"The story of the Astors is an extraordinary but true tale of ambition, invention, destruction, and reinvention -- and of cunning, determination, hard work, hubris, infighting, and greed. One of the wealthiest men to have ever lived, John Jacob Astor first arrived in New York in 1783 and built a fortune through a ruthless expansion of his beaver trapping business, which he grew into an empire through real estate that enriched him at the expense of...

"Amy Chua's debut novel, The Golden Gate, is a sweeping, evocative, and compelling historical thriller that paints a vibrant portrait of a California buffeted by the turbulent crosswinds of a world at war and a society about to undergo massive change. In Berkeley, California, in 1944, Homicide Detective Al Sullivan has just left the swanky Claremont Hotel after a drink in the bar when a presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms upstairs....

Captures the delicate balance of class and gender in contemporary India as witnessed through the lives of two women--Sera Dubash, an upper middle-class housewife, and Bhima, an illiterate domestic hardened by a life of loss and despair.

"Truman Capote's unfinished final novel is an unsparing tell-all of New York high society that sent a seismic shock through Capote's social circle--and the entire literary world."-- Dust jacket flap. "Catapulted from a childhood spent in a Missouri orphanage to the dizzying peaks of New York high society, the destitute and debauched writer P. B. Jones spends his days moving between the paltry cell of a Manhattan Y.M.C.A. and the opulent playgrounds...

The housekeeper for the sister of Jackie Kennedy, Her Serene Highness Lee Radziwill, Marlene meets celebrated author Truman Capote, and when he takes her under his wing as a writer, she sees his darker side -- especially his penchant for mining his friends' private lives for material. May 1961: Marlene enters the Fifth Avenue apartment of Lee Radziwill to interview for the position of housekeeper and cook. The stylish wife of London-based Prince...

"In order to negotiate with Irene Adler in secret, Count Albert Moriarty arranges a masquerade ball at Buckingham Palace. What is the secret contained in the documents Miss Adler stole? And what is she really after? The Lord of Crime, the Great Detective, and the Beautiful Thief battle it out in the shadows while the fate of London rests in their hands."--Page [4] of cover.