What Was Your First Green Penguin?

Dear listeners,

For the final Shedunnit episode of 2025, I am asking all six of the guests who joined me for Green Penguin Book Club episodes this year to take a nostalgic look at the place the series has in their own lives. In particular, I asked them to remember what their first Green Penguin encounter was. We talked about everything from the joys of the Puffin Club to the fun of coming across unknown titles in bookshops.

As several of them pointed out in the discussions you'll hear in this new episode, the Penguin series is often an early way of discovering new titles and authors for a young reader. As long as you aren't after rare titles or first editions, secondhand Penguin paperbacks tend to be pretty easy and cheap to come by. Plus, you have the guarantee that somebody knowledgable back in the day thought the book was worth republishing, even if it isn't very well known today.

📣
You can listen to this episode right now on all major audio platforms (just click the icon of your preferred app here to jump right in) as well as on the podcast's website, where there is also a full transcript to read if you prefer that. New episodes are also available on YouTube. If you're in the UK, you can listen ad free on BBC Sounds.

What was your first Green Penguin? Do you remember? I think mine was a loved-to-death copy of The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie, a short story collection I have always loved because it was among the first mysteries I ever read.

I went looking in my own Green Penguin collection to see if I had any of the books my guests named so that I could show them to you, with mixed results.

I do have The Plague Court Murders by Carter Dickson (aka John Dickson Carr), which Tom Mead named as one of his most prized Penguins:

And I also have The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, which Sergio Angelini talked about (even though I have — gasp! — yet to actually read it):

But otherwise I drew a blank on their specific titles! I do have some others by authors they named, though, such as this Margery Allingham, another favourite of Sergio's:

Plus this book by J.J. Connington, which I think is brilliant:

Lastly, I pulled out my slightly battered copy of The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace, because that's going to be the subject of the next Green Penguin episode in January:

I will see you in two weeks for the start of a brand new year of Shedunnit! I think you're really going to like the first episode I've got lined up...

Until then,

Caroline