Book Recommendations | Staff Picks: Nora Alice

Who better to give book recommendations than the bookish experts? Penguin Random House employees are sharing their favorite reads every month. Browse below! This month’s picks come from Nora Alice Demick, a Marketing Coordinator for Viking, Riverhead and Penguin Books, as well as the chair of the Penguin Random House LGBTQ Network.  Check out the books she recommends:

Book Recommendations | Staff Picks: Robert

Who better to give book recommendations than the bookish experts? Penguin Random House employees are sharing their favorite reads every month. Browse below! Here’s what Robert, a designer, had to say: Photography, music, design and illustration. That pretty much sums me up. I love going out to eat, especially here in the city, and I love to read. I’m more keen to read a book about a specific topic but I also learn a lot from fictional characters. Check out the books he recommends:

The Ultimate Julia Alvarez Gift Package

25 years ago, Julia Alvarez wrote In the Time of the Butterflies, the story of four young women from a pious Catholic family that were assassinated in 1960 in the Dominican Republic after visiting their husbands who had been jailed as suspected rebel leaders. The Mirabal sisters became mythical figures in their country, where they were known as Las Mariposas (the butterflies). This extraordinary story of love, courage, resistance, and family has since inspired other works of fiction, movies, plays, and dances and become an American Library Association Notable Book and a 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award nominee. To celebrate both Julia, a National Medal of Arts recipient, and the anniversary of her bestselling classic, Algonquin Books, Penguin Random House, and Repertorio Español have teamed up to offer one winner the “Ultimate Julia Alvarez Gift Package.” This gift bundle includes some of the author’s bestselling titles, both in English and Spanish signed by the author, as well as two tickets to an upcoming feature of the adapted play En el Tiempo de las Mariposas (In the Time of the Butterflies) at the Repertorio Español in New York City. Enter for a chance to win here!

Book Recommendations | Staff Picks: Stella

Who better to give book recommendations than the bookish experts? Penguin Random House employees are sharing their favorite reads every month. Browse below! This month, we’re featuring Stella Spiegel, Associate Email Marketing Manager at Penguin Random House. Stella loves to travel and is always looking for a great book, or five, to bring on her next adventure. Check out the books she recommends:

Celebrating Black History Month with StoryCorps: Part Four

To highlight some great moments and voices during Black History Month, we’re teaming up with StoryCorps. If you’re not already familiar, StoryCorps is a wonderful organization focused on capturing the wisdom of humanity through interviews and stories in order to create a more just and compassionate world.  Learn more about their mission, history, and impact here.  In late August 1963, the March on Washington led hundreds of thousands of Americans to the Lincoln Memorial, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous, “I Have a Dream” speech. Lawrence Cumberbatch (right), then 16 years old, walked from New York City to Washington, D.C., with Brooklyn’s chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). At StoryCorps, Lawrence, 66, tells his son Simeon, 39, about the difficulty of convincing his parents to let him go, and what it was like to be present on the podium behind Dr. King as he spoke. Inspired to learn more? We’ve got themed lists to help you find your next read – from fresh new authors, to canonical greats. Head over to StoryCorps to find more oral history and amazing storytelling.