L'opera di Mario Puzo attinge spesso dalla sua eredità, radicata nei quartieri poveri di immigrati di New York City. Dopo il servizio militare e i primi tentativi letterari, raggiunse la fama mondiale con un'opera fondamentale che esplora la criminalità organizzata e le dinamiche familiari. La sua scrittura, frequentemente informata da aneddoti tratti dal giornalismo pulp, dimostra una chiara intenzione di connettersi con un vasto pubblico e raggiungere il successo commerciale. Sebbene i libri precedenti abbiano ottenuto il plauso della critica, il maggiore impatto di Puzo derivò dalla sua capacità di creare narrazioni che risuonavano profondamente, diventando significativi punti di riferimento culturali.
This trade paperback edition of a classic novel includes a fresh Introduction and Afterword, enhancing its appeal for both new readers and longtime fans. Praised for its engaging narrative, the story delves into themes of power, family, and crime, offering a captivating exploration of its characters and their turbulent lives. The added content provides additional insights, making it a compelling read for those interested in a rich, immersive experience.
Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series designed for learners of English as a foreign language. With adapted text, new illustrations, and language exercises, the print edition provides access to additional online materials. The series features popular classics, contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing learners to bestselling authors and engaging content. It includes eight levels aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Each Reader contains exercises to practice grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills, along with questions that test comprehension and enhance vocabulary. A Level 7 Reader, this title is classified as B2 on the CEFR scale. The text includes complex sentences and introduces advanced grammatical structures such as future perfect simple, mixed conditionals, and modals for deduction. The story follows Michael Corleone, who initially seeks a normal life away from his family's criminal enterprises and wishes to marry his American girlfriend, Kay. However, after his family is attacked, he realizes he must seek revenge. The print edition grants access to online resources, including a digital book, audio edition, lesson plans, and answer keys.
New York, 1933. The city and the nation are in the depths of the Great Depression. The crime families of New York have prospered in this time, but with the coming end of Prohibition, a battle is looming that will determine which organisations will rise . . . and which will face a violent end. For Vito Corleone, nothing is more important than his family's future. His youngest children, Michael, Fredo, and Connie, are in school, unaware of their father's true occupation; and his adopted son, Tom Hagen, is a college student; but he worries most about Sonny, his oldest child. Vito pushes Sonny to be a businessman, but Sonny - seventeen years old, impatient, and reckless - wants something else: to follow in his father's footsteps, and become a part of the real family business. An exhilarating and profound novel of tradition and violence, of loyalty and betrayal, THE FAMILY CORLEONE carries on the legacy of The Godfather for a new generation.
In the final days of the Second World War, Michael Rogan, an American intelligence officer, is tortured by a group of seven senior Gestapo officers who need to discover the secrets he alone can give them. Ten years later, recovered from the appalling injuries he suffered and determined to revenge the death of his wife at the hands of the same men, he begins a quest to track down and kill each one of his tormentors. Dark, violent and graphic, this is an addictive thriller about how far one man will go to exact his own justice.
It is 1963 in New York, and things have never been better for the Corleones.
They've taken out their Mafia rivals, and legitimised the Family. Outside the
fortified building owned by Michael Corleone, newly undisputed Boss of Bosses,
a parade of people wait to ask the great man for favours. Only one thing
remains to be done.
This novel takes place in the years 1955-1965, but it is built upon the story of that 'year of delicate political manoeuvring' - and how, in winning the battle that year, Michael Corleone set the stage to lose the war. Originally published: London: Heinemann, 2004.
The third novel in Mario Puzo's Mafia trilogy surpasses the third Godfather film and many others with its colorful characters, snappy dialogue, and a complex, satisfying plot. The story begins with retired Mafioso Don Raymonde Aprile attending his grandson's confirmation in New York, handing out gold coins to the children. The scene is vividly described, from the cathedral's grandeur to the innocent attire of the children. However, the tranquility shatters when the Don is shot, setting off a chain of events that threatens the family's legacy. With Don Aprile incapacitated, his adopted nephew Astorre must take charge. The Don's biological children are largely distanced from the Mafia lifestyle, with one son in the army, another in television, and his daughter Nicole, a sharp lawyer who often debated moral issues with her father. Astorre, an amiable macaroni importer, is secretly prepared to step into the Don's shoes, but he must navigate the treacherous waters of loyalty and vengeance. As the plot unfolds, questions arise about who orchestrated the hit: a conflicted FBI agent, a rival mob boss, or a diplomat with ulterior motives. Puzo's signature lean prose, cynicism, and flawed yet endearing characters shine throughout, making this a fitting conclusion to his career. The novel is a cinematic experience in its own right, capturing the essence of the Mafia world.
Con II padrino ha creato uno dei più memorabili best-seller di tutti i tempi; adesso, in contemporanea mondiale, il grande ritorno di Mario Puzo rinnova quella leggenda. Ecco L'ultimo padrino, dunque: ovvero Don Domenico Clericuzio che, come i suoi predecessori, ha sterminato i rivali senza pietà. Un patriarca feroce anche nei legami di sangue e spietato nel portare a termine il progetto mafioso degli anni Novanta: trasformare la potenza tentacolare di Cosa Nostra in un impero finanziario legale. Come? Mettendo le mani su Las Vegas e Hollywood, sul gioco d'azzardo e sullo spettacolo con l'aiuto dei politici, ricattati o compiacenti. Il romanzo si apre sul flashback del battesimo di due bambini nella fortezza dei Clericuzio a Long Island: sono Dante e Cross, nipoti del Don.
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.
Michael Corleone, il figlio del "Padrino", sta per concludere i suoi due anni di esilio in Sicilia e rientrare negli Stati Uniti, quando lo raggiunge un ordine di suo padre: deve portare con sé Salvatore Giuliano, sottraendolo al destino di morte che già si prepara per lui. Comincia così la storia del Siciliano, il giovane fuorilegge che ha osato sfidare i rappresentanti del governo di Roma e la mafia stessa in nome dei diritti e della libertà dei suoi conterranei. Le imprese di Giuliano hanno leso interessi troppo ingenti, smascherato alleanze di potere inconfessabili, infranto patti insanguinati di oppressione scritti nel codice distorto dell'onore. Per la mafia, e per chi con essa domina e sfrutta la Sicilia, è troppo: don Croce, il 'capo dei capi' ha emesso la condanna a morte sulla testa di Giuliano. Riuscirà Michael Corleone a salvare il Siciliano?
La più importante, accanto a "Il Padrino", romanzo dello scrittore e sceneggiatore americano. Una colorata saga sociale che esplora temi di amore e sesso, le relazioni tra uomo e donna, e i lati oscuri dell'animo umano: corruzione, tradimento, brama di ricchezza e fama. Puzo ritrae ambienti di giocatori professionisti, scrittori, editori, e in particolare il mondo che conosce meglio: i cineasti di Hollywood, attori, registi e produttori. La narrazione si sposta continuamente tra Las Vegas, New York e la soleggiata California.
Mörderisches Spielfieber in Las Vegas! Gangster, Callgirls und Zuhälter, Sänger, Tänzer und Magier – sie alle bevölkern Las Vegas, die schillernde Stadt in der Wüste von Nevada. Was sie verbindet, ist der Traum vom schnellen, leicht erworbenen Reichtum und Glück. Las Vegas, das ist die amerikanische Metropole des Glücksspiels – gegründet und erbaut von Beauftragten der Mafia und des New Yorker Gangstersyndikats. Glückliche und erfolglose Spieler kommen aus allen Ländern der Erde hier zusammen. Mario Puzo, Autor des Weltbestsellers "Der Pate", entwirft in diesem atemlos fesselnden Roman ein ebenso spannendes wie funkelndes Kaleidoskop dieser bizarren Stadt, ihrer fiebrigen Atmosphäre und der bunt zusammengewürfelten Menschen, die sie bevölkern.
LA POWIEŚĆ PIÙ OSOBISTA DI PUZO CON LICZNYMI WĄTKAMI AUTOBIOGRAFICZNYMI. STORIA DI UN'INDEFORMABILE E DURA ITALIANA CHE CERCA IL SUO POSTO IN UNA GIUNGLA URBANA DOMINATA DALLA LEGGE DEL PIÙ FORTE. NELLA SPERANZA DI CAMBIARE IL SUO DESTINO, LUCIA SANTA ABBANDONA L'ITALIA FAMILIARE E, COME SPOSA A DISTANZA, ARRIVA A NEW YORK INSIEME A MIGLIAIA DI ALTRI IMMIGRATI. ACCETTA CON UMILTÀ LA MORTE DEL MARITO, CHE PERDE LA VITA IN UN INCIDENTE, LASCIANDOLA INCINTA E ANCORA GIOVANE VEDOVA. PRIVA DI ILLUSIONI, SI RISPOSA.
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. . . .
Il famoso romanzo di Mario Puzo, Il Padrino, offre un ritratto suggestivo del boss dei boss, il cui potere si estende dalla polizia ai magnati della finanza. L'opera ha conquistato il pubblico per la sua rappresentazione della mafia classica in un'epoca e in luoghi dove essa esiste ancora oggi. I segreti dei legami familiari e del crimine hanno suscitato l'interesse di molti lettori, amplificato dall'adattamento cinematografico con Marlon Brando e Al Pacino, diretto da Francis Ford Coppola. Questa "saga americana" del sottobosco newyorkese svela in dettaglio le rigide regole che governano la storia sanguinosa della guerra del clan Corleone contro altre quattro famiglie. Don Corleone, temuto anche dai più potenti, controlla le fila di un mondo di contrabbandieri, estorsori e giocatori d'azzardo, dove il crimine e la vendetta si intrecciano. Affrontare la criminalità organizzata, alimentata da denaro sporco e traffico di droga, è una sfida complessa, specialmente quando i mafiosi agiscono secondo il motto "Questa è cosa nostra". Un romanzo classico della letteratura americana degli anni '60 che conferma senza pietà le parole di Balzac: "Dietro ogni grande ricchezza c'è un crimine".
