Jackie Kay, a former poet laureate of Scotland, at the Penguin book-vending machine installed on August 27 at Linlithgow Academy near Edinburgh. Image: Penguin Random House UK, Colin Wright
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
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A Successor to the ‘Penguincubator’
On Tuesday (August 27), Penguin Random House UK unveiled a new Penguin book-vending machine at Scotland’s Linlithgow Academy, some 30.5 kilometers west of Edinburgh (19 miles).
The machine is a gift from the publishing house and gives students access to more than 70 titles from Penguin’s “Lit in Colour” reading lists. Those lists were set up early in this decade, and are updated annually with a goal of making the work of writers of color more visible in schools.
Jackie Kay—a former Makar, or poet laureate of Scotland—joined the presentation. Our discerning readers may note that some of Kay’s books can be seen waiting to be sold in the machine, among them her memoir Red Dust Road (2022) and the most recent of her releases, May Day, published in April of this year. Kay for seven years (2015-2022) was chancellor of the University of Salford, and has taught creative writing at Newcastle University.
While at the school for the launch of the machine, Kay joined education manager Lesley Nelson-Addy “in conversation” at Runnymede Trust, a think tank focused on race equity. The event included a reading by Kay from May Day and a Q&A session with the school’s students and teachers.
“Having a vending machine for books is really exciting,” Kay said. “I think it’s a novel idea and a wonderful way to introduce people to books they might not have come across otherwise. Reading forms such an important part of our lives. We remember the books that have made a big impact on us and the books that we come across in an unusual way.”
Our Publishing Perspectives professional readership might be aware that Kay’s books are published not by Penguin but by Holtzbrinck’s Pan Macmillan’s imprint Picador. Indeed, Picador has donated 150 copies of Kay’s books to the inventory of the machine from Penguin and has provided a quote for the occasion, saying, “Picador is delighted to be able to support the brilliant work being done by ‘Lit in Colour.’
“We’re incredibly proud to be Jackie Kay’s publisher, and this is a wonderful opportunity to share her work with young readers. We’re committed to reaching the widest readership for our books and authors, and schools lie at the heart of this ambition.”
Penguin itself reports that it has provided 900 books for the machine, and says that it selected Linlithgow Academy from 800 applications for a machine from schools in the United Kingdom. In addition to Kay’s work, the Linlithgow vending machine is stocked with works of Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, Arundhati Roy, and others.
‘Lit in Colour’ and the Vending Machine’s Predecessor
Runnymede Trust is a partner with Penguin in the development of the Lit in Colour program. The trust commissioned research in 2021 that showed that less than 1 percent of students in General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) programs had studied a book by a writer of color. Impediments to a broader survey of literature included teachers’ limited resources and time, as well as a lack of knowledge and confidence in talking about race in the classroom.
An early image of a Penguincubator, with Allen Lane as its user. Image: DM1294/2/9/3/1 from The Penguin Archives, held at Bristol Special Collections. Used by permission
So it is that the Lit in Colour program provides free teaching resources and those updating book lists, as well as donations of thousands of books to schools in the UK. The program works “in partnership with exam boards to incentivize schools to change the text they teach at GCSE or A Level to a book by a writer of color through the ‘Lit in Colour Pioneers’ program.” More information can be found here for the UK, here for the United States, and here for Canada.
While at the school, Penguin staff members led “build a book” session to help students sort out some of the steps that go into publishing.
PRH UK’s senior social impact manager Zaahida Nabagereka said that the Lit in Colour program is an effort “to make the teaching and learning of English literature in UK schools more inclusive of writers of color. As books are like windows and mirrors, it’s vital that all children have access to a diverse range of stories, and authors who reflect our wonderfully diverse modern British society.”
And as for the machine, another such Penguin vending device has been installed on the National Rail’s platform at the Exeter St. Davids Station since March 2023.
Zaahida Nabagereka
It’s said that Allen Lane, who co-founded Penguin Books in 1935, had the idea for a book-vending machine when he found himself with nothing to read on an Exeter train platform in 1934, following a visit with Agatha Christie.
As our readers will have surmised, the Penguin vending machines of today are updates to that inspiration, Lane’s Penguincubator, the first of which is said to have been seen outside Henderson’s in Charing Cross Road in 1937.
The mass-market paperback proved itself a lightweight and somewhat flexible format for vending, although Allen would start a hardback imprint bearing his own name in 1967.
A Linlithgow Academy student uses the newly installed Penguin Lit in Colour vending machine. Image: Penguin Random House UK, Colin Wright
More from Publishing Perspectives on Penguin Random House UK is here, more on Penguin Random House is here, more on diversity and inclusion issues in publishing is here, more on the Scottish market is here, and more on the United Kingdom is here.