Penguin Publishing

About Penguin Publishing

The Penguin Random House REST Services API provides data about books, authors, and events. It exposes resources for authors, works, titles, and events, each supporting search and detail-lookup endpoints. A title refers to a specific ISBN-identified version of a book (such as a hardcover or paperback edition), while a work groups all titles sharing the same content under a shared identifier. Author events cover occurrences such as book signings, linked to an author and optionally a title, with time and place details.

Requests use the GET method and are secured with HTTP Basic authentication over HTTPS. Responses are returned in XML or JSON depending on the content type specified in the request, except for the title/ISBN resource, which can also return a cover image. Author search supports filtering by first and last name with pagination parameters, and returns fields such as author ID, display name, and a biographical spotlight snippet; author detail lookups require a numeric author ID.

This API is intended for developers building applications that need structured publishing data from Penguin Random House, such as book catalogs, author information displays, or event listings.

Key features

• Search for authors by first or last name
• Retrieve detailed author records including bio and photo credit
• Search for and retrieve works by Work ID
• Search for and retrieve titles by ISBN, including cover images
• Search for and retrieve author events such as book signings

Frequently asked questions