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A colourful bunch

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A guide to Penguin Specials: short, original, affordable and oh-so colourful.

Designed to be read over a long commute or a short journey, in your lunch hour or between dinner and bedtime, Penguin Specials are small books filled with big ideas. You’ll find fictional worlds, the latest information on specific fields, and new perspectives on old subjects.

‘Our aim is to fill a current gap by bringing readers high-quality work that is too short for a book and too long for a magazine, so that you need never be without something satisfying to read,’ says Ben Ball, Penguin Publishing Director.

But what do the different Penguin Specials colours mean? We’re glad you asked. Here’s a guide to the special colours that differentiate these special titles.

Orange: Fiction

Dark Blue: Memoir

Yellow: History

Pink: Cookery

Turquoise: Contemporary Non-fiction