Beach Reads of Yesteryear

Cecile is the spoiled 17-year-old daughter of Raymond, a wealthy Parisian widower vacationing in a villa on the French Riviera. Their pleasure-seeking existence is threatened when Raymond decides to marry Cecile's straitlaced godmother, Anne, who disapproves of the teenager's steamy summer affair with Philippe.

In a chilling literary hall of mirrors, Patricia Highsmith introduces Tom Ripley. Like a hero in a latter-day Henry James novel, Ripley is sent to Italy with a commission to coax a prodigal young American back to his wealthy father. But Ripley finds himself very fond of Dickie Greenleaf. He wants to be like him, exactly like him. Suave, agreeable, and utterly amoral, Ripley stops at nothing--certainly not only one murder--to accomplish his goal. Turning...

First published by St. Martin's in 1958, Robert Traver's Anatomy of a Murder immediately became the number-one bestseller in America, and was subsequently turned into the now classic Otto Preminger film of the same name, starring Jimmy Stewart and Duke Ellington.

It's not only the most popular courtroom drama in American fiction, but one of the most popular novels of our time.
A gripping tale of deceit, murder, and a sensational

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This is Irving Stone's powerful and passionate biographical novel of Michelangelo. His time: the turbulent Renaissance, the years of poisoning princes, warring popes, the all-powerful Medici family, the fanatic monk Savonarola. His loves: the frail and lovely daughter of Lorenzo de Medici; the ardent mistress of Marco Aldovrandi; and his last love—his greatest love—the beautiful, unhappy Vittoria Colonna. His genius: a God-driven fury from which...

This smash bestseller about privileged Vassar classmates shocked America in the sixties and remains “juicy . . . witty . . . brilliant” (Cosmopolitan).
 At Vassar, they were known as “the group”—eight young women of privilege, the closest of friends, an eclectic mix of vibrant personalities. A week after graduation in 1933, they all gather for the wedding of Kay Strong, one...

Tells the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town.

"Funny, touching and infused with wonder, as all love stories should be."—San Francisco Examiner

The iconic tale of love and loss that has touched the hearts of millions, Love Story has become one of the most adored novels of our time. It has sold more than twenty-one million copies worldwide and became a blockbuster film starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw. It is the story

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Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. With this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison transfigures the coming-of-age story as audaciously as Saul Bellow or Gabriel García Márquez. As she follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family's origins, Morrison introduces an entire cast of...

Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie ply their individual witcheries in contemporary Eastwick, Rhode Island, and are themselves bewitched by a dark, wealthy, decadent stranger.