100 Years of "The Great Gatsby"

On Long Island in the early 1920s the mysterious Jay Gatsby tries to rekindle his romance with Daisy, a young woman who has married another man, the wealthy and cruel Tom Buchanan.

"The "Fresh Air" book critic investigates the enduring power of The Great Gatsby -- "The Great American Novel we all think we've read, but really haven't." Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece...

"Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby's periphery, he was in the trenches and tunnels of World War I. Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. He embarks on a redemptive transcontinental journey that takes him from a doomed, whirlwind romance in Paris to the debauchery and violence of New Orleans."--Publisher.

"The Plaza is the account of one vaunted New York City address that has become synonymous with wealth and scandal, opportunity and tragedy. With glamour on the surface and strife behind the scenes, it is the story of how one hotel became a mirror reflecting New York's place at the center of the country's cultural narrative for over a century."-- Dust jacket flap.

Recently the basis for a major motion picture starring Hollywood golden boy Brad Pitt, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was written in 1922 by the golden boy of early twentieth-century American fiction, F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of such era-defining masterworks as The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night. The tale follows the travails and triumphs of the title character, who is born in the body of an elderly man and becomes

...

"Immigrant. Socialite. Magician. Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society-she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She's also queer and Asian, a Vietnamese adoptee treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her. But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions,...

Meeting through mutual friends in Chicago, Hadley is intrigued by brash "beautiful boy" Ernest Hemingway, and after a brief courtship and small wedding, they take off for Paris, where Hadley makes a convincing transformation from an overprotected child to a game and brave young woman who puts up with impoverished living conditions and shattering loneliness to prop up her husband's career.