Penguin Modern Classics

Acclaimed on first publication and today considered one of the defining works of the sociology, The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life is Erving Goffman's extraordinary analysis of the structure of our social interactions.

Blurring the line between workaday life and theatrical performance, Goffman argues that our behaviour with others is defined by how we wish to be perceived - resulting in displays bearing a startling similarity to those of an actor on the stage. From the houses and clothes that we use as 'fixed props' to the 'backstage' of the solitude in which our personas are rehearsed and relaxed, Goffman's insight reveals human character to be not fixed or stable, but liquid and consciously maintained.

In this groundbreaking work, acclaimed sociologist Erving Goffman examines how society treats those who it considers abnormal. Forced to adjust their social identities from situation to situation, Goffman analyses the variety of strategies that stigmatised individuals deploy to deal with the rejection of others, as well as the complex image of themselves they subsequently project.

Relying extensively on biography and the lived experience of those who have found themselves on the edges of society, Goffman lays out the ways in which stigma dramatically alters the way the person affected feels about themselves, and the ways in which it can often violently shatter their relationships with 'normal' people.

Dambudzo Marechera burst onto the English literary scene with a bang in 1978 with this vivid roar of a book exploring township life in pre-independence Zimbabwe.

Irreverent and uncompromising, Dambudzo Marechera rejected what he saw as the narrow stereotypes of African literature, and was a fearless critic of his country. The narrator expresses his desperate alienation - from his family, from his student friends, from township life and from Zimbabwe itself. This novella, and the other short stories here, portray an explosive world that flashes with both violence and humour.

'Thank God for yellow ochre, cadmium red medium, and permanent green light'

How does a painter see the world? Philip Guston, one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century, spoke about art with unparalleled candour and commitment. Touching on work from across his career as well as that of his fellow artists and Renaissance heroes, this selection of his writings, talks and interviews draws together some of his most incisive reflections on iconography and abstraction, metaphysics and mysticism, and, above all, the nature of painting and drawing.

'Among the most important, powerful and influential American painters of the last 100 years ... he's an art world hero' Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine

What advice can one give a green young author? What purpose do literary prizes serve? Where on earth can a man get a decent bite to eat? This entertaining collection is vintage Kingsley Amis, revealing him at his most robust and incisive, cutting a swathe through such subjects as writers and writing, 'Abroad', eating and drinking, music, language and education. He turns a clear and critical eye on Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell, Anthony Burgess, Ian Fleming and Philip Larkin, and does not spare their potential readers in 'Sod the Public: A Consumer's Guide'. In typically razor-sharp, wicked and witty prose, Amis tackles the culture and conceits of his era.

Although best known for his comic novels, Kingsley Amis wrote poetry throughout his career. Collected Poems spans subjects from nature and cricket to love, ageing and literature, brimming with his characteristic wit and irreverence, yet full of compassion. 'The Last War' brings home the futility of battle by portraying countries as flawed characters destined for misfortune, while 'Their Oxford' reflects on the passing of time, and in contrast the playful 'Sight Unseen' laments the difficulty of attracting women. By turns provocative and poignant, this collection provides an illuminating glimpse into the heart and mind of Amis.

Evelyn Waugh's first book, Rossetti, is an intimate account of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's tragic and mysterious life: the story behind some of the greatest poetry and painting of the nineteenth century. Shot through with Waugh's charm and dry wit, and illuminated by his sense of kinship with the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Rossetti is at once a brilliant reevaluation of Rossetti's work and legacy, as well as a bold gesture of defiance against the art establishment of the 1920s.

One of the earliest warnings about climate change and one of environmentalism's lodestars

'Nature, we believe, takes forever. It moves with infinite slowness,' begins the first book to bring climate change to public attention.

Interweaving lyrical observations from his life in the Adirondack Mountains with insights from the emerging science, Bill McKibben sets out the central developments not only of the environmental crisis now facing us but also the terms of our response, from policy to the fundamental, philosophical shift in our relationship with the natural world which, he argues, could save us. A moving elegy to nature in its pristine, pre-human wildness, The End of Nature is both a milestone in environmental thought, indispensable to understanding how we arrived here.

In 1964, renowned psychotherapist Virginia M. Axline visited a New York school. There she encountered a little boy apart from teachers and children. Dibs sat alone, or gently traced the edge of the room, defying approach and every attempt at interaction. Every day was like this, and every day his teachers feared further that their support was not enough. As a last resort, Axline was asked to meet with Dibs for a series of weekly play therapy sessions. There, through the guise of time spent will toys and paint, Dibs' extraordinary character -- and the circumstance of his pain -- is slowly revealed...

Based on the transcripts of their sessions together, Dibs in Search of Self is a seminal testament to the power of psychotherapy, and a classic of twentieth century nonfiction -- an incredible true story of personal transformation.

A high-ranking scientist has been kidnapped. A secret British intelligence agency must find out why. But as the quarry is pursued from grimy Soho to the other side of the world, what seemed a straightforward mission turns into something far more sinister. With its sardonic, cool, working-class hero, Len Deighton's sensational debut The Ipcress File rewrote the spy thriller and became the defining novel of 1960's London.

'If one criterion of a classic is its ability to reorient our most basic way of viewing an object or a concept, Eric Williams's study supremely passes that test' Seymour Drescher

Arguing that the slave trade was at the heart of Britain's economic progress, Eric Williams's landmark 1944 study revealed the connections between capitalism and racism, and has influenced generations of historians ever since. Williams traces the rise and fall of the Atlantic slave trade through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to show how it laid the foundations of the Industrial Revolution, and how racism arose as a means of rationalising an immoral economic programme. Most significantly, he showed how slavery was only abolished when it ceased to become financially viable, exploding the myth of emancipation as a mark of Britain's moral progress.

'Its thesis is a starting point for a new generation of scholarship' New Yorker

"I have all the guns and all the money. I can withstand challenge from without and from within. Am I right, Comrade?" So said Elaine Brown on becoming the first female leader of the Black Panther Party in 1974. By that time the group had grown from a small local outfit into a national revolutionary movement, described by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover as 'the greatest threat to the internal security of the country'.

Brown's gripping memoir charts her rise from an impoverished neighbourhood in Philadelphia, through a political awakening during a bohemian adolescence, and on to her time as a foot soldier for the Panthers and her ascent into its upper echelons. As an unfortgettable portrayal of Black girlhood in 1950s Philadelphia and the revolutionary experience in 1960s California, A Taste of Power is a seminal exploration of power, prejudice and the struggle for justice.

'The play of moonlight on the icebergs was indescribably strange, and its magnificent refracted shimmers were brighter than day. One night, fooled by its brilliance, I got up at three in the morning.'

Scorching heat, rich, fertile soil and treacherous snakes marked the landscape in which Kpomassie grew up in 1950s Togo, West Africa. When, as a teenager, he discovered a book on Greenland, this distant land of snow and ice became an instant obsession and he embarked on the adventure of a lifetime.

In this work of rich, immersive travel writing Kpomassie invites the reader to join him on his audacious journey as he makes his way from the Equator to the bitter cold of the Arctic and settles into life with the Inuit peoples, adapting to their foods and customs. Part memoir, part anthropological observation, this warm, captivating narrative teems with nuanced observations on community, belonging and colonization.

Originally published in 1981, this critically acclaimed work has been translated into nine languages and is a rare example of travel writing from a West African perspective that highlights unexpected connection between cultures despite their contrasting landscapes.

This translation by James Kirkup has previously been published with the title An African in Greenland

A collection of thirteen stories that offer an inside view of fighting men poised at the edge of death.

Len Deighton's only collection of shorter fiction, this dazzling array of stories spans twenty-three centuries of warfare.

From Hannibal's march on Rome - when strange, moving objects terrorise the troops of one of the toughest and most skilful armies in history - to the efforts of a belittled Civil War general to get his men to face the Confederate army; to the dawn skies above an artillery-blasted French battle-line where a dogfight unfolds, to Vietnam; where two lost American soldiers stumble across an abandoned military airfield.

Each story in Declarations of War explores the effects of war upon man's character, how it pushes him to act in a dehumanized, machine-like way, often leading to extraordinary deeds, both good and ill. It portrays human conflict through a series of devastating experiences and shows how great deeds are often but the smallest thread in the large fabric of war.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published The Little Prince in 1943, only a year before his plane vanished over the Mediterranean Sea during a reconnaissance mission. Nearly eighty years later, this fable of love and loneliness has lost none of its power.

The narrator is a pilot downed in the Sahara Desert, frantically trying to repair his wrecked plane. His efforts are interrupted one day by the miraculous appearance of a little prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. "In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don't dare disobey," the narrator recalls. "Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket." And so begins their dialogue, one confined only by the limits of the imagination, by the horizon of a child's wonder...

The three confidence tricksters had a style that earned them millions. Silas was the leader, slick and self-assured - but dissatisfied. Bob was the junior partner, longing for the open road where pickings were rich and the living was easy. And Liz, Silas' mistress, was in between. Theirs was a built-in love triangle with its own rewards ... and its own dangers.

In New York these con-artists do a 'business deal' worth millions. But back in London Silas' plan to bilk an emergent African nation misfires. Then Bob takes over the running of the operation - and Liz. A Beirut bank is their target and each member of the trio gets what he or she deserves - each with a twist of lemon.