Is there much to say about this one? Hats off to Mario Puzzo the mastermind behind the entire Corleone storyline. Pulling from the real life Genovese and Bonanno crime families of NYC, Puzzo constructs the greatest story of all time. Period. It literally has everything. Now I could be very biased here because Mafia stories are my favorite type of stories, but I think the proof is in the pudding. Reading this was such a gratifying experience, one experienced smiling ear to ear. All Francis Ford Coppola had to do to make one of the greatest movies of all time was copy and paste this book into a screenplay and then find Brando and Pacino and boom that’s it. Puzzo makes this 1969 novel so readable and action packed that it is so hard to put down even if you already know what the outcome is. But again, with most books, you get all of the juicy details left out in the movie and rawer character development especially around key moments like Michael killing the Turk. I can’t praise this one enough, and I am sure that is understandable. A great movie, but an even better book. I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse: buy this or consider your life not worth living.