FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Penguin Canada announces three new Canadian series

David Davidar, Publisher of Penguin Group (Canada), announced today a three-year initiative to deepen and strengthen Penguin Canada's publishing programme. Penguin Group (Canada) will launch one new Canadian series every year from 2006 to 2008, much like the distinctive Canadian Modern Classics, a series launched in 2005 that sold tens of thousands of copies and successfully garnered a new readership for some of Canada's best-loved authors.

Davidar says, "Penguin is wholly committed to the idea of bringing the very best of Canadian writing to a Canadian readership and this means re-imagining the way canonical Canadian works are presented to a 21st century audience and commissioning books that look at the idea of Canada in a new and imaginative way."

In August, 2006, Penguin Canada will publish the first batch of the new Canadian Penguin Black Classics, featuring treasures such as Roughing it in the Bush, The Backwoods of Canada, Anne of Green Gables, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Settlers of the Marsh, and Klee Wyck. These stunning, wholly reset, unabridged hardcover editions will include introductions by well-known authors such as Charlotte Gray, Camilla Gibb, Lisa Moore, Will Ferguson, Greg Hollingshead, and Susan Vreeland.

Editorial Director, Andrea Crozier says, "These are the classics that should grace the shelves of every home. We are pleased to publish these true Canadian classics in fine new hardcover editions that are sure to reach a whole new generation of readers."

In 2007, Penguin Canada will launch Penguin Canadian Lives, a series of short biographies written by the country's top authors. John Ralston Saul has agreed to act as general editor. The series will feature inspired pairings of writers and subjects and will seek to reinterpret important Canadian figures for a contemporary audience. Among others, the series will include David Adams Richards on Lord Beaverbrook, Joseph Boyden on Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont, Douglas Coupland on Marshall McLuhan, Lewis de Soto on Emily Carr, Wayne Johnston on Joey Smallwood, Margaret MacMillan on Stephen Leacock, Nino Ricci on Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and Jane Urquhart on Lucy Maud Montgomery. The books will be published over a two-year period.

John Ralston Saul says, "These biographies will be written by people who are already read and trusted by Canadians. It is a way to re-think our society through its leading contemporary voices. I feel that through these biographies we will re-discover what the great figures of our past mean today, and what their experiences tell us about where we could be going. Nothing like this has been tried in over a hundred years since the Makers of Canada series."

"OMNI Television, a division of Rogers Communication has entered into a development arrangement with PMA Productions, Montreal, to produce a companion series," says Michael Levine of Goodmans LLP. "We are hoping to broadcast simultaneously with the release of Canadian Lives."

Editorial Director Diane Turbide says, "I think readers will be intrigued to read about important Canadians re-imagined and reinterpreted through the eyes of some of our most prestigious writers. They'll bring a personal touch, a particular sensibility, that will make us reconsider and enlarge our understanding of who those people were. The line-up is like a who's who of Canadian writers; I'm just delighted."

In 2008, Penguin Canada will launch Turning Points, a series that will aim to shed new light on pivotal moments in Canadian history. Lively, erudite, and accessible, Turning Points will combine the authority of respected historians and experts with a narrative flair. Twelve hardcovers are scheduled. Edited by two of Canada's greatest living historians, Margaret MacMillan and Robert Bothwell, these histories will bring to life and underscore the importance of crucial moments in Canadian history, among them the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (1759), the 1976 Quebec election, the Night of the Long Knives (1981), The Reciprocity Election (1890), and The War of 1812.

Says Margaret MacMillan, "As a professional historian, I love the idea of a series of lively, entertaining books, based on solid research and analysis, and written for all Canadians. We have chosen moments which shed light on what Canada was like at key times throughout the centuries and which will help to answer the question of how did we end up here, in 2006."

Says Robert Bothwell, "What strikes me when I visit Canadian bookstores is how much interesting, lively history is being written. Obviously it has a market here in Canada as elsewhere. The only problem is how little of it is Canadian, either in terms of its authors or its subjects. Our series aims to do something about this."

Says Diane Turbide, "There was a time in Canada where everyone read the great historians, and we want this series to rekindle that passion for our own history. It's intended as an accessible popular history written with authority and stylish storytelling."

John Ralston Saul and Margaret MacMillan are available for comment.