The Great Gatsby (Signet Classics)

This classic work, first published in 1925, encapsulates the divine, decadent Jazz Age. It follows the unwealthy Nick Carraway on his search for the American dream, which leads him to the doorstep of Jay Gatsby, an enigmatic millionaire known for both his opulent parties and his obsessive love for Nick's cousin, the married Daisy Buchanan. With a mixture of envy and dismay, Nick observes Gatsby and his lavish but empty life in the Long Island town of West Egg, while Gatsby yearns for Daisy and all that shimmers across the Sound in East Egg. The result is a chronicle of the drama, deceit, and excess that characterized the lives of the wealthy.