Nana

She can barely sing a note, and her acting is laughable—yet the moment Nana steps onto the stage of the Théâtre des Variétés, every man in the audience is spellbound. This is Paris under the glittering, rotten Second Empire, a world of immense wealth and even greater desperation. From the gutter to the gilded boudoir, Nana rises by exploiting the very desires that will destroy her suitors one by one: a count who loses his honor, a banker who squanders a fortune, a young man who trades his life for a kiss. But behind her laughter and silk lies the tragic machinery of a society that devours its own creations. Emile Zola's searing naturalist masterpiece is stripped of its 19th-century corset and retold in vivid, present-day English, keeping every raw emotion and devastating scene. Part of Timeless Classics.