Для студентов школы иностранных языков Анкор, действует библиотека иностранной художественной литературы. Библиотека находится в юго-западном филиале. Все желающие студенты могут взять на прочтение любую понравившуюся книгу.

Список книг, представленных в библиотеке школы иностранных языков Анкор:

PLUM ISLAND (detective)
by Nelson DeMille

Review
John Corey of the NYPD is convalescing from gunshot wounds at Uncle Harry's house on NorthFolk Long Island. His friends, Tom and Judy Gordon, who worked on Plum Island, are found murdered on their front porch and John agrees to assist Chief Sylvester Maxwell with the case. Eboli virus, biological warfare germs, buried treasure, pirates, vineyards, and the Peconic Historical Society are all tied together somehow. What is the thread that links them? Add a major hurricane to the mix and you are face to face and boat to boat with the murderer.

Sons and Lovers (novel)
by D.H. Lawrence

Review
Paul Morel grows up in The Bottoms, a community of coal miners in Nottinghamshire. His mother, Gertrude Coppard Morel--whose family were burghers until they went bankrupt, & father, Walter, have had a horrible marriage since she realized, six months into the marriage that he was of a significantly different temperament than she.
There began a battle between the husband and wife-a fearful, bloody battle that ended only with the death of one. She fought to make him undertake his own responsibilities, to make him fulfill his obligations. But he was too different timber. His nature was purely sensuous, and she strove to make him moral, religious. She tried to force him to face things. He could not endure it-it drove him out of his mind.
As Paul grows to young manhood he becomes an artist and begins to have relationships with women: Miriam Leivers, a religious good girl, and Clara Dawes, married but estranged from her husband.
Meanwhile, when his mother contracts cancer, Paul murders her with morphine. The novel ends with him striding confidently towards a golden future, borne up by the continuing support of her love for him.

A Simple Plan (novel)
By Scott Smith

Review
On an afternoon jaunt, Hank, his brother, and a friend accidentally discover a wrecked plane. Inside they find the dead pilot and a sack containing four million dollars. The men know that they should notify the authorities, but instead they devise a foolproof scheme for keeping the money. They will hide it for one year, tell no one, live normally, and then divide the loot into three equal portions. Nothing can go wrong with such a simple plan-or can it? Smith draws his characters deftly, fully exploring the changes that occur in each of the men after their discovery. The plot is clever, gripping, and full of twists. As Hank narrates the story, the tension builds slowly, but is sustained until the surprise ending.

The Rainbow (novel)
by D.H. Lawrence

Review
he Rainbow chronicles three generations of Brangwens living near Marsh Farm. Sexually stormy marriages set the stage for conflict and power struggles within the home. Tradition, passion, children, and compromise define the Brangwen clan, giving its members both happiness and sadness. Ursula Brangwen, the granddaughter of the original Brangwens, takes on the pressures of her upbringing in order to experience life and love on her own terms.
The Brangwen family has lived at Marsh Farm for many generations. The family has a long established connection with the earth.
When Tom Brangwen inherits the farm, he wants to add excitement to his life by marrying Lydia, a recent widow, and a Polish exile. Lydia has a daughter, Anna, from her previous marriage. Tom and Lydia's marriage is distant and silent. They do not understand each other, but have a strong sexual connection. During Lydia's pregnancy with Tom's children, Tom and Anna bond. Tom and Anna remain extremely close.....

Play It as It Lays (novel)
by Joan Didion

Review
The novel begins with an introspective mind monologue by the 31-year-old Maria Wyeth, followed by short reminiscences of her friend Helene, and ex-husband, film director Carter Lang.
The “facts” from Wyeth’s childhood include being raised in a small town Silver Wells, Nevada, by a gambling, careless father and a neurotic mother who used to “croon to herself” of chimeric yearnings. After graduating from a high school in Tonopah, encouraged by her parents, she leaves for New York to become an actress. In the Big Apple, Maria works temporarily as a model and meets ex-boyfriend, Ivan Costello, as is later insinuated, a domineering psychological blackmailer who has no scruples using the money and the body of his acquiescent girlfriend.
During her stay in the city, Maria receives the news about the tragic death of her mother, possibly a victim of a self-provoked car accident. Her father dies soon afterwards, leaving useless mineral rights to his business partner and friend, Benny Austin. Maria withdraws from acting and modeling to get over the shock of her mother’s death, splits up with Ivan, moving to Hollywood with the newly met Carter.
In the course of the novel, Maria becomes pregnant, plausibly by Les, and is coerced by Carter to abort. The traumatic procedure leaves her mentally shattered and haunted by nightmares of dying children. Looking for oblivion, she plunges into her routine of compulsive driving on the roads and freeways of southern California, wandering through motels and bars, drinking and chancing sexual encounters with second-rate actors and ex-lovers. She spends a night in jail for drug possession, after a one-night stand with a minor movie star, Johnny Waters.
The book concludes with reclusive Maria planning a new life with Kate, resolved to “keep on playing,” despite her past.

A Small Town in Germany (novel)
by John Le Carre

Review
A Small Town In Germany is set in the late 1960s in Bonn, which was, at the time, the capital of West Germany. A British Foreign Office official named Alan Turner arrives from London to investigate the disappearance of a minor functionary in the British Embassy named Leo Harting. Along with Harting, several secret files have disappeared. The head of security at the embassy, Rawley Bradfield, is hostile to Turner's investigation. Despite this, he hosts both Turner and Ludwig Siebkron (head of the German Interior Ministry, who is close to Klaus Karfeld, a German industrialist, who is building support for his new party with some success) to dinner at his home Tuesday night. Turner starts off suspecting Harting was a spy, but comes to realise that Harting had been secretly investigating Karfeld's Nazi career, and had become certain that Karfeld was the former admistrator of a wartime research facility that had poisoned thirty-one half-Jews; and, in fact, is hiding not from the British but from Siebkron, and is probably planning to assassinate Karfeld. To Turner's chagrin, Bradfield is not sympathetic to Harting's situation, and not interested in protecting him. Bradfield regards Harting as a criminal and a political embarrassment.

On Writing (novel)
by Stephen King

Review
The first section of the book is an autobiography centering on King's early exposure to the world of fiction and his childhood attempts at writing. He describes his early attempts to get published, his breakthrough success with the novel Carrie, and his subsequent development as a tremendously popular author. King also discusses his problems with drugs and alcohol.
The second section is practical advice on writing, from tips on grammar to ideas about developing plot and character. King describes it as a guide for how "a competent writer can become a good one." He places particular stress on his beliefs that a writer should edit out unnecessary details and avoid the use of unnecessary adverbs.
The third section is once again autobiographical and discusses the 1999 automobile accident in which the writer was struck by a vehicle while walking down an isolated country road. King describes his brush with death, his painful recovery and his struggle to start writing again.
In the UK paperback version, a short story by Garret Adams entitled "Jumper" was included at the end of the book. It was the winner of the On Writing competition.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (novel)
by Oscar Wilde

Review
An artist, besotted with the beauty of the young man Dorian Gray, paints his finest work, a portrait of breathtaking power and youthful splendour. Dorian, having been rocked by the thought that he too will grow old and unlovely one day, impetuously wishes that he could ever and forever look as the proud beauty in the picture does. The moment is bewitched, and his wish is granted. He proceeds to live life to the full; he takes what pleasure he wishes, to the degree he wishes, whenever he wishes, without regard for consequence to himself or others. He remains a pristine god-like wonder to behold. But the picture tells his tale in the changing portrait, which he must hide in the dust of the attic. Every debauch, every cruel and unheeding act, every draining of life's dregs is reflected in the horror that the portrait becomes. One day it must all be paid for and come to an end. And too late he realises that he has been paying for all that he has done as he went along, despite appearences - paying with his soul and his humanity.

Anna Karenina (novel)
by Leo Tolstoy

Review
Anna Karenina marries an older, wealthy man she does not love. He is reserved, yes, but he does have feelings, and he gave his wife "all the love he was capable of." They have a son who adores his parents, and live a nice, steady, respectful life. Then the young and handsome Count Vronsky shows up, who is about to be engaged to a beautiful young lady named Kitty. He sees Anna - and the poor Kitty is instantly forgotten. Vronsky doesn't care a bit about breaking the young girl's heart, nor does he care about breaking Anna's family. He "cannot help it" and starts chasing Anna.
Anna, who has never been in love before, is swept off her feet. At first she tries to resist the Count, but then leaves her husband and son. This brings more suffering than joy. The society turns its back on Anna and Vronsky, Anna cannot see her son whom she terribly misses. She wants to divorce her husband, but he refuses. Anna and Vronsky live together unmarried. Slowly, things seem to be turning around - they have a baby girl, and some of their former friends re-open their homes for them. But happiness is still not there. Anna doesn't seem to be very interested in her little daughter. She is tortured by doubts, she is not sure whether Vronsky still loves her and wants to be with her. Finding no peace, she commits suicide.

The House of the Spirits (novel)
by Isabel Allende

Review
Three generations of women living in Chillie struggle with the patriarch of their family and with the political and social upheavals surrounding them. Clara is a psychic who marries Esteban Trueba, a staunch conservative; her daughter and granddaughter are caught up, through love and family, in the conflicts. Linked by name - Clara, Alba and Blanca all meaning "White", they are three strong women with a will to have their own way and a loyalty to those they love that will defy almost anything. A superbly colorful book is full of magical realism and actual history.

Travels (novel)
by Michael Crichton

Review
Bestselling fiction writer Michael Crichton describes his life and travels. It begins with his short-lived medical days, but most of the book fantastically tells of his adventures throughout the world including climbing Mount Kilamanjaro, exploring African wildlife, swimming with sharks, and becoming entranced by the paranormal in the Southwest U.S. desert.

Timeline (thriller)
Michael Crichton

Review
A group of archaeologists study an old excavation site in France. They have been finding buildings and stuff, and in one of them they find a letter dated in 1357 from their boss asking for help. They also find his glasses. The researchers get a visit from a person who says that they can go to a different universe to study this site like it was in 1357. He tells them this is exactly what their boss has done. So, they send a team to try and save their boss. 3 of the archaeologists go along to identify him. As soon as they get there, things start to go terrible wrong: big black knights come and kill two of the armed mercenaries sent back with them. The group splits up and eventually goes on the ride of their lives to try and rescue their friend and save their own skins in the process of a big war going on. This book is excellent and seems plausible and believable.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (novel)
by Lewis Carroll

Review
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) - originally published as Alice's Adventures under Ground. The story centers on the seven-year-old Alice, who falls asleep in a meadow and dreams that she plunges down a rabbit hole. She finds herself first too large and then too small. She meets such strange characters as Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the King and Queen of Hearts, and experiences wondrous, often bizarre adventures, trying to reason in numerous discussions that do not follow the daylight logic. Finally she loses her temper, bringing down this dream world and wakes up. 

North and South (novel)
by Elizabeth Gaskell

Review
North and South presents, as the title suggests, a contrast between the old agricultural gentry of the south of England and the new industrialists of the north.
The book is a social novel that tries to show the industrial North and its conflicts in the mid-19th century as seen by an outsider, a socially sensitive lady from the South.
The story: the heroine, Margaret Hale, is the daughter of a Nonconformist minister who moves to the fictional industrial town of Milton after leaving the Church of England. The town is modeled after Manchester, where Gaskell lived as the wife of a Unitarian minister.
The change of lifestyle shocks Margaret, who sympathizes deeply with the poverty of the workers and comes into conflict with John Thornton, the owner of a local mill, also a friend of her father. After an encounter with a group of strikers, in which Margaret attempts to protect Thornton from the violence, he proposes to her, telling her that he is in love with her; she rejects his proposal of marriage, mainly because she sees it as if it were out of obligation for what she had done. Later, he sees her with her fugitive brother, whom he mistakes for another suitor, and this creates further unresolved conflict. Margaret, once she believes she has lost his affection, begins to see him in another light, and eventually they are reunited.

Queen of the Damned (thriller)
by Anne Rice

Review
Lestat, the 200-year-old vampire brat "prince" from "Interview with the Vampire" and "The Vampire Lestat" has decided to join a band and call all other vampires to him by telling vampire secrets and by acting as a symbol of evil. Little does he know that his music has awakened the first vampire, Akasha, who wants to make her dream world, with no violence or poverty, a reality and who has fallen in love with Lestat.
Akasha kills every vampire who Lestat doesn't love, or who she can't kill, or who she has some reason for keeping alive.
Meanwhile, those vampires who are left gather together to hear the fourth oldest vampire Maharet's story of how she and her her twin sister were kidnapped and almost killed by Akasha for their society's practice of cannabalism and were turned by the third oldest vampire, Khayman, who is also at the gathering.
Louis, the vampire Lestat turned and loves, and Gabrelle, Lestat's mother, who he also turned, are also at the gathering, but they don't agree with the older vampires' conclusion that if they have to, they must kill Lestat to kill Akasha, since Lestat is protecting Akasha as she teaches him more vampire talents. Killing Akasha proves another problem, for as the older vampires know, it's been tried before, killing every young vampire and causing the others to feel like they were dying.
Mekare, Maharet's twin sister, who went to sleep and went insane, was awakened by the knowledge that Akasha awoke, and is coming to get her revenge on the vampire queen, whom she entitled, in her last words of a bitter curse (Akasha cut out her tongue) "Queen of the Damned.

Thunderhead (thriller)
by Douglas J. Preston and Lincoln Child

Review
Nora Kelly believes that the letter written 16 years earlier by her father reveals the location of Quivira, the City of Gold. Through passages in the letter, Nora discovers an ancient road and convinces the Institute's director to provide funding for an expedition. She journeys with an elite team of archaeologists and scientists to discover the truth. However, the group soon finds that terror awaits them through the site and its protectors.

Interview with the Vampire (thriller)
by Anne Rice

Review
Reporter Daniel interviews a man who claims to be a vampire, and hears an amazing tale. Louis was a young plantation owner, turned into a vampire by the charismatic and unscrupulous Lestat. They complete their 'family' by making a child vampire, a girl called Claudia. Claudia and Louis flee from Lestat, seeking the origins of vampires in the Old World. This is a melancholy tale of lost idealism and an eternal life that turns out to be a curse for the young man on whom it has been bestowed - Louis takes little pleasure in killing, and his supernatural powers only alarm him as he finds himself becoming ever less human.

Mr. Murder (thriller)
Dean Koontz

Review
Martin Stillwater ,a novelist with a wife and children he adores, attempts to save his family from a stranger who one rainy afternoon breaks into Martin's house and accuses him of stealing his family, his name, and his life.
Martin has no choice but to take his family and flee, even as he questions his own sanity. But wherever they go, the stranger is right behind them.

Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (detective)
Agatha Christie

Review
When Bobby Jones finds a man who has fallen over the side of the cliff in Marchbolt, Wales, he sends his friend Dr. Thomas to go get help. The man is dying and right before the end he wakes up and says, "Why didn't they ask Evans?" Bobby is puzzled about this, but later forgets it until he tells the dead man's family about it and is poisoned! Fortunately, he doesn't die, and his friend, Lady Frances Derwent decides to help him with the case. They don't know exactly what happened, but they are convinced that the man who Bobby kept watch over was deliberately killed. Will they be able to unravel this mystery? Or have they bitten off more then they can chew?

The Inheritors (novel)
William Golding

Review
This novel is an imaginative reconstruction of the life of a band of Neanderthals. It is written in such a way that the reader might assume the group to be modern Homo sapiens as they gesture simply to one other, not seeming to speak, and bury their dead with heartfelt, solemn rituals.
A male and female pair witnesses the disappearance or outright death of members of their group, culminating in the kidnapping of their young daughter. The male and female Neanderthal infiltrate and observe the humans' encampment to kill a wilder beast on a river and there, witness what is to them an incomprehensible series of quasi-religious rituals which center around a matriarch-priestess figure. (The Neanderthal, unable to swim, are terribly afraid of crossing the water to reach their daughter.) The priestess desires to keep the young Neanderthal, whose red hair and infantile features catch her fancy, as a sort of pet. In one of the book's many humorous scenes, the Neanderthals discover a pot of honey fermented by the humans and become drunk.
All save the last chapter of the novel are written in a stark, simple style, reflecting the humble perspective of the Neanderthal group. Their observations of early human behavior serve as a filter for Golding's exercise in paleoanthropology, in which modern readers will recognize prefigurations of later human spirituality and culture. In the final chapter, after the conclusive showdown between humans and Neanderthals over the young kidnapped girl, the humans ultimately flee the area in their boats. This last chapter is the only one written from the humans' vantage, and here Golding's style assumes full depth in the humans' ability to describe and comprehend what has happened. Interestingly, the humans see the furry, reddish creatures by whom they are beset as a type of forest demon whom they regard with fearful superstition.

The Mandelbaum Gate (novel)
by Muriel Spark

Review
To rendezvous with her archeologist fiancé in Jordan, Barbara Vaughn must first pass through the Mandelbaum Gate--which divides strife-torn Jerusalem. A half-Jewish convert to Catholicism, an Englishwoman of strong and stubborn convictions, Barbara will not be dissuaded from her ill-timed pilgrimage despite a very real threat of bodily harm and the fearful admonishments of staid British diplomat Freddy Hamilton.

The Immigrants (novel)
by Howard Fast

Review
A love story of tremendous beauty...a tale of passion, adventure, and ambition set against the streets of San Francisco, America's most romantic city.
Dan Lavette, the son of an Italian fisherman, battles from the rubble of the San Francisco earthquake to build a fortune in the shipping industry. Rising to success through hard work and a loveless marriage to the daughter of the city's wealthiest family, he risks it all for the exotic beauty of a woman who shares his secret and scandalous passion.
From Nob Hill to the harbor, San Francisco comes alive through three immigrant families -- Italian, Irish, and Chinese -- whose intertwining dreams are propelled by the emotional events of America's coming of age...

The Greek Treasure (biographic novel)
by Irving Stone

Review
Henry Schliemann is 30 years older and is getting a divorce when he decides to marry young Sophia Engastromenoses. She is a beautiful, dutiful Greek girl. He considers her to be the perfect mate for him in his new profession of excavating for the lost city of Troy.
Sophia marries him and believes in his dream. He is a self made millionaire but not an academician. The philologists, historians, and archeologists of the late 19th century believe that Troy is a myth and that Homer never existed as a person. Instead, the reigning belief is that The Odyssey and The Iliad are ballads that were put together from many myths and many story tellers. She believes his written proof and works beside him to find the physical evidence.
This is a biographical novel of the true story of Henry and Sophia Schliemann. They did uncover Troy and more proofs of Homer's ballads. This follows their story from when 17-year-old Sophia is first introduced to the man until Henry's death many years later. It is a fascinating story. It is not full of action, but instead frustration and exultation. They live just like all families do, with arguments and making up. They have bureaucratic problems and red tape. They succumb to temptations at times, and at others are very charitable.
The early stages of modern excavation are studied in this novel. It also examines life in the historical circles of Europe in the late 1900's. Stone has done a wonderful job in portraying the Schliemanns. This is a novel because he had to conjecture many things. Yet his research is so well done and the characters so vivid that it does not ring false notes in his conjecture.

The Outsider (novel)
Howard Fast

Review
In 1946 Leighton Ridge, a picture-book town just beyond commuting distance from New York City, still slumbers in a dream of rural New England, far from the holocaust and the war just ended, unprepared for the great social changes that will soon engulf even this peaceful community.
It is here that David Hartman, a chaplain fresh out of the Army, comes to serve as rabbi to fourteen Jewish families. And it is here that he meets Martin Carter, the Congregational minister who will become his closest and lifelong friend. They and their wives forge a bond that survives the unpleasant effects of a peculiarly nasty small-town prejudice and the larger strains of a world swept by great upheavals and governed by power, greed, and ambition.
Everything touches Leighton Ridge -- McCarthyism, the case of the atom spies, the civil rights movement, the agony of Vietnam, and the great push for women's rights. Always a response is demanded of the people who live in this community, men and women desperately trying to come to grips with their times, their destiny, and the network of joy and sorrow, good and evil, into which they were born and in which they must live. Woven through these larger events is the thread of a heartwarming and beautiful love story.
The unfolding of David Hartman's life is an enthralling journey through a part of our times that millions of us still remember, sometimes with nostalgia, sometimes with perplexity, and sometimes with heartbreak. Of all Howard Fast's many books, this perhaps will be remembered as the best and most important.

Airport (novel)
by Arthur Hailey

Review
The story takes place at a fictional airport called Lincoln International, based very loosely on O'Hare International Airport.
The main character is Mel Bakersfeld, the General Manager, whose devotion to his job is tearing apart his family and his marriage to his wife Cindy, who resents his use of his job at the airport as a device to avoid going to various after-hours events she wants him to participate in, as she attempts to climb into the social circles of Chicago's elite. His problems in his marriage are further exacerbated by his (platonic) friendship with the lovely divorcee, Trans America Airlines passenger relations manager Tanya Livingston.
The story takes place mainly over the course of one evening, as a massive Chicago snowstorm plays havoc with airport operations. The storyline centers on Bakersfeld's struggles to keep the airport open during the storm. His chief problem is the primary runway, 30. The stuck plane becomes a major problem as a later emergency requires that the runway become available.
The closing of runway 30 requires the use of shorter runway 25, which has the unfortunate consequence of causing planes to fly low over the Meadowood residential district, causing its residents to picket the airport in protest over the damage caused by airplane noise.
The book shows an overview of the vast and complex operations involved in operating a major commercial airport.
Other significant characters include Joe Patroni, the tough, grizzled head of maintenance operations for Trans America, who fights to move the disabled aircraft on its own power without damaging it in spite of the emergency, which could require the airplane be pushed off using snow plows; D.O. Guerrero, a desperate man determined to find a way to solve his financial problems regardless of what it will cost others; and Vernon Demerest, womanizing pilot for Trans America and brother-in-law to Bakersfeld, who opposes him on a number of issues.

Go To The Widow-maker (novel)
by James Jones

Review
The story of a man - a man of courage and fear, genius and passion. It follows him from the American Midwest to New York to the Caribbean. It is about mistresses and wives, danger and friendship, love and sex. It is the raw and shocking stuff of human life transformed by the art of a master novelist.
Story about a playwright who becomes obsessed with deep sea diving and the bond he forges with diving instructor at the expense of his wife and friends. His wife is a former call girl who wants to make herself a better life as she tries to change him from wild playboy to respectable husband. The guilt of a past relationship with another female character in the book haunts him…

Topaz (thriller novel)
by Leon Uris

Review
Topaz is a thriller novel written by Leon Uris and published in 1967. The Cold War-era story concerns an alleged plot between the Russians and Cubans, and a spy ring with connections to both. It also speaks about the Russian infiltrations into the French intelligence.
The main characters of the book are fast friends Michael Nordstorm and Andre Devereaux of the American and French intelligence. Devereaux goes out of way to get evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. He has information of Soviet links in French intelligence but is himself targeted when he reveals this to the French president. But he continues with his fight and exposes the mole ultimately seeking asylum in America with Nordstorm's help.
The hero of Topaz is a diplomat of the contaminated Power: made privy to the entire plot, he is torn by demands of loyalty to his country and the conviction that his own service harbors a great traitor. His refusal to carry out orders to spy on the allies forces him to run for his life, but not before he has proof of the communist conspiracy.

 Different Seasons (novel)
by Stephen King

Different Seasons (1982) is a collection of four novellas, markedly different in tone and subject, each on the theme of a journey.
The first is a rich, satisfying, non-horrific tale about an innocent man who carefully nurtures hope and devises a wily scheme to escape from prison.
The second concerns a boy who discards his innocence by enticing an old man to travel with him into a reawakening of long-buried evil.
In the third story, a writer looks back on the trek he took with three friends on the brink of adolescence to find another boy's corpse. The trip becomes a character-rich rite of passage from youth to maturity.
The final novella, "Breathing Lessons," is a horror yarn told by a doctor, about a patient whose indomitable spirit keeps her baby alive under extraordinary circumstances. It's the tightest, most polished tale in the collection.

 Dances with Wolves (novel)
by Michael Blake

Review
The world renowned American epic Dances with Wolves is the eternal story of one man's search for his place in the world. Set in 1863, the novel follows Lieutenant John Dunbar on a magical and unpredictable journey from the ravages of the Civil War to the far reaches of the imperiled American frontier, a frontier he naively wants to see.
Ordered to hold an abandoned army post, John Dunbar found himself alone, beyond the edge of civilization. Thievery and survival soon forced him into the Indian camp, where he began a dangerous adventure that changed his life forever.

The Moneychangers (novel)
by Arthur Hailey

Review
As the novel begins, the position of CEO of one of America's largest banks, First Mercantile American (very loosely based on the Bank of America) is about to become vacant due to the terminal illness of the incumbent chief. Two high-ranking executives groomed for the succession begin their personal combat for the position. One, Alex Vandervoort, is honest, hard-charging, and not blessed with good people skills; the other, Roscoe Heyward, is suave, hypocritical, and skilled in boardroom politics.
As these men fight, various issues involving the banking industry, such as credit card fraud, embezzlement, inflation, and insider trading are discussed. First Merchantile American is eventually revealed to have a doppelganger in the form of an organized crime family.
The fight for control of the bank continues under the darkening clouds of an approaching economic recession. One of the two CEO contenders is eventually unmasked as a double agent who has sold out a considerable fraction of the bank's capital to the power of a dishonest multinational conglomerate. The ensuing scandal almost wrecks First Mercantile, and the perpetrator is forced to commit suicide. The other candidate assumes the position of CEO of the half-ruined bank.
The Moneychangers was written before the wave of USA bank mergers that began in the 1980s.

 The Mill on the Floss (novel)
by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

Review
The Mill on the Floss, published in 1860, is based partially on Eliot's own experiences with her family and her brother Isaac, who was three years older than Eliot. Eliot's father, like Mr. Tulliver in the novel, was a businessman who had married a woman from a higher social class, whose sisters were rich, ultra-respectable, and self-satisfied; these maternal aunts provided the character models for the aunts in the novel. Like Maggie, Eliot was disorderly and energetic and did not fit traditional models of feminine beauty or behavior, causing her family a great deal of consternation.
By the time Eliot published The Mill on the Floss, she had gained considerable notoriety as an "immoral woman" because she was living with the writer George Henry Lewes, who was married, though separated from his wife. Social disapproval of her actions spilled over into commentary on the novel, and it was scathingly criticized because it did not present a clear drama of right and wrong. Perhaps the most offended reader was Eliot's brother Isaac, who was very close to her in childhood but who had become estranged from her when he found out about her life with Lewes; he communicated with her only through his lawyer. In the book, Eliot drew on her own experiences with a once-beloved but rigid and controlling brother to depict the relationship between Maggie and her brother Tom.

Tapestry (novel)
by Belva Plain

Review
Paul Werner, the key figure of a powerful New York banking family, is the protagonist in this saga of one man's concerns with the impending doom of World War II and the plight of his German-Jewish relatives and friends. Paul is caught in a passionless, childless marriage, and he struggles for years with the memory and reality of his first love and subsequent affairs of the heart. All of the characters are fleshed out, and the storyline is rich in historical perspective, attention to detail, and resolution of plot.

The Man of Property (Vol. 1 of The Forsyte Saga) (novel)
by John Galsworthy

Review
‘The Forsyte Saga’ is the story of a wealthy London family stretching from the eighteen-eighties until the nineteen-twenties.
The Man of Property is the first book in the saga. The ‘man of property’ of the title is Soames Forsyte, a partner in the family law firm. He is married to Irene but the marriage is not happy and during the book she falls in love with another man.
Another branch of the family is headed by ‘Old Jolyon,’ estranged from his bohemian artist son ‘Young Jolyon’ and the story tells of their rapprochement and of Young Jolyon’s daughter June who is engaged to an architect Philip Bosinney.
For those familiar with the Forsytes, this book takes us up to the night when Soames exercises his ‘rights’ and to the death of Bosinney.

The Moon and Sixpence (novel)
by W. Somerset Maugham

Review
The Moon and Sixpence (1919) is a book by William Somerset Maugham based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin. The story is told in episodic form by the first-person narrator as a series of glimpses into the life of the central character, Charles Strickland, a middle aged English stock broker who abandons his wife and children abruptly in order to pursue painting.
Strickland first goes to Paris and lives a destitute life there, lodging in run-down hotels and falling prey to both illness and hunger. Strickland finds support from a successful Dutch painter, who is repaid by having his muse and wife abandon him for Strickland.
After the Paris episode, the story continues in Tahiti. Strickland has already died, and the narrator attempts to piece together his life there from the recollections of others. He finds that Strickland had taken up with a native woman and started painting profusely. We learn that Strickland had settled for a short while in the French port of Marseilles before travelling east to Tahiti, where he lived for a few years before finally dying of leprosy. In his last days he paints with blind eyes, to the dismay of his loyal wife who had stayed with him till his last moment, even though leprosy is believed to be very contagious among the natives.
The basis of this story, Paul Gauguin, is considered to be the founder of primitivism in art. The main differences between Gauguin and Strickland are that Gauguin was French rather than English, and whilst Maugham describes the character of Strickland as being ignorant of his contemporaries in Modern art, Gauguin himself was well acquainted with Van Gogh.

Chesapeake (novel)
by James A. Michener

Review
The storyline, like much of Michener's work, depicts a number of characters over a long time period. Each chapter begins with a voyage which provides the foundation for the chapter plot. It starts in 1583 with American Indian tribes warring, moves through English settlers throughout the 17th century, slavery and tobacco growing, pirate attacks, the War of Independence and the Civil War, Emancipation and attempted assimilation, to the final major event being the Watergate scandal. The last voyage, a funeral, is in 1978.
The novel has a number of central themes, such as religion, slavery, poverty, and industry, each personified by a particular family that settles on the bay, and in some cases, by several families.
The religious element of the novel applies to the Steeds, who are Roman Catholic and the Paxmores who are Quakers. At one point there is a religious debate between Ralph Steed, a priest, and Ruth Brinton, a matriarch of the Paxmore family. Their disagreement is mainly about slavery.
Slavery is an overriding theme of the entire book. The Steeds are great landowners and one of the greatest holders of slaves in the colonies, whereas the Paxmores, through Ruth Brinton, are the first proponents of emancipation.
Poverty is best shown in the living standards of the Turlocks, who live in a marsh on the riverside.
The Caveneys, emigrated from Ireland due to the Potato famine are easily assimilated into the town, and become central characters in the oyster and duck subplots. As can be seen from each family's success through determination, the message is that they worked hard and attained great things.

 The Passionate Journey (novel)
by Irving Stone

Review
All during his youth and early manhood, John Noble was driven by a compelling hunger, a hunger he could neither grasp nor define. When, ultimately, he learned the object of his hunger: for essence, for universality, for God, he then began his passionate journey in search of the Godhead.
The Passionate Journey is a novel of love. First there was Frances, tall, black-eyed devoted Frances of his youth in Wichita, who gave him up for his own sake, yet loved him to the end of her days; then tiny Maud, the beautiful Parisian model who loved him in her own amoral Bohemian fashion; and lastly Amelia, of the tender voice and gentle soul, Amelia who loved and married him in spite of staggering difficulties, who lived and worked with him through years of alternating peace and terror, stayed with him because he could create sublime beauty with paint and brush and canvas and illuminate so brilliantly in terms of art all that seemed so confused to him in life itself.
In spite of his deep spiritual longing, John Noble played the part of a rip-roaring Wild Westerner all his life, never being seen without the two-gun holster which he wore strapped about his magnificent body. He used his guns once to shoot out the lights at the Beaux Arts Ball in Paris, and again to terrorize banks that refused to give him the money he thought was coming to him. He slept beside his ten-gallon Stetson in a Buffalo robe, drank prodigiously in cowboy fashion, knew far too intimately that insides of jails; and all because he was ashamed to show his overpowering spiritual hunger to what he believed was a cynical and godless world.

The Two Mrs. Greenvilles (novel)
by Dominick Dunne

Review
When Navy ensign Billy Greenville, heir to a vast New York fortune, sees showgirl Ann Arden on the dance floor, it is love at first sight. And much to the horror of Alice Greenville--the indomitable family matriarch--he marries her. Ann wants desperately to be accepted by high society and become the well-bred woman of her fantasies. But a gunshot one rainy night propels Ann into a notorious spotlight--as the two Mrs. Greenvilles enter into a conspiracy of silence that will bind them together for as long as they live. . . .

 The Pusher (thriller)
by Ed McBain

Review
Two a.m. in the bitter cold of winter: the young Hispanic man's body was found in a tenement basement. The rope around his neck suggested a clear case of suicide -- until the autopsy revealed he'd overdosed on heroin. He was a pusher, and now a thousand questions pressed down on the detectives of the 87th Precinct: Who set up the phony hanging? Whose fingerprints were on the syringe found at the scene? Who was making threatening phone calls, attempting to implicate Lieutenant Byrnes' teenage son? Somebody was pushing the 87th Precinct hard, and Detective Steve Carella and Lieutenant Pete Byrnes have to push back harder -- before a frightening and deadly chain tightens its grip.

 Vasilissa the Beautiful (A Fairy Tale)
collected by Aleksandr Afanasyev

Review
A merchant had, by his first wife, a single daughter, who was known as Vasilissa the Beautiful. When she was eight years old, her mother died after a time, her father remarried, to a woman with two daughters. Her stepmother was very cruel to her, but with the help of the doll that her mother gave her on the deathbed, Vasilissa was able to perform all the tasks imposed on her. When young men came wooing, the stepmother rejected them all because it was not proper for the younger to marry before the older, whereas none of suitors wished to marry Vasilissa's stepsisters.
One day the merchant had to embark on a journey….
Later, Vasilissa became an assistant to a maker of cloth in Russia's capital city, where she became so skilled at her work that the czar himself noticed her skill. He ultimately married Vasilissa for her beauty.

Sex and the City (novel)
by Candace Bushnell

Review
Though the novel, like the series, is told from the point of view of columnist Carrie Bradshaw, her adventures include more and varied friends than the three primaries featured in the series. Some situations and personalities were adapted for the show, but the characters that bear the names Charlotte York, Miranda Hobbs and Samantha Jones are minor and contrast their television counterparts.
Charlotte is a sex-crazed British girl in the book; in the series she is a naïve, sometimes prudish American WASP. Miranda is a cable executive in the book, but a lawyer in the series.

The Timothy Files (detective)
by Lawrence Sanders

Review
The Timothy Files is a good and bad news for fans of prolific suspense novelist Lawrence Sanders.
The good news is Timothy Cone. Despite the cliches--he is a hard-drinking loner and a Vietnam veteran--Timothy is a well-drawn and appealing character. He is a dogged truth seeker, has a firm sense of justice, and is compassionate on occasion.
Timothy enjoys an effective supporting cast of coworkers and policemen, including Samantha Whatley, Timothy’s no-nonsense superior.
The bad news is that The Timothy Files has a weak plot. Indeed, the book really contains three nearly unrelated short novels. Each holds the reader’s attention, but none is satisfactorily resolved. The reader knows almost from the outset who the villains are. Thus, rather than “who done it?” the real mystery is “what are they doing and why?” The answers are unconvincing.
The book also fails to exploit properly its setting--the enormous commotion and energy of Wall Street remains uncaptured. Nor does Sanders penetrate the innards of corporate power or business-related crimes; some time spent studying the well-publicized trading scandals might have helped in this regard.
In sum, this is a suspenseful book which is enjoyable as long as it is not taken too seriously.

The Horse You Came In On (detective)
by Martha Grimes

Review
The murder is in America, but the call goes out to Scotland Yard superintendent Richard Jury. Accompanied by his aristocratic friend Melrose Plant and by Sergeant Wiggins, Jury arrives in Baltimore, Maryland, home of zealous Orioles fans, mouth-watering crabs, and Edgar Allan Poe. In his efforts to solve the case, Jury embarks on a trail that leads to a unique tavern called "The Horse You Came In On”...

The Witching (thriller)
by Chet Hagan

Review
Old Evil, Fresh Blood…The old man had been brutally murdered. That much was clear. But when Sheriff Stauffer began his straightforward, by-the book investigation, he never imagined that the case would lead into the strange and twisting by ways of the supernatural.
Murder follows murder, until terror engulfs the picturesque Pennsylvania Dutch countryside. Shock by shock, the nightmare practices of hexerei come to light, still wielding their ancient powers of death and destruction.

The Third Bullet and Other Stories (stories)
by John Dickson Carr

Review
Seven puzzlesome masterpieces of crime and detection by the great John Dickson Carr…
The girl who knew too much… Hazel Loring was slim, beautiful and intensely alive. She made her living solving other people’s problems. But she must have had some problems of her own too because one night in the middle of December she was found on a park bench wearing only a brasserie and panties. She was dead, dead, dead…
Her skull was crushed. There was a red wig on the bench beside her.

The Tribe (thriller)
by Bari Wood

Review
What is the mysterious link between the Belzec concentration camp Jewish captives miraculously found alive and well-fed in their powdery gray clay coated barracs and the five teenagers who, 35 years later, after murdering a Rabbi’s son, are found hideously murdered in a powdery gray clay coated clubhouse? The author will have you furiously flipping pages to find the fascinating and frightening answer…

Night Watch (detective)
by Allistair MacLean

Review
The most foolproof security system ever devised is ushering Rembrandt’s priceless painting Night Watch around the world. But somehow, somewhere along the way, the real Night Watch has been stolen and replaced with an almost perfect fake.
The United Nations Anti- Crime Organization, UNACO, is immediately called into action. Strike force agents Mike Graham, C.W. Whitlock and Sabrina Carver must pick up the trail of an invisible enemy with a taste for art and a genius for deception. And the art theft is just the beginning of a chase that leads them to a nightmare world where million- dollar drug deals and counter espionage dog their every step…
Racing from Holland to the United States to Rio de Janeiro at Carnival time, Night Watch is a fast- moving adventure thriller packed with all the action and suspense of Alistair MacLean at his very best.

Cruel and Unusual (thriller)
by Patricia D. Cornwell

Review
The brutally wounded body of a 13-year-old is left propped up against a dumpster, and the only fingerprint found on the scene belongs to Joe Waddell, a recently executed criminal. Dr. Kay Scarpetta and police Lieutenant Pete Marino are puzzled by the crime and strikingly similar M.O. to Waddell’s victim. Then when a murder occurs implicating Kay as a suspect, she and Marino investigate before this unseen enemy destroys Kay.

 Kiss (thriller)
by Ed McBain

Review
Someone wants Emma Bowles dead- someone obsessively determined…and as close as a kiss. Terrified, the wealthy, beautiful blonde turns to a stranger for protection- and unwittingly places her fragile life in the bloodstained hands of a killer…