企鵝的故事

在希斯路機場等候期間，買了一本企鵝版的〔香水〕－－以電影劇照做封面．六鎊九九．揭到最後一頁，看到了企鵝出版的故事．看了很窩心，我最近常被「藝術商業化」這樣的問題煩擾，看了這段文字，雖然是宣傳文字，也令我覺得很舒服－－又有市場策略，又有文化理想．

文化產業就是要這樣做，從來就要市場與藝術並重．平衡不易，但只要聰明地，本著良心地去做，是可以做得到的．


He just wanted a decent book to read...

Not too much to ask, is it? It was in 1935 when Allen Lane, Managing Director of Bodley Head Publishers, stood on a platform at Exeter railway station looking for something good to read on his journey back to London. His choice was limited to popular magazines and poor-quality paperbacks -- the same choice faced every day by the vast majority of readers, few of whom could afford hardbacks. Lane's disappointment and subsequent anger at the range of books generally available let him to found a company -- change the world.

"We believed in the existence in this country of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it”
Sir Allen Lane, 1902-1970, founder of Penguin Books

The quality paperback had arrived - and not just in bookshops. Lane was adamant that his Penguins should appear in chain stores and tobacconists, and should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes.

Reading habits (and cigarette prices) have changed since 1935, but Penguin still believe that good design costs no more than bad design, and we still believe that quality books published passionately and responsibly make the world a better place.

So whatever you see the little bird - whether it's on a piece of prize-winning literary fiction or a celebrity aubiography, political tour de force or historical masterpiece, a serial-killer thriller, reference book, world classic or a piece of pure escapism - you can bet that it represents the very best that the genre has to offer.