Most Popular Books by Howard Fast

In the late summer of 1949, a racist mob in upstate New York fiercely assaulted working class blacks and whites at an outdoor concert featuring African-American singer Paul Robeson. Howard Fast, a noted American novelist, was vacationing in the Peekskill area at the time and was appointed chairman of the concert. He was at the scene when concert-goers were attacked by men throwing broken bottles and rocks; swinging clubs and fence posts; and wielding knives and brass knuckles. Shouting racial epithets, the mob was held off only by a show of black and white unity. Fast was not only an eyewitness to these frightening events, but also, in each of two separate incidents was one the participants. His trained reporter’s eye and narrative skill produced this compelling and detailed you-are-there account of the violence. The present edition recalls that long-forgotten incident—recognized today as a milestone in the civil rights movement.

For years, the people of Judea suffered under the oppressive rule of King Antiochus and the Syrian-Greeks. Under his reign, Jews were massacred and Judaism was effectively outlawed. Fed up with the injustices, peasant farmer Judas Maccabee and his brothers lead a revolt against the king and mold the people of Judea into an army. Judas'' older brother Simon stands beside him as his faithful lieutenant and second in command. But while these brothers are united in ideals on the field of battle, their love of the same woman threatens to tear them apart.

"A most wonderful book...there hasn''t been a novel in years that can do a job on readers'' emotions that the last fifty pages of The Immigrants does."—Los Angeles Times The first book in bestselling author Howard Fast''s beloved family saga, The Immigrants is a transcendent work of historical fiction. In this sweeping journey of love and fortune, master storyteller Howard Fast recounts the family saga of roughneck immigrants determined to make their way in America at the turn of the century. Quick to ascend from the tragic depths of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Dan Lavette becomes the head of a powerful shipping empire and establishes himself among the city''s cultural elite. But when he finds himself caught in a loveless marriage to the daughter of San Francisco''s richest family, a scandalous love affair threatens to destroy the empire Dan has built for himself. The first novel of a compelling family saga, The Immigrants is fast-paced, emotional historical fiction that captures the wide range of relationships across Immigrant America during the tumultuous defining events of the early twentieth century. NOW A MOTION PICTURE

The best-selling novel about a slave revolt in ancient Rome and the basis for the popular motion picture.

DIVWhen the love of his life is accused of murder, a university professor will stop at nothing to prove her innocence/div DIVOn a late night drive home, Ike Goldman, a retired Columbia University law professor, saves a woman from killing herself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. The woman’s name is Elizabeth Hopper, and Ike, a widower, unexpectedly finds himself falling in love. But everything changes when Elizabeth’s estranged husband, a rich Wall Street executive she claims abused her, is found murdered, and Elizabeth is the prime suspect. Now Ike must uncover the truth, even as he fights to protect the woman he loves./divDIV /divDIVFast-paced and suspenseful, Redemption is one of Howard Fast’s last novels, and a remarkable story of love and loyalty amid the most harrowing of circumstances./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate./div

This edition brings the story of 20th-century Southern politics up to the present day and the virtual triumph of Southern Republicanism. It considers the changes in party politics, leadership, civil rights and black participation in Southern politics.

The twilight years of a woman of independent spirit. She is Barbara Lavette, 68, whose life has been spent fighting for noble causes. In keeping with her unusual character she makes a gift of her jewelry to a black burglar trying to rob her.

She''ll Risk Her Freedom to Find Freedom "A novel of satisfying depth and breadth, written in good, clean, forceful prose." -Chicago Tribune Desperate for independence and scornful of the hypocrisy of the upper class, Barbara Lavette returns to her family home in San Francisco following her first year of college determined to make her own way in the world. After abandoning her privileged life to disguise herself as a poor volunteer down on the wharf, Barbara journeys to France to report on the onset of Nazi terror and the coming of World War II. But when tragedy strikes deep at the heart of the life Barbara has built for herself in Europe, she is forced to return to San Francisco heartbroken and alone where she must face the family she ran away from. The second book in master storyteller Howard Fast''s epic family saga, Second Generation vividly depicts the lives of the Lavette family as they struggle to persevere in America during the chaos of the Depression and World War II.

DIVFast’s powerful denunciation of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, and a remarkable historical document of Spain’s fight for freedom from governmental oppression/div DIVHoward Fast was a longtime proponent of the antifascist movement in Spain. During the Spanish Civil War, Fast supported a hospital for Popular Front forces, and in 1950 he was sentenced to three months in jail for refusing to give the names of other supporters of that hospital to the House Un-American Activities Committee. In this pamphlet, published in 1951, Fast gives an overview of Spain under the rule of General Francisco Franco, including the mass strikes that were organized to weaken him. Fast’s fervent appeals to readers to reject American military agreements with Spain demonstrate his passionate opposition to fascism. As Fast writes, “Spain fights on, and in those three words there is a miracle. . . . There is no Spanish worker, professional, intellectual or peasant who strikes a blow for freedom without our being intimately concerned.”/divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate./div

In 1939 in Berlin, an American tourist and his wife are arrested as spies. The wife is tortured to death, but the husband escapes. The novel follows him as he attempts to live down that tragedy, first as an officer in the U.S. Army, later in trying to find someone to love. By the author of Seven Days in June.

Originally published in 1942, The Unvanquished is the story of the Continental Army and George Washington in the desperate early months when the American Revolution faced defeat and disintegration. The book begins with the retreat across Manhattan''s East River that saved the Continental Army after the Battle of Long Island. It ends with Washington''s recrossing of the Delaware in the daring 1776 Christmas Eve raid on the Hessian camp at Trenton.

Telling the story of the capture, trial, and execution of a Hessian drummer boy by Americans during the Revolution. This novel provides an opportunity to explore the difficult moral positions of war, along with the complications of the Quaker family who hid and sheltered the boy.

The conclusion to the Lavette saga in which the eldest daughter of Dan Lavette --now in her sixties runs for Congress.

DIVA foreign correspondent is targeted by the US government after aligning with the Communist Party for a controversial story /div DIVIn what many consider his most autobiographical novel, bestselling author Howard Fast revisits the McCarthy-era anticommunist witch hunts he endured during his years as a member of the Communist Party. In The Pledge, Bruce Bacon, a war correspondent stationed in Bengal near the end of World War II, investigates a terrible famine that has left millions in India starving to death, despite ample food supplies stored—and allegedly withheld—by the British. Seeking to tell his story back in New York, Bacon meets members of a communist organization, including a Daily Worker reporter named Molly Maguire. But the America he returns to is not the same one he left behind, and soon Bacon discovers that associating with communists has put him squarely in the crosshairs of the House Un-American Activities Committee./divDIV /divDIVThis suspenseful and powerful novel revisits the guilt-by-association fear and suspicion that gripped America during the second Red Scare, which had harrowing consequences for those unfortunate enough to be accused./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate./div

Howard Fast’s bestselling coming-of-age novel about one boy’s introduction to the horrors of war amid the brutal first battle of the American Revolution On April 19, 1775, musket shots ring out over Lexington, Massachusetts. As the sun rises over the battlefield, fifteen-year-old Adam Cooper stands among the outmatched patriots, facing a line of British troops. Determined to defend his home and prove his worth to his disapproving father, Cooper is about to embark on the most significant day of his life. The Battle of Lexington and Concord will be the starting point of the American Revolution—and when Cooper becomes a man. Sweeping in scope and masterful in execution, April Morning is a classic of American literature and an unforgettable story of one community’s fateful struggle for freedom. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate.

A stunning novel of American revolutionaries battling the brutal winter at Valley Forge—from the “literary phenomenon” and author of Spartacus (The Guardian). General George Washington’s twelve thousand soldiers march into Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, under-fed and under-clothed, their frozen feet leaving bloody tracks in the snow. Shortly after the soldiers establish quarters for the cold months ahead, disease begins to rip through the camp. The men, helpless against sickness and despair, are facing the longest winter of their lives—and their survival will determine the fate of their young nation. Passionate and unforgettable, Conceived in Liberty is one of Fast’s rawest accounts of the brutality of the Revolutionary War, and of the heroism of its soldiers. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate.

DIVA hard-boiled insurance investigator upends New York in search of a perfect diamond necklace/div DIVDeath follows the Sarbine necklace. Its eleven diamonds are flawless, and all cut from the same stone—one of the largest ever unearthed from the mines of South Africa. But lately this most elegant piece of jewelry has become a bad luck charm. Its original owner killed himself, and his daughter, who was meant to inherit the piece at eighteen, died shortly after. When the necklace itself goes missing, it becomes Harvey Krim’s problem—and his chance to make a fortune./divDIV /divDIVAn insurance investigator with a porous moral code, Krim will collaborate with thieves if it means recovering the necklace. The answer could lie with a Texan maid named Lydia Harvey, but she seems too inept to be a skilled jewel thief. Those who possess the Sarbine necklace have a short lifespan, and with so many others looking for it, if Krim isn’t careful, his neck could be next./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate./div

"Howard Fast makes superb use of his material. ... Aside from its social and historical implications, Freedom Road is a high-geared story, told with that peculiar dramatic intensity of which Fast is a master." -- Chicago Daily News

North Castle Books are designed to bring the global variety of knowledge to a broader audience. Primarily aimed at the general reader through bookstore distribution, North Castle Books makes available, in handsomely bound paper editions, titles of literary and cultural significance that our editors have found to be of lasting importance. Spanning the range of fields from Asian Studies to American Studies, from short stories to scholarly treatises, from myth to memoirs, from Economics to Government, from Russian Politics to Recent History, North Castle Books will occupy an important place on bookshelves. Each edition will be reasonably priced, affording students, scholars, and serious readers the means to expand their horizons and broaden their aesthetic understanding.The story of the Cheyenne Indians in the 1870s, and their bitter struggle to flee from the Indian Territory in Oklahoma back to their home in Wyoming and Montana."Mr. Fast''s novel will stand or fall upon its value as a dramatic, finely presented story. It is all of that: a model, which may easily become a classic example, of what to put in and what to leave out in the writing of a historical novel. ... I do not believe it is saying too much to suggest that in the person of Mr. Fast we may have the next really important American historical novelist". -- Joseph Henry Jackson, New York Herald Tribune Books"Fast''s writing, austerely polished and austerely poetic, is admirably suited to this epic tale of a desperate effort for dignified survival. ... Fast has gotten to the core of this incident and made it into a rich American novel". -- New York Times Book Review"An amazing restoration and reconstruction. Thecharacters breathe, the landscape is solid ground and sky, and the story runs flexibly along the zigzag trail of a people driven by a deep instinct to their ancient home. I do not know any other episode in Western history that has been so truly and subtly perpetuated as this one. A great story lost has been found again, and as here told promises to live for generations". -- Carl Van Doren

DIVDIVAs the Red Scare grips America, a midwestern literature professor becomes an unlikely hero in the struggle for freedom /divDIVProfessor Silas Timberman has never been one for theatrics. A quiet American literature professor at a mid-sized college, Timberman decides to build a semester’s course around the democratic ideals of Mark Twain—a subject that under normal circumstances would not arouse the suspicions of the university administration. But as the Korean War rages on and congressional investigations of potential Communists gain traction, no amount of ideological nuance is safe. When Timberman is asked to renounce his work or face the repercussions, he finds that not only his tenure but also his very freedom is at stake./divDIV /divDIVInspired by Fast’s own persecution at the hands of the House Un-American Activities Committee, Silas Timberman is a gripping record of the injustices of McCarthyism and a rousing ode to those who fought against it./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate./div/div

DIVWhen a starry-eyed model walks off with a powerful woman’s mink coat and diamond bracelet, New York City’s police race to find her—before gangsters get her first/div DIVMargie Beck has always been a magnet for calamity. When she accidentally walks off with a $17,000 mink coat and the $90,000 bracelet contained within it, she finds herself again at the center of an exciting—and possibly deadly—criminal plot./divDIV /divDIVAs the city’s police search for Margie, its criminal class joins the hunt. With only the help of her boyfriend and a clever dress designer, Margie must outsmart her pursuers before it’s too late. This will be a thrilling day, but it could be Margie’s last./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate./div

DIVDissatisfied with life on the Upper East Side, a socialite finds a new favorite pastime: robbing banks/div DIVWhen James R. Hastings, president of the City Federal Bank, began construction of a new branch on Madison Avenue, he vowed to make it burglar proof. Vaults set forty feet below ground, an array of cameras, and a quartet of burly guards were intended to deter any bandit. But James Hastings did not count on being robbed by his wife./divDIV /divDIVThree weeks after the bank opens, a demure old woman removes a Luger from her handbag and asks a clerk to empty her register, then disappears into the bathroom with a haul of over $50,000. When the guards arrive, a scared young woman flees the bathroom and points them to the stalls. Inside, they find nothing but a discarded disguise, while the young woman walks calmly out the front door. This is Penelope Hastings—a bored banker’s wife who, now that she has taken up crime, will never be bored again./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate./div

DIVA freak subway accident traps a New York architect in a deadly conspiracy that will threaten what he loves most /divDIVJohn T. Camber is waiting on an uptown subway platform the moment his life changes forever. It happens quickly, when a haggard elderly man utters a sudden plea for help before falling on the tracks in front of an oncoming train. Reeling from the accident, Camber flees the station, only to be accosted by a brass-knuckled thug who believes Camber knows more than he’s letting on. And just like that, the suburban commuter finds himself inextricably trapped in a deadly conspiracy beyond his understanding. Dangerous people are after Camber, and if they can’t get to him, they’ll target his daughter instead. . . ./divDIV /divDIVTense and action-packed, Alice is a stunning thriller about a man caught in events beyond his control, who will stop at nothing to protect his family./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate./divDIV/div

She''ll stand up for her family, no matter the cost Former socialite Barbara Lavette is unconcerned about the gossip that surrounds her new marriage. However, her husband Bernie, a poor mechanic whom she met in the midst of World War II, is willing to do anything to prove his worth to her as well as the society that shuns him. Barbara will support her husband in any way she can, but when she becomes the victim of an attack by the Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities, she is forced to stand trial. Caught in a Communist witch hunt, Barbara must do whatever it takes to defend her values, clear her name, and find a way to reunite her family. The third book in Howard Fast''s epic family saga, The Establishment follows the Lavette family as they attempt to persevere in a nation consumed with fear during the tumultuous period following World War II. Praise for The Immigrants series: "Relentless pace of events...real experience leaping full-bodied from Fast''s imagination!" -New York Times "There hasn''t been a novel in years that can do a job on readers'' emotions that the last fifty pages of The Immigrants does." -Los Angeles Times "Emotional, exciting, and entertaining." -Philadelphia Inquirer

Presents a fictionalized account of Paine''s contribution to keeping alive the passion for freedom during the grueling years of the American Revolution.

One of the most prolific authors of the twentieth century presents a classic of popular history, his masterwork on the four-thousand-year history of the Jewish people, beginning with Moses and running all the way through to the post-World War II establishment of the State of Israel.

DIVDIVFast’s epic novel, about one man’s family tree stretching through history from the Revolutionary War, portrays the best and worst of the American experiment/divDIV /divDIVBroken and sick, a young Revolutionary War soldier from New York is taken in by an innkeeper’s family and nursed to health. The soldier, John Preswick, falls in love with the innkeeper’s daughter, even as his wife Inez waits back home. Through five generations, the two families he starts share an intertwined fate. The Preswicks take part in some of the country’s most significant episodes, from the Civil War to the California Gold Rush, with fortunes discovered, lost, and made on the backs of others./divDIV /divDIVA tenacious chronicler of American history, Howard Fast was one of the most prolific historical novelists of the twentieth century. Strange Yesterday is perhaps his most sweeping, ambitious novel./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate./div/div

A novel about George Washington’s trip across the Delaware River and the Battle of Trenton by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Spartacus. Immortalized on canvas by Emanuel Leutze, Washington’s journey across the Delaware River is one of the most celebrated moments in American history. But the true story of the crossing, and of what came after, is often lost in the legend. In The Crossing, Howard Fast, author of The Immigrants and April Morning, writes with striking historical detail and relentless narrative drive about Washington’s surprise attack, leading the Continental Army to its Revolutionary War victory against the one thousand Hessian mercenaries in Trenton, New Jersey—a momentous occasion in American history. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate.

A pair of imaginative science fiction story collections from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Spartacus, Freedom Road, and the Immigrants saga. Over his long and illustrious career, New York Times–bestselling author and prolific novelist Howard Fast proved himself a master of any literary genre, from historical fiction in Spartacus to family generational drama in his bestselling Immigrants saga. Although his output in fantasy and science fiction is relatively modest, these two short story collections, reminiscent of classic Twilight Zone episodes, demonstrate that Fast’s imagination knew no boundaries. The General Zapped an Angel: Nearly forty years after the publication of his first story, “Wrath of Purple,” in the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, Fast returned to the genre with a set of nine supremely entertaining tales. In this collection, a Vietnam general shoots down what appears to be an angel, a man sells his soul to the devil for a copy of the next day’s Wall Street Journal, and a group of alien beings bestow a mouse with human thought and emotion. “These stories amply display Fast’s considerable gifts as a writer—his clear, concise, often elegant prose, his sense of humor, his gift of sympathetic imagination, and sheer talent as a storyteller.” —Tangent A Touch of Infinity: This follow-up to The General Zapped an Angel offers thirteen brisk and engrossing science fiction stories. In “The Hoop,” a scientist builds a portal to an unknown destination, which the mayor of New York City hijacks to use as a garbage dump until the location’s surprising—and hilarious—revelation. And in “The Egg,” set three thousand years in the future, a research team discovers an egg, something they have never seen before, cryogenically frozen in a nuclear bunker. “Fast, a master of economy . . . spins his stories quickly and most effectively.” —Associated Press

DIVDIVA soldier in the American Revolution must struggle for his country’s existence and its most precious ideals—even though it means fighting against his commanding officers /divDIVIn 1781, Jamie Stuart is a twenty-three-year-old soldier serving amongst Jews, free slaves, Catholics, Native Americans, and others grouped together in a “Foreign Brigade.” They are part of a larger Pennsylvania Line that is forced to fight without pay, re-enlist without end, and survive without basic provisions. Enslaved and abused, Stuart and his friends join the mutiny of the entire Pennsylvania Line against its officers, holding their superiors accountable to the principles promised by their developing nation./divDIV /divDIVIn The Proud and the Free, Fast brilliantly imagines a forgotten moment in American history that marked one of the nation’s earliest struggles for freedom against tyranny./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate./div/div

A novel based on the controversial case of two immigrants executed for murder in 1927, from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Spartacus. Seven years, two trials, and three appeals after their arrest for robbery and murder in 1920, anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti await execution in their prison cells. Supporters around the world have passionately argued their innocence, particularly when Celestino Madeiros, a young mobster, confesses to the murders along with other members of his gang. But no retrial is ordered; on August 23, 1927, Sacco and Vanzetti are executed. Howard Fast’s heartrending fictional account offers a window into the thoughts and feelings of a presumed-innocent Sacco and Vanzetti, and is a withering indictment of the American justice system. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate.

DIV“The General Zapped an Angel was written for fun, and offers me a chance to smile at the absurdity of human existence. Therefore, these stories of fantasy and science fiction are among the most serious writing I have done.” —Howard Fast/div DIVNearly forty years after the publication of his first story, “The Wrath of Purple,” in the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, Howard Fast returned to the genre with a set of nine supremely entertaining tales. In this collection, a Vietnam general shoots down what appears to be an angel, a man sells his soul to the devil for a copy of the next day’s Wall Street Journal, and a group of alien beings bestow a mouse with human thought and emotion. Fast, one of the bestselling authors of the twentieth century, skewers war hawks, oil speculators, and profit-at-all-costs capitalism, issues that are still relevant today./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate./div

DIVBestselling author Howard Fast’s straightforward introduction to Zen meditation/div DIVHoward Fast began to formally practice Zen meditation after turning away from communism in 1956. The Art of Zen Meditation, originally published by the antiwar political collective Peace Press in 1977, is the fruit of Fast’s study: a brief and instructive history of Zen Buddhism and its tenets, written with a simplicity that is emblematic of the philosophy itself. Fast’s study of Zen also inspired his popular Masao Masuto mystery series about a Zen Buddhist detective in Beverly Hills, which he published under the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham./divDIV /divDIVThe Art of Zen Meditation is illustrated with twenty-three beautiful photographs./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate./div