In October 1958, Pan American World Airways began making regularly scheduled flights between New York and Paris, courtesy of its newly minted wonder jet, the Boeing 707. Almost overnight, the moneyed celebrities of the era made Europe their playground. At the same time, the dream of international travel came true for thousands of ordinary Americans who longed to emulate the “jet set” lifestyle. Bestselling author and Vanity Fair contributor William Stadiem brings that Jet Age dream to life again in the first-ever book about the glamorous decade when Americans took to the skies in massive numbers as never before, with the rich and famous elbowing their way to the front of the line. Dishy anecdotes and finely rendered character sketches re-create the world of luxurious airplanes, exclusive destinations, and beautiful, wealthy trendsetters who turned transatlantic travel into an inalienable right. It was the age of Camelot and “Come Fly with Me,” Grace Kelly at the Prince’s Palace in Monaco, and Mary Quant miniskirts on the streets of Swinging London. Men still wore hats, stewardesses showed plenty of leg, and the beach at Saint-Tropez was just a seven-hour flight away. Jet Set reads like a who’s who of the fabulous and well connected, from the swashbuckling “skycoons” who launched the jet fleet to the playboys, moguls, and financiers who kept it flying. Among the bold-face names on the passenger manifest: Juan Trippe, the Yale-educated WASP with the Spanish-sounding name who parlayed his fraternity contacts into a tiny airmail route that became the world’s largest airline, Pan Am; couturier to the stars Oleg Cassini, the Kennedy administration’s “Secretary of Style,” and his social climbing brother Igor, who became the most powerful gossip columnist in America—then lost it all in one of the juiciest scandals of the century; Temple Fielding, the high-rolling high priest of travel guides, and his budget-conscious rival Arthur Frommer; Conrad Hilton, the New Mexico cowboy who built the most powerful luxury hotel chain on earth; and Mary Wells Lawrence, the queen bee of Madison Avenue whose suggestive ads for Braniff and other airlines brought sex appeal to the skies. Like a superfueled episode of Mad Men, Jet Set evokes a time long gone but still vibrant in American memory. This is a rollicking, sexy romp through the ring-a-ding glory years of air travel, when escape was the ultimate aphrodisiac and the smiles were as wide as the aisles. Praise for Jet Set “Aeronautics history, high times from the 1950s and ’60s, incredibly versatile name-dropping (from Mrs. John Jacob Astor to Christine Keeler of the Profumo scandal) and Sinatra’s ‘Come Fly With Me’ as a kind of theme song [all] connected to the glamorous days of air travel.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times “What a book William Stadium has written. . . . The Kennedys, the Rat Pack, Frank Sinatra, and early financiers like Eddie Gilbert are dealt with in depth. . . . I lived intimately through it all in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s and I am yet to find a mistake in author Stadiem’s amazing book. Order it now. All the players are here.”—Liz Smith, syndicated columnist “William Stadiem sexes up the glory days of aviation in Jet Set. Fly me!”—Vanity Fair “William Stadiem’s Jet Set takes you where no modern airliner can: to a time . . . when the means of travel was as exotic as the destination, and sometimes more so.”—Town & Country

Looking for a travel guide that goes where other guides fear to tread? One that rides roughshod over ad-copy puffery to smartly deliver the real scoop on a destination's sites and attractions? One that dares to be honest, hip, and fun? Look no more. Frommer's Irreverent Travel Guides are wickedly irreverent, unabashedly honest, and downright hilarious, and provide an insider's perspective on which attractions are overrated tourist traps and which are the secret gems that locals love. You'll get the lowdown on restaurants, lodging, and shopping, and even find out what the locals think of you. Like being taken around by a savvy local," said the New York Times. "Hipper and savvier than other guides," concurred Diversion magazine. Never shy about confronting the issues, the Irreverents are guides to real travel in the real world. Chi-town has never seemed as vibrantly alive as it does in the pages of Frommer's Irreverent Guide to Chicago, a book that tells the story of the real Chicago, from an insider's standpoint. With its muscular past and its bustling present, Chicago is a workable city of serendipitous surprises: the glorious vastness of Lake Michigan, the smooth jazz vibe, and the self-effacing Midwestern sensibility--it may be more Big Easy than the Big Easy. In Frommer's Irreverent Guide to Chicago you get the straight scoop on all the places the locals love."

With truly startling statistics and a wealth of anecdotes, Silbiger reveals the cultural principles that form the bedrock of Jewish success in America.