Best Selling Books by MARIO PUZO

After Mario Puzo wrote his internationally acclaimed The Godfather, he has often been imitated but never equaled. Puzo''s classic novel, The Sicilian, stands as a cornerstone of his work—a lushly romantic, unforgettable tale of bloodshed, justice, and treachery. . . . The year is 1950. Michael Corleone is nearing the end of his exile in Sicily. The Godfather has commanded Michael to bring a young Sicilian bandit named Salvatore Guiliano back with him to America. But Guiliano is a man entwined in a bloody web of violence and vendettas. In Sicily, Guiliano is a modern day Robin Hood who has defied corruption—and defied the Cosa Nostra. Now, in the land of mist-shrouded mountains and ancient ruins, Michael Corleone''s fate is entwined with the dangerous legend of Salvatore Guiliano: warrior, lover, and the ultimate Siciliano. Praise for The Sicilian “Puzo is a master storyteller.”—USA Today “The Balzac of the mafia.”—Time “An accomplished and imaginative writer.”—Los Angeles Times

A masterful saga of the last great American Mafia family and its powerful reach into Hollywood and Las Vegas, from the author of The Godfather The Last Don is Domenico Clericuzio, a wise and ruthless old man who is determined to see his heirs established in legitimate society but whose vision is threatened when secrets from the family''s past spark a vicious war between two blood cousins. The Last Don is a mesmerizing tale that takes us inside the equally corrupt worlds of the mob, the movie industry, and the casinos where beautiful actresses and ruthless hitmen are ruled by lust and violence, where sleazy producers and greedy studio heads are drunk on power, where crooked cops and desperate gamblers play dangerous games of betrayal, and where one man controls them all. Praise for The Last Don “Puzo is in top form. . . . Head-long entertainment, bubbling over with corruption, betrayal, assassinations, Richter-scale romance, and, of course, family values.”—Time “The most entertaining read since The Godfather.”—The New York Times Book Review “Skillfully crafted . . . It gives us Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the mob in one sweet dish.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Puzo returns after a quarter century to the terrain of his greatest success, The Godfather, to tell a second masterful tale of Mafia life.”—Variety “A compelling tale peopled by memorable characters . . . Puzo is a master storyteller with an uncanny facility for details that force the reader to keep the pages turning.”—USA Today

“A splendid piece of crime fiction . . . a fitting cap to a tremendous career . . . Through it all, Puzo keeps the heat on and keeps the reader enthralled with his characters and his story.”—The Denver Post To Don Raymonde Aprile’s children, he was a loyal family member, their father’s adopted “nephew.” To the FBI he was a man who would rather ride his horses than do Mob business. No one knew why Aprile, the last great American don, had adopted Astorre Viola many years before in Sicily; no one suspected how he had carefully trained him . . . and how, while the don’s children claimed respectable careers in America, Astorre Viola waited for his time to come. That time has arrived. The don is dead, his murder one bloody act in a drama of ambition and deceit—from the deadly compromises made by an FBI agent to the greed of two crooked NYPD detectives and the frightening plans of a South American Mob kingpin. In a collision of enemies and lovers, betrayers and loyal soldiers, Astorre Viola will claim his destiny. Because after all these years, this moment is in his blood. . . . “In Omerta (the Sicilian code for silence), Puzo sements his reputation as a page-turning storyteller.”—Detroit Free Press “More tasty twists than a plate of fusilli . . . Cunning entanglements with an FBI gangbuster, crooked cops and strong women sauce up this deft and passionate last novel by the Balzac of the Mafia.”—Time

Mario Puzo won international acclaim for The Godfather and his other Mafia novels. But before creating those masterpieces, Puzo wrote his first acclaimed novel The Dark Arena–an astounding story of a war-scarred young American in a battle against corruption and betrayal. . . . After coming home at the end of World War II, Walter Mosca finds himself too restless for his civilian role in America. So he returns to Germany to find the woman he had once loved–and to start some kind of life in a vanquished country. But ahead of Walter stretches a dark landscape of defeat and intrigue, as he succumbs to the corrupting influences of a malevolent time. Now he enters a different kind of war, one in which he must make a fateful decision–between love and ambition, passion and greed, life and death. . . .

"We are a family. And the loyalty of the family must come before everything and everyone else. For if we honor that commitment, we will never be vanquished—but if we falter in that loyalty, we will all be condemned." The crowning achievement of a truly phenomenal career, Mario Puzo''s final novel is a remarkable epic of greed, treachery, sin, and power beyond mortal imagination. It is a journey to a different time and place—when the Church held the ultimate authority and ambition was cloaked in robes of the richest velvet. But most of all, it is the spellbinding story of a father and his children, bonded by blood, devotion, and dark purpose, who would descend into hell to rise to challenge the heavens; a family whose name is forever emblazoned in the annals of infamy . . . Borgia!

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers'' story comprehension and develop vocabulary. The Godfather, a Level 7 Reader, is B2 in the CEFR framework. The longer text is made up of sentences with up to four clauses, introducing future perfect simple, mixed conditionals, past perfect continuous, mixed conditionals, more complex passive forms and modals for deduction in the past. Michael Corleone is determined not to join his family''s criminal businesses. He wants to live a normal life and marry his American girlfriend, Kay. But when members of his family are attacked, Michael realises that he has to take revenge. Visit the Penguin Readers website Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock online resources including a digital book, audio edition, lesson plans and answer keys.

A PRESIDENTIAL DYNASTY. AN ARAB TERRORIST ATTACK. DEMOCRACY UNDER SIEGE. Mario Puzo envisioned it all in his eerily prescient 1991 novel, The Fourth K. President Francis Xavier Kennedy is elected to office, in large part, thanks to the legacy of his forebears– good looks, privilege, wealth–and is the very embodiment of youthful optimism. Too soon, however, he is beaten down by the political process and, disabused of his ideals, he becomes a leader totally unlike what he has been before. When his daughter becomes a pawn in a brutal terrorist plot, Kennedy, who has obsessively kept alive the memory of his uncles’ assassinations, activates all his power to retaliate in a series of violent measures. As the explosive events unfold, the world and those closest to him look on with both awe and horror.

In this entertaining and insightful essay, Mario Puzo chronicles his rise from struggling writer to overnight success as author of The Godfather . Featuring a foreword by Ed Falco, author of The Family Corleone With equal parts cynicism and humor, Puzo recounts the book deal and his experiences in Hollywood while writing the screenplay for the Academy Award-winning movie. Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Evans, Peter Bart, Marlon Brando, and Al Pacino all make appearances—as does Frank Sinatra, in his famous and disastrous encounter with Puzo. First published in 1972, the essay is now available as an ebook. A must-have for every Godfather fan!

An inside look at the operations of the Cosa Nostra focuses on Mafia leader Vito Corleone, his family, and his underworld domain

Aux yeux de ses voisins, Don Corleone est un patriarche, un respectable père de famille qui a su donner à ses enfants une éducation où les rigoureux principes de la morale sicilienne s''adaptent aux nécessités de la vie américaine. Mais sa vraie famille est plus vaste ; c''est une des " familles " de la Mafia dont il est un des chefs les plus aimés, mais aussi les plus respectés, car il est raisonnable et juste. Pour eux, il est le Parrain. Le Parrain, c''est l''évocation d''un monde souterrain qui sape les fondations de l''Amérique, d''une pègre redoutable que la société voudrait ignorer, mais que de retentissants scandales ne cessent de révéler au grand jour. De New York à Las Vegas, des somptueuses villas de Hollywood au maquis de Sicile, voici le portrait d''une nation gangrenée par ses syndicats du crime, sa guerre des gangs et ses puissances occultes.

De aangenomen zoon van een vermoorde maffia-baas gaat op zoek naar de moordenaar en krijgt daarbij hulp van een FBI-agent.