Born into a family of modest means and respectability, Danny Fisher was gradually driven downward into the world of crime, racketeering and poverty. His bitterness, his homesickness over the loss of the house in Brooklyn that was given to him for his eighth birthday, and his feud with his harsh father, pulled him one way; his natural decency and his love for a sweet Italian girl, Nellie Petito, pulled him another.

Angelo Perino lives life on the bleeding edge of speed and success - a race car driver of humble origins who dominates on and off the track. Loren Hardeman is the ruthless patriarch of an auto empire, fighting to keep his family from self-destructing under the weight of its own greed and decadence. The two men, bound by their passionate vision as well as their charismatic power over women, come together to create the world's fastest, most advanced automobile, "The Betsy".

Never Love a Stranger, still considered one of Robbins' most powerful books, tells the story of Francis "Frankie" Kane, an orphan growing up in the dirty world of New York's Hell's Kitchen. After being kicked out of a Catholic orphanage when it is discovered that he is of Jewish descent, a confused and deeply distraught Frankie turns to a life of crime, the only life he knows, and he's good at it.

Steve Gaunt, the rebellious visionary, is the head of a successful television empire, making him a hit in the ratings and with gorgeous women. Sam Benjamin, one of the last of the old motion picture tycoons, desperately wants to hold on to the power that has long been associated with the more "glamorous" part of the business - the movies. When the two combine forces, they have the potential to remake the entertainment industry - or be each other's undoing.

79 Park Avenue starts on the seedy streets of inner New York City and ends on luxurious Park Avenue. Over time Marja claws her way from street urchin to stripper, ultimately becoming the madam of a Mob-owned pleasure empire. Marja--now known as Maryann--provides access to the city's most exciting and sensual escorts. But when Maryann runs afoul of the law, endangering her empire and angering the Mob, she must face an ambitious prosecutor who stands to benefit by bringing down the call-girl ring.

As a young boy, Diogenes Alejandro Xenos, witnesses the murder of his mother and sister by a band of marauders. As "Dax" grows to adulthood, he channels his fear and hatred into a desire for revolution, swearing revenge on those in power as he upsets the status quo. His actions make him an outlaw, living on the fringes of society in a land turned upside down with corruption. He is wanted by men and women alike-but for very different reasons.

Cesare Cardinale is an amoral, aristocratic Italian playboy - an entrepreneur and race car driver who wants for nothing - whether it's fast cars, beautiful women, or orgies of debauchery. Cesare, however, has two dirty secrets: First, he has a penchant for violence that borders on the sadistic and sociopathic; second, he owes his extravagant life to a Sicilian Mafia don, creating a seemingly perfect relationship - as he leads a double life as a Mafia assassin.

The explosive sequel to The Carpetbaggers is set in an atmosphere of wealth, decadence, and unbridled sexuality, ranging in scene from Las Vegas to Mexico City, New York, and Havana. This electrifying tale continues the Cord family saga, pitting Jonas Cord Jr. against his illegitimate son, Bat, in a struggle for control of a vast fortune.

Spellbinder is the story of a genuine and charismatic believer simply known as "Preacher", who returns from the foxholes and horrors of Vietnam with a simple goal: to spread the word of peace, love, and charity. He immediately attracts a following as he moves from California communes to small surfing towns. "The Church", as his mobile flock is now known, is a culture that centers as much on sex and drugs as prayers, sacraments, and salvation.

California in the 1960s is a time of free love and peace on Earth. But the times, they are a'changing, and Gareth Brendan is trying his best to keep up. When his wealthy, powerful uncle gives him control of an underground newspaper, Gareth finds an outlet for all the radical thoughts and ideas he's kept inside. Suddenly, he's the head of an empire of casinos and clubs, movies and magazines, surrounded by models and pimps who cater to the ultra-rich.

In love and soon to be a father, Luke Carey has the life he's always wanted. That is until a mysterious, late-night phone call summons him to San Francisco. Luke's first daughter, whom he hasn't seen in six years, 14-year-old Danielle, needs him, and he's desperate to do anything he can to help. But coming back into Danielle's life means facing his ex-wife, Nora, and the explosive, violent drama of the life he left behind.

Born to a life of violence and tragedy, Dan becomes one of the most powerful and dangerous labor organizers in the country - at the expense of his personal relationships. He's a man who embraced violence, fierce ambition, lust and a deep hunger for justice even as he accumulated personal wealth, fame, and power.

A dynasty of women triumphs in the fiercely male-dominated world of high fashion amid the ruins of war. A daughter honors her mother's ultimate sacrifice - by becoming a ruthless businesswoman who will stop at nothing to raise high her family's name. Another daughter seeks to flee the toxic legacy of her family and live in peace. And both daughters have a date with destiny in a vault filled with Nazi gold...treasure that will alter the courses of both their lives....

In a raging sandstorm, two men with their pregnant wives fatefully meet in the desert: Samir Al Fay, a Muslim doctor whose son will be named heir to the Prince of Beirut; and Isaiah Ben Ezra, a grizzled Jewish militant Zionist heading to the Promised Land. The women give birth - Samir's unconscious wife delivers a stillborn girl, Ben Ezra's wife dies delivering a healthy boy.

In Paris, in Washington, and in Greece, an innocent American becomes a pawn in a game of vengeance and betrayal. Catherine Douglas is a woman caught in a web of four lives intertwined by passion as her handsome husband pursues an incredibly beautiful film star, while Constantin Demeris, a legendary Greek tycoon, tightens the strands that control them all.

Meet JeriLee Randall, aspiring actress, ambitious writer, and sexual powerhouse. It is this ambition that takes her away from her tiny hometown of Port Clare and sets her on a collision course with her future. Surviving on determination and seduction, she makes her way to Broadway and then on to Hollywood. The bright lights mask a deeper darkness, and JeriLee is quickly drawn into a world of greed, drugs, casting couches, and smooth-talking power players.

79 Park Avenue starts on the seedy streets of inner New York City and ends on luxurious Park Avenue. Over time Marja claws her way from street urchin to stripper, ultimately becoming the madam of a Mob-owned pleasure empire. Marja--now known as Maryann--provides access to the city's most exciting and sensual escorts. But when Maryann runs afoul of the law, endangering her empire and angering the Mob, she must face an ambitious prosecutor who stands to benefit by bringing down the call-girl ring.

Arthur Youngblood Hawke, an ex-Navy man moves from rural Kentucky to New York to assault the citadel of New York publishing with his first novel, an oversized manuscript that becomes an instant success. Toasted by critics and swept along on a tide of popularity, he gives himself over to the lush life that gilds artistic success. Love comes with an affair with an older married woman and an unfulfilled flame with his editor, while wealth pours in with the publication of his second novel, and participation in real-estate developments.

Here is the story of Tom and Betsy Rath, a young couple with everything going for them: three healthy children, a nice home, a steady income. They have every reason to be happy, but for some reason they are not. Like so many young men of the day, Tom finds himself caught up in the corporate rat race - what he encounters there propels him on a voyage of self-discovery that will turn his world inside out.

To all appearances, John Wilder has all the trappings of success, circa 1960: a promising career in advertising, a loving family, a beautiful apartment, even a country home. John's evenings are spent with associates at quiet Manhattan lounges and his weekends with friends at glittering cocktail parties. But something deep within this seemingly perfect life has long since gone wrong.

In Osaka in 1973, the body of a murdered man is found in an abandoned building. Investigating the crime, Detective Sasagaki is unable to find the killer. Over the next 20 years, through the lens of a succession of characters, Higashino tells the story of two teens, Ryo and Yukiho, whose lives are most affected by the crime, and the obsessed detective, Sasagaki, who continues to investigate the murder, looking for the elusive truth.

The Thin Man introduces Nick and Nora Charles, New York's coolest crime-solving couple. Nick retired from detecting after his wife inherited a tidy sum, but six years later a pretty blonde spies him at a speakeasy and asks for his help finding her father, an eccentric inventor who was once Nick's client. Nick can no more resist the case than a morning cocktail or a good fight, and soon he and Nora are caught in a complicated web of confused identities.

In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, social circuit is electrified with parties and dances. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction.

This first entry in John Dos Passos's celebrated U.S.A. trilogy paints a grand picture of the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Tomorrow Will Be Better tells the story of Margy Shannon, a shy but joyfully optimistic young woman just out of school who lives with her parents and witnesses how a lifetime of hard work, poverty, and pain has worn them down. Her mother's resentment toward being a housewife and her father's inability to express his emotions result in a tense home life where Margy has no voice. Unable to speak up against her overbearing mother, Margy takes refuge in her dreams of a better life.

Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching—yet always with elements of comedy and irony and burlesque that appear in unexpected places. It is a book that has a great deal to say and which is destined to have a great deal said about it.

June 1957. One hot afternoon in the backwaters of the Deep South, a young black farmer named Tucker Caliban salts his fields, shoots his horse, burns his house, and heads north with his wife and child. His departure sets off an exodus of the state’s entire black population, throwing the established order into brilliant disarray. Told from the points of view of the white residents who remained, A Different Drummer stands, decades after its first publication in 1962, as an extraordinary and prescient triumph of satire and spirit.

A masterpiece of American fiction and a best seller upon its publication in 1935, BUtterfield 8 lays bare with brash honesty the unspoken and often shocking truths that lurked beneath the surface of a society still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression. One Sunday morning, Gloria wakes up in a stranger's apartment with nothing but a torn evening dress, stockings, and panties. When she steals a fur coat from the wardrobe to wear home, she unleashes a series of events that can only end in tragedy.

An unbearably tense novel of revenge, murder, bereavement and the destructive force of passion. The single-mother families of the isolated community under the shadow of the Pyderhorn, Bergen's greatest mountain, are being terrorised by a teenage gang. But teenage violence is nothing compared to what awaits detective Varg Veum when he gets to know the blue-eyed Wenche Andersen.

Published in 1922, Fitzgerald's second novel chronicles the relationship of Anthony Patch, Harvard-educated, aspiring aesthete, and his beautiful wife, Gloria, as they await to inherit his grandfather's fortune. A devastating satire of the nouveaux rich and New York's nightlife, of reckless ambition and squandered talent, it is also a shattering portrait of a marriage fueled by alcohol and wasted by wealth. The Beautiful and Damned, Fitzgerald wrote to Zelda in 1930, "was all true."

As a young boy, Diogenes Alejandro Xenos, witnesses the murder of his mother and sister by a band of marauders. As "Dax" grows to adulthood, he channels his fear and hatred into a desire for revolution, swearing revenge on those in power as he upsets the status quo. His actions make him an outlaw, living on the fringes of society in a land turned upside down with corruption. He is wanted by men and women alike-but for very different reasons.

In a raging sandstorm, two men with their pregnant wives fatefully meet in the desert: Samir Al Fay, a Muslim doctor whose son will be named heir to the Prince of Beirut; and Isaiah Ben Ezra, a grizzled Jewish militant Zionist heading to the Promised Land. The women give birth - Samir's unconscious wife delivers a stillborn girl, Ben Ezra's wife dies delivering a healthy boy.

A dynasty of women triumphs in the fiercely male-dominated world of high fashion amid the ruins of war. A daughter honors her mother's ultimate sacrifice - by becoming a ruthless businesswoman who will stop at nothing to raise high her family's name. Another daughter seeks to flee the toxic legacy of her family and live in peace. And both daughters have a date with destiny in a vault filled with Nazi gold...treasure that will alter the courses of both their lives....

Steve Gaunt, the rebellious visionary, is the head of a successful television empire, making him a hit in the ratings and with gorgeous women. Sam Benjamin, one of the last of the old motion picture tycoons, desperately wants to hold on to the power that has long been associated with the more "glamorous" part of the business - the movies. When the two combine forces, they have the potential to remake the entertainment industry - or be each other's undoing.

Angelo Perino lives life on the bleeding edge of speed and success - a race car driver of humble origins who dominates on and off the track. Loren Hardeman is the ruthless patriarch of an auto empire, fighting to keep his family from self-destructing under the weight of its own greed and decadence. The two men, bound by their passionate vision as well as their charismatic power over women, come together to create the world's fastest, most advanced automobile, "The Betsy".

The explosive sequel to The Carpetbaggers is set in an atmosphere of wealth, decadence, and unbridled sexuality, ranging in scene from Las Vegas to Mexico City, New York, and Havana. This electrifying tale continues the Cord family saga, pitting Jonas Cord Jr. against his illegitimate son, Bat, in a struggle for control of a vast fortune.

Cesare Cardinale is an amoral, aristocratic Italian playboy - an entrepreneur and race car driver who wants for nothing - whether it's fast cars, beautiful women, or orgies of debauchery. Cesare, however, has two dirty secrets: First, he has a penchant for violence that borders on the sadistic and sociopathic; second, he owes his extravagant life to a Sicilian Mafia don, creating a seemingly perfect relationship - as he leads a double life as a Mafia assassin.

Born to a life of violence and tragedy, Dan becomes one of the most powerful and dangerous labor organizers in the country - at the expense of his personal relationships. He's a man who embraced violence, fierce ambition, lust and a deep hunger for justice even as he accumulated personal wealth, fame, and power.

Robbins' New York is the world of big business and the men and women who make it big. Honor and decency are nothing in a city where respect is measured by the size of your expense account. And it's the city that Brad Rowan, a man on the make, hopes to conquer on his climb to the top, bringing with him the women he loves, uses, and destroys.

Born into a family of modest means and respectability, Danny Fisher was gradually driven downward into the world of crime, racketeering and poverty. His bitterness, his homesickness over the loss of the house in Brooklyn that was given to him for his eighth birthday, and his feud with his harsh father, pulled him one way; his natural decency and his love for a sweet Italian girl, Nellie Petito, pulled him another.