graphic Classic Edition of Moby Dick by Herman Melville designed by Tony Millionaire.

More Penguin Holiday Store goodies include tote bags, ornaments, water bottles and umbrellas.

And, watch Penguin employees share the books they'll be giving this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

- From all of us at Penguin Online (and Penguin Group (USA) too!)

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Penguin Young Readers Group Partners with Ogmento to Launch Augmented Reality Application for Vampire Academy Signature Edition on November 25th 

New York, NY - November 24, 2009 - Richelle Mead's novel Vampire Academy will become the first U.S. book to incorporate new Augmented Reality technology into the reading experience. On November 25th, Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, will publish an Augmented Reality (AR) limited edition, signature hard cover of the first book in the New York Times bestselling series, which currently has more than 2.25 million copies in print. Using advanced Augmented Reality technology, the book cover will layer text, images and video to give fans of the paranormal series a unique virtual experience. Penguin Young Readers Group is the first U.S. publisher to use this technology in conjunction with a published book.

Unlike other recent Augmented Reality campaigns which require black and white geometric markers to trigger the virtual experience, Penguin's campaign will feature a new "image tracking" technology. When fans visit vampireacademybooks.com and hold the cover of the Vampire Academy signature hardcover up to their webcams, the cover will come to life and share a special message from the author. Most notably, this application will have a viral component, as fans will be able to transfer their own photo onto the cover of the book and share that image with friends via email, social networks, and mobile devices. As an added bonus, a secret gesture will reveal the cover image of Spirit Bound, the fifth book in the series, which is due out in May 2010.

Penguin partnered with Ogmento, a company that creates and publishes Augmented Reality games, to create the interactive experience. To promote the campaign, Penguin will run a full-page ad in People Magazine in the December 7th issue which will also activate the Vampire Academy AR experience.

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"He's not a Nazi. He just happens to be a little eccentric. You know, most geniuses are."

-- Kramer, 1995

When the series finale of Seinfeld was announced in 1998, my brother and I jumped on a plane and flew to New York City for three days so that I could clone a few recipes from Soup Kitchen International, the real-life soup counter that inspired the "Soup Nazi" episode from the TV series. I figured these new copycat recipes would be a good tribute the end of a really great show, and everyone who couldn't make a trek to NYC could taste some really great soup -- or at least a knockoff of some really great soup.

We brought along a cooler filled with ice packs, Tupperware, and Ziploc bags, and for 72 hours we had nothing on the agenda other than staking out Al Yeganeh's take-away soup kitchen and securing our precious samples. I knew that the selection of soups changed every day so we would have to get lucky if we were going to snag some of the same soups mentioned in the 1995 Seinfeld episode.

 

 

 

 

» Zora O'Neil (pictured) and Tamara Reynolds discuss their book, which explains how you can host your own dinner party, and is filled with useful and humorous advice from their own hosting experiences.

» Read more about Forking Fantastic!

Forking Fantastic Zora O'Neill Tamara Reynolds cooking dinner parties entertaining holiday meals

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My sister laid claim to Jane Eyre long before I did. I'm not sure why; maybe she identified with the feeling Jane had of being on the outside looking in. My own favorite book growing up was Wuthering Heights by Charlotte's sister, Emily. I loved the romance and atmosphere of the long, foreboding moors, not to mention the romance between the violent and temperamental outcast, Heathcliff, and his love, the more privileged but equally unpredictable, Cathy. Their doomed love affair drew me in. I tried giving Jane Eyre a chance when I was about 13 but, like I said-in my mind-she belonged to my sister, Devon.

It wasn't until college when I rediscovered Jane Eyre, on my own and apart from my sister; we were assigned it in an English lit class my junior year. I found myself devouring the chapters, putting aside other work to follow Jane and her journey from being locked in the attic by her cruel aunt at Gateshead-surrounded by her mean, bullying cousins-to her education at Lowood School and finally to Thornfield, the heart of the story (which is where she meets the fascinating and mysterious Mr. Rochester). I hadn't realized that the lonely, shy, orphan Jane-who I'd once cast away-was an independent spirit full of passion. She had to overcome so many obstacles to find happiness, but with her sure and quiet determination, Jane stood out and made a life for herself when everything was working against her. And, in a society that didn't make things easy for women, she did it on her own terms.

I think the novel's a classic because of the way it speaks to readers and has lasted through time. Any plain-Jane, anyone who occasionally feels like they're on the outside looking in, can identify with Jane and her struggle to find her place in the world. It's a book about second chances  and overcoming obstacles. There are  also the more literary aspects: the gothic elements-the large, foreboding manor at Thornfield, the madwoman in the attic (which a book about feminism was based on)-plus what it said about the times and the limited options for women and the servant class. I didn't get a very good grade on the paper I wrote for that lit class; my professor was more interested in what the book said about "The Other" in society (whereas I was more concerned with Jane and Mr. Rochester!).

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It's been a really long time since I've been graded for my work; the last grade I received came somewhere around my final day of college in 1985. But now, my all-time favorite magazine, Entertainment Weekly - which I read from cover to cover every week - reviewed my new book in a beautiful 2-page spread, and at the end I got a grade. Just as with every movie, TV show, or book that I'm revved about, once I picked up the issue I jumped right to the end of the review to check out the report card and was stoked at what I saw: Book reviewer Jennifer Reese gave Top Secret Recipes Unlocked a solid B.

So, of course I went back to the beginning to read the review and saw that Jennifer and her crew put Top Secret Recipes Unlocked to the test. I like that. They cooked several items from the book to determine if the clone recipes I created matched up with the original brand-name stuff:

"Although Wilbur promises the reader clones of brand-name food, in the recipes we tested here, he failed to deliver a single decent facsimile. This was simultaneously funny and kind of sad."

Alright, I know. This may look like I'm getting slammed, but you have to keep reading:

"His problem isn't that the recipes he's devised aren't good enough, it's that they're too good. It appears to be all but impossible to make anything at home that is as expensive, stale, and artificialtasting as what you can buy."

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Todd Wilbur, author of Top Secret Recipes Unlocked, is our guest blogger during the week of November 23nd. If you have any questions for Todd Wilbur, add a comment to any of his posts.

Here is more information on Top Secret Recipes Unlocked:

More than 4 million Top Secret Recipes books sold!

The kitchen clone recipe king is back with a new Top bestselling Top Secret Restaurant Recipes collection-the first book since his bestselling Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2. Wilbur takes readers behind the scenes, revealing the key ingredients in some of our favorite foods such as Starbucks' Peppermint Brownie, Krispy Kreme's original glazed donuts, Panera Bread's cranberry walnut bagel and Wendy's Garden Sensations Manadarin Chicken Salad. The book will feature 115 new recipes, including 40 previously unpublished recipes such as:

•Panera Bread French Onion Soup

•Burger King Onion Rings

•Chick-Fil-A Honey Roasted BBQ Sauce

•McDonald's Cinnamon Melts

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Putnam Launches Major Publicity Campaign for Sue Grafton’s U is for Undertow

Putnam will launch one of the biggest publicity campaigns Sue Grafton has ever had for her latest book, U is for Undertow, due out on December 1st. National media includes features in USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Readers Digest, Time.com, AARP Magazine and Costco Connection. Coverage is also confirmed in People, Washington Post, Portland Oregonian, Tampa Tribune, Southern Living Magazine, Kansas City Star, Louisville Courier-Journal, and the Richmond Times Dispatch.

Sue will be on the road the first two weeks of December doing major talks and book signings in eight cities, including New York, Louisville, Atlanta, Kansas City, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, with radio and print interviews in every market.

Grafton has been interviewed for Barnes & Noble's prestigious video series “Tagged!” She has also been interviewed as part of Borders author feature series, Borders Presents.

Over the past 25 years Sue Grafton, one of the most popular and highly-acclaimed mystery writers of the 21st Century and #1 New York Times bestselling alphabet mystery series, has become iconic…notably, her one-of-a-kind female private investigator Kinsey Millhone has become a cultural phenomenon. Grafton’s novels have earned her numerous awards, critical raves, and editions in twenty-six languages and twenty-eight countries. This year, Sue was also named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.

In U is for Undertow, Kinsey investigates the disappearance of a little girl in the California coastal town of Santa Teresa. When a fragile young man shows up at Kinsey’s door in 1988, claiming that he saw two men burying a suspicious bundle twenty-one years earlier, she doesn’t know whether to believe him or not. Using multiple points of view, shifting between the booming ’80s and the freewheeling ’60s, Grafton has crafted an adult boy-who-cried-wolf story that is guaranteed to keep readers up late.
 

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Portfolio/ Sentinel Lands a Record Three Titles on The New York Times Bestseller Lists in the Same Week

For the first time in its seven year history, Portfolio / Sentinel achieves three New York Times bestsellers in the same week. A Simple Christmas by Mike Huckabee is #3 on the hardcover nonfiction list; Do The Right Thing, also by Mike Huckabee, is #18 on the paperback nonfiction list; and The Dollar Meltdown by Charles Goyette is #10 on the hardcover advice, how-to and miscellaneous list.

The surprise bestseller is The Dollar Meltdown, which explains why too much government spending is going to cause extreme inflation, and what investors should do about it. It has been embraced by conservative radio hosts and bloggers, as well as Congressman Ron Paul. Glenn Beck had Goyette on his Fox News show twice, and the book has quickly grown from 12,000 in print to about 35,000. "I can't say we predicted that the dollar would plunge and gold would spike just when we reached pub date," says Portfolio President and Publisher Adrian Zackheim. "If I were THAT smart about finance, I'd be telecommuting from my private island in the Caribbean."

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Walter Bagdzinski Wins 2009 Rainbow Award at Penguin Group (USA) Sales Conference Awards Dinner and Wendy Pearl, Lee Swenka, Todd Jones and Bob DeMarco Named PGI Sales Reps of the Year

Walter Bagdzinski, Director of Inventory Management for Penguin Group (USA), received the 2009 Rainbow Award at this week’s Penguin Group Sales Conference Awards & Celebration Dinner at the Hyatt Regency in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. Every year at this time, the Penguin Group (USA) hardcover, paperback and young readers sales teams collectively present the Rainbow Award to an individual outside of sales they feel contributed the most during the year to the teams’ success.

Norman Lidofsky and Dick Heffernan acknowledged that Walter Bagdzinski “figures out solutions to everything you ask him,” created, among many other processes, the Early Ship Program, “makes it work,” and expertly keeps track of release dates, itineraries and the “back-end of our business that is so important to the success of all of our books.” Walter received loud cheers as he came to the podium and was congratulated by Norman and Dick (pictured above).