The iconic “raunchy, brash, and suspenseful” ( The New York Times ) blockbuster novel that started it all—the ultimate insider’s novel—from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jackie Collins. They’re a privileged breed—glamorous, glossy, and demanding. When life is this fast, there are no guarantees. Status is everything, and you’re only ever as popular as your husband’s latest box-office hit. Elaine Conti: Bronx girl turned Hollywood hostess, determined to relaunch her husband’s fading acting career back into orbit. Angel Hudson: Married to a hot young actor and an innocent beauty prey to Hollywood’s most unscrupulous men. Montana Grey: Gorgeous renegade, ambitiously driven to succeed in the male-dominated world on the other side of the camera. Hollywood Wives is a scorching blockbuster that exposes the glittering microcosm that is Beverly Hills before racing to a gripping and unexpected climax. Captivating, fun, and deliciously sexy, this classic is its own version of Hollywood magic.

A Russian doll of a mystery crafted with the precision of a Swiss watch by the bestselling author of The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair [Bokinfo]

Behind her facade of a high achievment, attractive middle-class newlywed Suzanne Maretto nurtures her true desires, which include violent heavy metal music, the manipulation, sexual and otherwise, of teenagers, and murder

The story of three daring women and their unconventional lives from Paris to Hollywood

Account of General George S. Patton, jr. and his controversial army career with stress on his actions during World War II

Autobiography of Lenny Bruce.

A classic look at Hollywood and the American film industry by The New Yorker 's Lillian Ross, and named one of the "Top 100 Works of U.S. Journalism of the Twentieth Century." Lillian Ross worked at The New Yorker for more than half a century, and might be described not only as an outstanding practitioner of modern long-form journalism but also as one of its inventors. Picture , originally published in 1952, is her most celebrated piece of reportage, a closely observed and completely absorbing story of how studio politics and misguided commercialism turn a promising movie into an all-around disaster. The charismatic and hard-bitten director and actor John Huston is at the center of the book, determined to make Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage —one of the great and defining works of American literature, the first modern war novel, a book whose vivid imagistic style invites the description of cinematic—into a movie that is worthy of it. At first all goes well, as Huston shoots and puts together a two-hour film that is, he feels, the best he’s ever made. Then the studio bosses step in and the audience previews begin, conferences are held, and the movie is taken out of Huston’s hands, cut down by a third, and finally released—with results that please no one and certainly not the public: It was an expensive flop. In Picture , which Charlie Chaplin aptly described as “brilliant and sagacious,” Ross is a gadfly on the wall taking note of the operations of a system designed to crank out mediocrity.

It was to be the war to end all wars, and it began at 11:15 on the morning of June 28, 1914, in an outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire called Sarajevo. It would end officially almost five years later. Unofficially, it has never ended: the horrors we live with today were born in the First World War.It left millions-civilians and soldiers-maimed or dead. And it left us with new technologies of death: tanks, planes, and submarines; reliable rapid-fire machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare. It introduced us to U-boat packs and strategic bombing, to unrestricted war on civilians and mistreatment of prisoners. Most of all, it changed our world. In its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, whole populations lost their national identities as political systems, and geographic boundaries were realigned. Instabilities were institutionalized, enmities enshrined. And the social order shifted seismically. Manners, mores, codes of behavior; literature and the arts; education and class distinctions-all underwent a vast sea change. And in all these ways, the twentieth century can be said to have been born on the morning of June 28, 1914-- Back cover.

Written with a trenchant, sardonic edge, The Group is a dazzlingly outspoken novel and a captivating look at the social history of America between two world wars. "Juicy, shocking, witty, and almost continually brilliant."--CosmopolitanAward-winning Mary McCarthy's most celebrated novel follows the lives of eight Vassar graduates, known simply to their classmates as “the group.” An eclectic mix of personalities and upbringings, they meet a week after graduation to watch Kay Strong get married. After the ceremony, the women begin their adult lives -- traveling to Europe, tackling the worlds of nursing and publishing, and finding love and heartbreak in the streets of New York City. Through the years, some of the friends grow apart and some become entangled in each other's affairs, but all vow not to become like their mothers and fathers. It is only when one of them passes away that they all come back together again to mourn the loss of a friend, a confidante, and most importantly, a member of the group.

This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs. In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence — and derail — the larger agendas of a political party. He investigates the politics of the irrational, shedding light on how the behavior of individuals can seem out of proportion with actual political issues, and how such behavior impacts larger groups. With such other classic essays as “Free Silver and the Mind of 'Coin' Harvey” and “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?”, The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains both a seminal text of political history and a vital analysis of the ways in which political groups function in the United States. "Recent months have witnessed an attack of unprecedented passion and ferocity against the national government. The Republican Party has apparently embarked on a crusade to destroy national standards, national projects, and national regulations and to transfer domestic governing authority from the national government to the states. A near majority of the Supreme Court even seems to want to replace the Constitution by the Articles of Confederation… "Unbridled rhetoric is having consequences far beyond anything that antigovernment politicians intend. The flow of angry words seems to have activated and in a sense legitimized what the historian Richard Hofstadter called the 'paranoid strain' in American politics." - Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Wall Street Journal, June 7, 1995

When Chicago Black Hawks hockey legend Boom Boom Warshawski slips off a wharf and drowns in Lake Michigan, cousin V.I. questions the report of accidental death and rumors of suicide. V.I.'s search leads to the center of Chicago's shipping industry, where she risks her own life to discover her cousin's killer

THE MEMORIES OF MIDNIGHT START HERE! Welcome to the dazzling and surprising novel of suspense from master storyteller Sidney Sheldon. In Paris...Washington...and a fabulous villa in Greece, an innocent American girl becomes a bewildered, horror-stricken pawn in a game of vengeance and betrayal. She is Catherine Douglas, a woman caught in a web of four lives intertwined by passion as her handsome husband pursues an incredibly beautiful film star...and as Constantin Demiris, a legendary Greek tycoon, tightens the strands that control them all.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stanley Karnow offers the defintive history of the Vietnam conflict--a monumental narrative that analyzes, clarifies, and demystifies the tragic ordeal of this unpopular, unwinnable war. Photos.

This text is a comprehensive guide to opening moves in the game of chess. Covering every standard line of play, it provides the essence of contemporary opening theory, and should be useful to both club and tournament players.

The French Sociologist Émile Durkheim is commonly cited as the father of sociology. Principle to the work of Durkheim was his concern with regard to how modernity was effecting traditional social and religious institutions, more specifically with how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in an era in which new social institutions were coming into being. One of his principles works, "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life" is a comparative theory of the religious lives of ancient and modern societies and the sociological influence of their respective religious institutions. Durkheim argues that the essence of religion is the concept of the sacred and it is this single phenomenon that is common to all religions. The work extensively discusses the concept of the sacred by examining the worship of totems in ancient religions and by arguing that modern societies have displaced this totemism by ascribing a new form of sacredness to the individual and individual rights. "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life" is a compelling exposition on the impact of religious institutions in ancient and modern life and a worthy read for anyone interested in religious or sociological studies. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

A classic of religion, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life is a worthwhile and incredible read for anyone interested in religion.

Jean Roberts, having sought security in a wealthy man's love, finds that her values have betrayed her daughter Tana, who casts her destiny with the civil rights movement.

Danielle Steel's fifty-first bestselling novel tells the story of an extraordinary man, the woman who loved him, and a bond so powerful it could never be broken. It is about finding the courage to let someone you love fly free.... The phone call came on a snowy December afternoon. Kate was certain it was Joe, the brilliant, visionary man who had been her soulmate, her driving force since the night they met, almost thirty-four years before. What she got was the one call she had never wanted, and didn't expect. As the snow continued to fall, Kate's mind drifted back, to the moment when she and Joe first met. She had been just seventeen and he was young, powerful, dazzling, and different from any man she'd ever known. It was just days before Christmas, 1940. The war is raging in Europe when Kate Jamison makes her debut in New York City. In a room filled with the scions of East Coast society and the leading political figures of the day, it is Joe Allbright who catches Kate's eye. At twenty-nine, Joe is the brilliant protege of Charles Lindbergh, and already a legend in flying circles for his record-breaking speed and state-of-the-art airplane designs. All Kate sees is a tall, strikingly handsome man who seems at once awkward and larger-than-life, like a shining star -- just out of reach. Joe, too, is caught off balance by his response to Kate, seeing in this beautiful young woman vitality and youth, the lifelong soulmate he never expected to find. As the months pass, they will meet again, forging a bond that will set the course of both their lives. Kate will go off to study at Radcliffe. Joe will skyrocket to fame in modern aviation. Joe's planes are his life, his passion. But irresistibly drawn to her, like moth to flame, he always comes back to Kate. Even after the long, dark years of World War II, when Kate was sure she had finally lost him completely, Joe returns. Never willing to stay, always needing to fly away. As planes are for him, Joe is the passion in her life. When the war is over, at twenty-four Kate wants marriage and a family. Joe wants the world, his limitless horizons, and the unique aviation empire he is building. Unwilling to wait any longer, Kate moves on with her life. But when a chance encounter brings them together again, the time has finally come to make a choice, one that will have profound consequences for them both for the rest of their lives. Against a vivid backdrop of war and thrilling innovation, Danielle Steel breathes life into history, weaving an intensely human story that spans three decades, of two intensely different people who, in spite of themselves, are irrevocably woven into the fabric of each other's lives. With rare insight and emotional power, she brings to life a tale of unconditional love, sacrifice, and compromise -- the joining of two remarkable halves into a single, far more powerful whole. It is a novel of extraordinary grace and compassion from a master storyteller, perhaps the best story she has told.

To look at one was to see the other. For family, even the girls' own father, it was a constant guessing game. For strangers, the surprise was overwhelming. And for the twins Olivia and Victoria Henderson, two remarkable young women coming of age at the turn of the century, their bond was mysterious, marvelous, and often playful--a secret realm only they inhabited. Olivia and Victoria were the beloved daughters of a man who never fully recovered from his wife's death bearing them in 1893. Shy, serious Olivia, born eleven minutes before her sister, had taken over the role of mother in their lush New York estate, managing not only a household but her rebellious twin's flights of fancy. Free-spirited Victoria wanted to change the world. She embraced the women's suffrage movement and dreamed of sailing to war-torn Europe. Then, in the girls' twenty-first year, as the first world war escalated overseas, a fateful choice changed their lives forever. It began when Victoria's life was about to become a public scandal. It led to a painful decision, and brought handsome lawyer Charles Dawson into the Henderson's life and family. Hand-picked by the twins' father to save his daughter's reputation, Charles was still mourning his wife's death aboard the Titanic, struggling to raise his nine year-old son alone, determined never to lose his heart again. Charles wanted to believe that, for the sake of his son, he could make an unwanted marriage work. But in an act of deception that only Olivia and Victoria could manage, the twins took an irrevocable step, which changed both their lives forever; and took one of the twins to the battlefields of France, the other into a marriage she longed for but could not have. From Manhattan society to the trenches of war-ravaged France, Mirror Image moves elegantly and dramatically through a rich and troubled era. With startling insight, Danielle Steel explores women's choices: between home and adventure, between the love for family and the passion for a cause, between sacrifice and desire. But at the heart of Mirror Image is a fascinating, realistic portrait of identical twins, two vastly different sisters who lead their lives and follow their destinies against a vivid backdrop of a world at war.

Danielle Steel celebrates families of every stripe in her compelling novel—a tale of three very different couples who struggle and survive, love, laugh, and learn to take life . . . Coco Barrington was born into a legendary Hollywood family. Her mother, Florence, is a mega-bestselling author. Her sister, Jane, is one of Hollywood’s top producers and has lived with her partner, Liz, for ten years in a solid, loving relationship. Florence, widowed but still radiant, has just begun a secret romance with a man twenty-four years her junior. But Coco, a law-school dropout and the family black sheep, works as a dog walker, having fled life in the spotlight for an artsy Northern California beach town. When Coco reluctantly agrees to house-sit for Jane, she discovers an unexpected houseguest: Leslie Baxter, a dashing but down-to-earth British actor who’s fleeing a psycho ex-girlfriend. Their worlds couldn’t be more different. The attraction couldn’t be more immediate. And as Coco contemplates a future with one of Hollywood’s hottest stars, as her mother and sister settle into their lives, old wounds are healed and new families are formed—some traditional, some not so traditional, but all bonded by love. With wit and intelligence, Danielle Steel’s novel explores love in all its guises, taking us into the lives of three unusual but wonderfully real couples. Funny, sexy, and wise , One Day at a Time is at once moving, thought-provoking, and utterly impossible to put down.