Hardcover. NY, Grosset & Dunlap, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, tan cloth with black lettering on spine and front cover, dust jacket with edgewear and chipping, 278 pages. Rear dj lists to Wild Horse Mesa. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY FFORDE on the title page "Jasper" with his blue Goliath Publishing stamp at the bottom of the page. The third novel in the New York Times bestselling Thursday Next series is "great fun-especially for those with a literary turn of mind and a taste for offbeat comedy" (The Washington Post Book World). Clean copy.
Softcover. NY, Pantheon, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, peach-color wraps. Uncorrected bound galleys. Historical novel about the competing claims of faith, love, and politics during the McCarthy era. Washington, D.C., early 1950s: a world of bare-knuckled ideology, hard drinking, and secret dossiers, dominated by such outsized characters as Richard Nixon, Drew Pearson, Perle Mesta, and Joe McCarthy. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Two brothers bound by tragedy. A fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past. A country torn by revolution. A love that lasts long past death. An extraordinary new novel, set in both India and America, that expands the scope and range of one of our most dazzling storytellers. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Translated from the Hungarian by Imre Goldstein. 394 pages. The rich, poetic story of a man, a family, and a country. David Kobra's enchanted childhood in a small town in the heart of Central Europe comes to an abrupt end. As the Jews of the town are being put on trains to concentration camps, young Kobra escapes to Budapest. He survives the war years in a 'protected house,' grows up with death and violence, witnesses Soviet liberation, lives under Soviet oppression. David Kobra is a writer; he remembers, and he creates. Sharp images of the past alternate with the confused present. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Idle Ridge Press, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 361 pages. Never a Cloud is a big old-fashioned, contemporary, social novel narrated by Violet Grey, an eccentric, out-of-the-ordinary loner, living on the coast of Maine. The deeply emotional love story of a complicated family in an enchanted place. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 406 pages. The second entry in Updike's brilliant and acclaimed Rabbit series which all featured Harry Angstrom. Nominated for a National Book Award. A clean and tight near fine copy in red cloth boards with a bright blue topstain. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 335 pages. A novel set in the high-gloss world of contemporary Mexico's societal and intellectual elite. Remainder dot on bottom edge otherwise clean.
Hardcover. London, The Bodley Head, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 645 pages, fold-out map in rear, translated by Michael Glenny. The work tells about the beginning of the First World War and the unsuccessful offensive of the Russian army in East Prussia. The author uses the methods of documentary narration within the framework of a work of fiction and describes not only the military campaign, but also the experience of people caught in the middle of events. Red top edge. Edge wear, small pieces missing from dust jacket; in brodart. Else a clean, tight copy.
Softcover. NY, Archipelago Books, 1st US, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover in pictorial wrappers, 414 pages. Perpetually shrouded in a thick cloud of cigar smoke, Herman Arbogast Brenner, scion of an old and famous cigar dynasty, has decided to kill himself--but not until he has written down his forty-six years of life, in a Proustian attempt to conjure the wounds, joys, and sensations of his childhood in the rolling countryside of the Aargau region of Switzerland. Estranged from his wife and two children, he decides there is no point in squirreling away his fortune, so he buys himself a Ferrari 328 GTS, and drives around sharing cigars with his few remaining friends. In this roman a clef, writing and smoking become intertwined through the act of remembering, as Brenner, a fallible, wounded, yet lovable antihero, searches for epiphany, attempting to unearth memories just out of reach-- the glimmer of a red toy car, the sound of a particular chord played on the piano, the smell of the cigars themselves. Brenner is the final work from Hermann Burger, who died by suicide in 1989. The book comes out just days before what would have been the author's 80th birthday. Clean, bright copy.
Softcover. NY, Archipelago Books, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover in pictorial wrappers, 127 pages. Eastbound is both an adventure story and a duet of two vibrant inner worlds. Racing toward Vladivostok, we meet the young Aliocha, packed onto a Trans-Siberian train with other Russian conscripts. Soon after boarding, he decides to desert and over a midnight smoke in a dark corridor of the train, he encounters an older French woman, Helene, for whom he feels an uncanny trust. A complicity quickly grows between the two when he manages to urgently ask--through a pantomime and basic Russian that Helene must decipher--for her help to hide him. Clean copy.
Hardcover. London, Chapman and Hall, 1st, 1837, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, polished black calf, raised bands on spine, stamped with gilt design, leather label with title in second compartment. Marbled endpapers, 609 pages. The engraved plates suffer from oxidation (tanning) and have no captions other than the page numbers. The vignette illustration on the title page has "Weller" (rather than "Veller") indicating a later issue. The binding is sound, light edgewear to leather covers. Has the two title pages, errata slip and binders directions. The 2 Buss plates included. Pictures available.
Hardcover. Boston, Godine, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 126 pages, minor dust jacket edge wear, otherwise, very clean and tight copy.
Softcover. Middletown CT, Wesleyan University Press, 1st thus, 2003, Softcover, 157 pages. A new English translation by I.F. Clarke of this "demise of the human race" story. Originally published in French in 1805, The Last Man is a powerful story of the demise of the human race. Drawing on the traditional account in Revelations, The Last Man was the first end-of-the-world story in future fiction. As the first secular apocalypse story, The Last Man served as the departure point for many other speculative fictions of this type throughout the 19th century, including works by Shelley, Flammarion and Wells. Grainville's masterful imagination is evident in the vast scale of the action as Omegarus, the Last Adam, and Syderia, the Last Eve, are led toward the moment when "the light of the sun and the stars is extinguished." Essential reading for anyone interested in the roots of apocalyptic science fiction. Clean copy.
Hardcover. New York, Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., reprint, 1943, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Red cloth covers, 339 pages, SIGNED BY AUTHOR on front fly leaf. Corner and spine edge wear and fray, overall, clean and tight copy.
Hardcover. Bristol, England, J.W. Arrowsmith, 1st Edition, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 310 pages. Hardcover. Arrowsmith's 3/6 Series, Vol. XVIII. Hand-written letter from author [dated 27th Febry. /(18)95] laid in and attached to front flyleaf. In the letter, Hope mentions another book in comparison to this volume. Date of publication not indicated within, but correspondence accompanying and mentioning volume is dated 1895. Spine slightly cocked. Deep maroon cloth, gilt title on spine(slightly faded) and front cover board (still bright), boards have some rubbing, agewear, very light fraying at corners of boards, spine has chipping to top and bottom. Pages and edges have tanning from age. Some chipping to hinges of front and back endpapers, binding not affected. In very good condition.
Hardcover. Chapel Hill NC, Algonquin Books, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 236 pages. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on half title page. Faint foxing to top edge, light shelf-wear to dust jacket, else a clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1st UK, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn and soiled dust jacket. Green cloth covers with gilt title on spine. Second published work from the literary icon. The story of Jack Burns and his fight with modern society (a theme Abbey would revisit). The character of Jack Burns would turn up in later Abbey novels; Monkey Wrench Gang, Good News and Hayduke Lives! Basis for the film starring Kirk Douglas titled "Lonely are the Brave". The UK first edition had a much smaller print run than its US counterpart and has striking artwork (by Stein) of the cowboy on his rearing horse as a menacing truck aproaches.
Hardcover. NY, E.P. Dutton, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 319 pages. When his mother dies, thirteen-year-old David is sent to live with his father in a small town in Maine. David is a rebellious and defiant child and doesn't care for his new life. He spends his time hanging out with his friends and exploring the woods. One day, David runs away from home and spends a year hitchhiking and living on the streets of America. At the end of his journey, he returns home and finally learns to love and appreciate his father and family. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. The Fleuri ranch on Colorado's Croom Mountain resembles a scene from the 1880s, save for a few modern conveniences such as a tractor, a refrigerator, and a water pump. Life for the Fleuris, who supplement their meager income with moonshine and illegal game, hasn't changed much either. When a government agent persuades them to turn the ranch into a model 1880s homestead for paying visitors, it seems a perfect solution to their plight, until the deed is done. Greenberg deals realistically with the impact of government regulation, social and cultural change, and affluence on a backwoods family, while treating family members with the tenderness, humor, and dignity that each so richly deserves. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Berkeley CA, Counterpoint, 2nd pr., 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dustjacket, 161 pages. An unsuccessful writer and an inveterate alcoholic, Boris Alikhanov has recently divorced his wife Tatyana, and he is running out of money. The prospect of a summer job as a tour guide at the Pushkin Hills Preserve offers him hope of regaining some balance in life as his wife makes plans to emigrate to the West with their daughter Masha, but during Alikhanov's stay in the rural estate of Mikhaylovskoye, his life continues to unravel.Populated with unforgettable characters?including Alikhanov's fellow guides Mitrofanov and Pototsky, and the KGB officer Belyaev? Pushkin Hills ranks among Dovlatov's renowned works The Suitcase and The Zone as his most personal and poignant portrayal of the Russian attitude towards life and art.
Hardcover. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. First work of longer fiction (although still a brief one) by this Virginia-born poet and short story writer. A moving story of jazz and an old muscian brought back to the United States as a 'museum project' to capture his creative process and preserve his music. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Library of America, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 970 pages. Joan Didion's influence on postwar American letters is undeniable. Whether writing fiction, memoir, or trailblazing journalism, her gifts for narrative and dialogue, and her intimate but detached authorial persona, have won her legions of readers and admirers. Now Library of America launches its multi-volume edition of Didion's collected writings, prepared in consultation with the author, that brings together her fiction and nonfiction for the first time. Collected in this first volume are Didion's five iconic books from the 1960s and 1970s: Run River, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It As It Lays, A Book of Common Prayer, and The White Album. Whether writing about countercultural San Francisco, the Las Vegas wedding industry, Lucille Miller, Charles Manson, or the shopping mall, Didion achieves a wonderful negative sublimity without condemning her subjects or condescending to her readers. Chiefly about California, these books display Didion's genius for finding exactly the right language and tone to capture America's broken twilight landscape at a moment of headlong conflict and change. Remainder dot to bottom edge, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. NY, Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1st, 1937, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover in a very worn and chipped dust jacket, 294 pages. In these four short novels set in America, England and Paris, Rebecca West explores the lives and relationships of rich women and men who are ruled by 'the harsh voice we hear when money talks, or hate'. There is Josie, a flower of American girlhood with boundless ambition for wealth. There is Etienne de Sefavenac, a dilettante French aristocrat whose courtly stratagems are intended to ensnare Nancy Sarle - a plain American businesswoman. There is Alice Pemberton, a sensible Englishwoman - the very salt of the earth - in her own estimation. And lastly there is Sam Hartley, an American businessman who has fought his way to riches with his wife at his side, but whose life is now haunted by visions of beautiful young women.
Hardcover. London, Faber & Faber, 1st, 1949, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Poor, Hardcover, orange cloth with gilt lettering on spine, 158 pages. One of Henry Williamson's lesser-known novels: a cart horse and two monkeys decide they want to have a go at winning the Epson Derby. Dust jacket profoundly worn., tape repaired. Name on front fly leaf.
Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. The story of the Ill-fated Donner Party and the ordeal of being stuck in the Sierras through winter in the 1840's. The late author lived in the house once occupied by Patty Reed, the Donner party survivor whose family is the subject of the book.
Hardcover. NY, Macmillan, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 275 pages. In April 1985, Sports Illustrated published an article that stunned the sports community. George Plimpton's 13-page profile of Sidd Finch, a mysterious pitcher who had been signed by the New York Mets and reportedly threw 168 mph, came complete with photos from spring training, scouting reports, and interviews with Mets players and management. A week later, SI apologized to readers around the world for their role in what is generally regarded as the greatest hoax in the history of sports journalism. The magazine had teamed up with the legendary author and Paris Review bon vivant for an April Fool's Day prank of unprecedented proportions. After the success of the article, Plimpton decided to turn the story into a novel -- a rousing baseball fairy tale that is considered one of the most memorable sports novels of the last half-century. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, reprint, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 363 pages. Introduction by Melvin van Peebles. Originally published in 1953 as "Cast the First Stone" which was edited and changed by the publisher and now has been restored to how Himes intended it to be "with its raw honesty and startling compassion entirely intact." His novel of Jimmy Monroe portrays an African American prisoner who must endure racism, homosexuality, and prison corruption, all of which test the limits of his sanity, his capacity for suffering, and his definition of love. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Celadon Books, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. It begins quietly on a balmy Southern night as some locals gather at Bo Peep's, one of the town's favorite watering holes. Within an hour, however, a man will be murdered and his companion will be "disappeared." An unlikely detective, Morgana Musgrove, doyenne of Savannah society, is called upon to unravel the mystery of these crimes. Morgana is an imperious, demanding, and conniving woman, whose four grown children are weary of her schemes. But one by one she inveigles them into helping with her investigation, and soon the family uncovers some terrifying truths-truths that will rock Savannah's power structure to its core. Moving from the homeless encampments that ring the city to the stately homes of Savannah's elite, Green's novel brilliantly depicts the underbelly of a city with a dark history and the strangely mesmerizing dysfunction of a complex family. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st US, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 287 pages. Translated from the Russian by Gordon Clough. A novel by the author of The Yawning Heights. A Professor in Moscow slowly realises that Communism isn't all it's cracked up to be. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, The Modern Library, reprint, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket. Three novels in one volume: Young Lonigan (201 pages); The Young Manhood Of Studs Lonigan (412 pages); Judgment Day (465 pages). Farrell wrote these three novels at a time of national despair. During the Great Depression, many of America's most gifted writers and artists aspired to create a single, powerful work of art that would fully expose the evils of capitalism and lead to a political and economic overhaul of the American system. Farrell chose to use his own personal knowledge of Irish-American life on the South Side of Chicago to create a portrait of an average American slowly destroyed by the "spiritual poverty" of his environment. Both Chicago and the Irish-American Roman Catholic Church of that era are described at length, and faulted. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Grosset & Dunlap, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, green tweed cloth with black lettering on spine, dust jacket with edgewear and chipping, 321 pages. Rear dj lists to Wild Horse Mesa. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Ecco, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY FORD on the title page. This copy of Pulitzer Prize winner Ford's novel presents the story of 15 year old Dell Parsons and his sister Berner, who must fend for themselves when their parents are arrested, convicted and imprisoned for a Montana bank robbery. Dell's sister runs while Dell is spirited into Canada to live with an American who has his own issues. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2nd Ed., 1948, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover on a worn and tape-repaired dust jacket. A nice copy of the 2nd edited version of Billy Budd, a Melville tale unfinished at the time of his death and left in a rough, unassembled condition. Its first publication was considered rushed and this 2nd version was much more painstakingly edited, and bears much editorial discussion and includes the first publication of the short story on which the novel was based. Book is very good, clean. The dj not so much.
Hardcover. NY, Harper & Brothers, 1st, 1909, Hardcover, Edwardian era novel, illustrated throughout with 34 black and white plates by Rose O'Neill. Orange cloth lettered and decorated in gilt and dark green with an inset blind-stamped design of pumpkins and vines on the front cover, 307 pages, no dust jacket. Small number stamp on inside front cover, otherwise clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Harper & Row, 1st, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover in an edgeworn and chipped dust jacket. "It is ample token of Maxine Kumin's talents as poet and novelist that this compelling novel never departs from the substance of real life. She invests with new insight the homely details of a New England suburb and the crises that punctuate life with familiarity and the saving grace of humor. The broad canvas of The Passions of Uxport offers the reader richness of character, scene and perception, and the wry wisdom of a woman of experience." Tape repaired dj, book is clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1st, 1907, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in light green pictorial cloth, 241 pages. An historical adventure set in Ireland. A novel on Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the last significant claimant of the Stuart dynasty to the British throne and leader of the Jacobite rebellion in 1745-46. Previous owner's inscription on front fly leaf. Uncommon title.
Hardcover. Barre MA, The Imprint Society, Ltd. Ed., 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue and beige cloth covered boards with gilt vignette of telescope on cover and gilt titled spine. 80 pages, wood engravings by Michael McCurdy. Limited edition, one of 1,950, this unnumbered and unsigned. A science fiction tale set in Boston, a tasty satire. Book is bright, clean, housed in a lightly worn slipcase.
Softcover. NY, New Directions, 1st pbk., 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 152 pages. Walter Abish's delightful first novel, is an extraordinary linguistic tour de force, high comedy set in an imaginary dark continent that expands and contracts with ineluctable precision, as one by one the author adds the letters of the alphabet to his book, and then subtracts them. While the 'geoglyphic' African landscape forms and crumbles, it is, among other things, attacked by an army of driver ants, invaded by Zanzibar, painted orange by the transvestite Queen Quat of Tanzania, and becomes a hunting ground for a pair of murderous jewel thieves tracking down their nymphomaniac moll. INSCRIBED BY ABISH on the front fly leaf which also has previous owner's name in corner.
Softcover. NY, Archipelago Books, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover in pictorial wrappers, 351 pages. Written in the shadow of the Yugoslav wars, yet never eclipsed by them, Mama Leone is a delightful cycle of interconnected stories by one of Central Europe's most dazzling contemporary storytellers. Miljenko Jergovic leads us from a bittersweet world of precocious childhood wonder and hilarious invention, where the seduction of a well-told lie is worth more than a thousand prosaic truths, out into fractured worlds bleary-eyed from the unmagnificence of growing up. Yet for every familial betrayal and diminished expectation, every love and home(land) irretrievably lost, every terror and worst fear realized, Jergovic's characters never surrender the promise of redemption being but a lone kiss or winning bingo card away. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. Chicago, Frederick J. Drake and Co., 1902, Book: Fair, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial cloth, 164 pages plus publisher's ads. 86 illustrations, frontis portrait of author. Only date is the copyright year 1902. Features detailed explanations and diagrams of numerous feats with coins-most prominent among them the author's world-famous original creation, "The Miser's Dream," a much-imitated act climaxing in the production of a shower of half-dollars. In this complete manual of the art of conjuring with coins, Downs shares his secrets for scores of "fakes" and sleights, including passing a coin through the bottom of a hat, the money-producing cigarette, the mysterious claret glass, the crystal coin ladder, the obedient coins, and many more. He also offers a wealth of suggestions for stage "business" involving handkerchiefs, goblets, hats and other props, as well as helpful tips on presentation, patter and other techniques. Overall fair, fragile condition with some chipping to cloth on front cover.
Hardcover. London, Faber & Faber, 1st, 1990, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 161 pages, black cloth, book slightly cocked. Dust jacket edgeworn with light chipping. INSCRIBED BY HARRIS ( "Joyce and Irving, with love, Wilson & Margaret 1990") on the title page to Joyce and Irving Adler. The book is heavily annotated and underlined in both ink and light pencil by Joyce who was a literary scholar who wrote two books on Harris.
Hardcover. New York, Free Press, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 292 pages, SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. Very clean and tight copy.
Hardcover. NY, Ecco Press, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 101 pages. In Fort Bragg, North Carolina, three recent paratrooper training graduates are temporarily attached to an airborne infantry company as they await orders to report to Vietnam. Because most of the men in the company fought together in Vietnam, the three newcomers are treated as outsiders and ignored. When money and personal property are discovered missing from the barracks, suspicion falls on the three newcomers. The narrative structure of the book contains several shifts of tone and point of view as the story unfolds. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1st, 1936, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, full blue cloth, silver titling, map endsheets. Local color novel about life in the Mississippi River Delta of Louisiana, by an author living in that area. Clean. No dust jacket.
Hardcover. NY, Metropolitan Books, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 201 pages. Hardcover. Dust jacket unclipped. Gilt title on spine. In excellent shape. Clean and bright inside and out.
Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, First Edition, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 276 pages. Hardcover INSCRIBED & SIGNED BY AUTHOR to title page. Black cloth boards with gilt titles to spine. Bright dust jacket, price-clipped with light wear to edges, light toning. Clean, unmarked copy.