Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 192 pages illustrated in color by Rosa. When sharks and pirates block Scrooge McDuck from the mother of all treasure maps, only noisy nephew Donald can break the impasse ... or can he? It's Fantagraphics's third complete, chronological book of Duck epics by Don Rosa-following in the footsteps of Disney legend Carl Barks with his own stunning, seaworthy style! Standout stories in this latest Scrooge and Donald volume include "Treasure Under Glass": a tale of ships, scoundrels, and the world's biggest diving bell! Then "War of the Wendigo" pits Scrooge and the Peeweegah Indians against a piggish profiteer-while in "Return to Xanadu," a quest for Kublai Khan's gold leads the Ducks back to Carl Barks' lost valley of Tralla La. Clean copy.
Softcover. Annapolis MD, Naval Institute Press, reprint, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 509 pages, b&w illustrations. Based on twenty years of research in formerly secret archives, this book reveals for the first time the full significance of War Plan Orange -- the U.S. Navy's strategy to defeat Japan, formulated over the forty years prior to World War II. The author does a good job of describing how the plan changed over time regarding possible objectives (rescuing Philippines, capturing Truk, making Guam into the "Gibraltar of the Pacific) as well as the different groups who pushed for their vision on how to best execute the plan from the gung-ho thrusters to the cautionaries to name the major approaches. The book also details the interplay between the navy and the army as they worked together to create a global plan of war as the world became more dangerous in the 1930's (the Rainbow Plans). The work concludes with an analysis of just how successful all the effort that went into creating Plan Orange was to the waging of the Pacific War in 1941-45. Clean copy.
Softcover. Forest VA, TLC Publishing, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 128 pages, profusely illustrated in b&w. This book outlines the history of railroading in West Virginia from the earliest entry of Baltimore & Ohio into what was then western Virginia up to the 1860s. In addition to B&O, Chesapeake & Ohio, Western Maryland, Norfolk & Western, and Virginian have major chapters. Smaller sections cover the New York Central, short lines, logging railroads, and others that had only a smaller presence in the state. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Boston, Mariner Books, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 253 pages, b&w illustrations. From a longtime New Yorker staff cartoonist, an evocative family memoir, a love letter to New York City, and a delightful exploration of the origins of creativity--richly interleaved with the author's witty, beloved cartoons. David Sipress, a dreamer and obsessive drawer living with his Upper West Side family in the age of JFK and Sputnik, goes hazy when it comes to the ceaselessly imparted lessons-on-life from his meticulous father and the angsty expectations of his migraine-prone mother. With wry and brilliantly observed prose, Sipress paints his hapless place in the family, from the time he is tricked by his unreliable older sister into rocketing his pet turtle out his twelfth-floor bedroom window to the moment he walks away from a Harvard PhD program in Russian history to begin his life as a professional cartoonist. Sipress's cartoons appear in the story with spot-on precision, inducing delightful Aha! moments in answer to the perennial question aimed at cartoonists: Where do you get your ideas?
Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 179 pages. Whatever Gets You through the Night is an irreverent and deeply funny retelling of the Arabian Nights and a wildly inspired exploration of the timeless art of storytelling. Award-winning writer Andrei Codrescu re-imagines how Sheherezade saved Baghdad's virgins and her own life through a heroic feat of storytelling-one that kept the Persian king Sharyar hanging in agonizing narrative and erotic suspense for 1001 nights. For Sheherezade, the end of either suspense or curiosity means death, but Codrescu keeps both alive in this entertaining tale of how she learned to hold a king in thrall, setting with her endless invention an unsurpassable example for all storytellers across the ages. Liberated and mischievous, Codrescu's Sheherezade is as charming as she is shrewd-and so is the story Codrescu tells.
Hardcover. Washington DC, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 292 pages, b&w illustrations. SIGNED BY BOTH AUTHORS on the title page. Additionally INSCRIBED BY COHN on the dedication page. Kevin J. Crisman and Arthur B. Cohn show how a confluence of geographic, technological, economic, and social conditions in the United States and Canada turned an ancient idea into a practical alternative to more expensive and dangerous steamboats. Reviewing evidence from travelers' memoirs, regional histories, pictorial records, and the only horseboat ever studied by archaeologists - a wreck on the floor of Lake Champlain's Burlington Bay, in Vermont - the authors trace the evolution of horseboats from early mechanisms that forced the animals to walk in tight circles to "endless floor" treadmills that resembled modern exercise machines. In a lively narrative interspersed with quotes from passenger accounts, the book charts the rise and demise of horseboat businesses on the Hudson River, as well as in New York City, St. Louis, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. The authors also describe and record the underwater excavation of the Lake Champlain wreck, revealing a wealth of detail about the construction and operation of a typical treadwheel horseboat of the 1830s and 1840s. Clean copy.
Softcover. Santa Barbara CA, Capra Press, 1st, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, Capra Chapbook Series No. 27, 50 pages. Small trade paper original simultaneous with scarcer hardcover issue. A collection of early poems by Ursula K. Le Guin, edited by Robert Durand and Noel Young, with a frontispiece portrait of the author by illustrator James Brunsman. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Holiday House, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 132 pages. Illustrated throughout with Jackson's black and white photographs. In this fascinating book, Laurie Lawlor tells parallel stories of the settling of the western United States and the wanderings of a man who captured much of that history in singular and beautiful photographs. Lawlor includes forty of Jackson's photographs as illustrations for her narrative. Bibliography, timeline, glossary, and index. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Washington DC, National Geographic Books, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 207 pages. Recounted in gripping words and unforgettable images, Avakian's remarkable experiences will draw readers into the Muslim world to meet friends and terrorists, leaders and thieves and everyday people. She lived and worked for two years in the Gaza strip, often in Islamic dress, once beaten bloody by Hamas. For several terrifying days in Somalia she was pinned down by sniper fire on the way to her hotel. She careened across the snowy Tien-Shen Mountains with Islamic fundamentalists in an ancient Lada, only to be detained and tossed out by the Uzbek KGB. All the while, she captured some of the most important stories of our time-the famine in Sudan, the violence in Gaza and Somalia, the daily life of Hezbollah. She traveled extensively with Yasser Arafat as one of the only non-Arab photographers given such access. Small scar to front of dust jacket otherwise a clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Dutton Caliber, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 324 pages, b&w illustrations. When the P-51 Mustang began tearing across European skies in early 1944, the Allies had been losing the air war for years. Staggering numbers of bomber crews, both British and American, had been shot down and killed thanks to the Luftwaffe's superior fighter force. Not only did the air war appear grim, but any landing of troops in France was impossible while German fighters hunted overhead. But behind the scenes, a team of visionaries had begun to design a bold new type of airplane, one that could outrun and outmaneuver Germany's best. Wings of War is the incredible true story of the P-51 Mustang fighter and the unlikely crew of designers, engineers, test pilots, and army officers who brought it from the drafting table to the skies over World War II. This is hardly a straightforward tale of building an airplane--for years, the team was stymied by corruption within the defense industry and stonewalled by the Army Air Forces, who failed to understand the Mustang's potential. But when squadrons of Mustangs were finally unleashed over Hitler's empire, the Luftwaffe was decimated within months, clearing the skies for D-Day. Clean copy.
Softcover. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1st US, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 193 pages. Most European prosecutions for the crime of witchcraft occurred between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the peak coming in the hundred years after 1560. This volume brings together the large amount of recent scholarship on witchcraft of this period and provides a novel analysis of the trials by considering the legal systems involved. Witch hunts, methods of torture, and the scientific interest in magic spells and demonology as an intellectual pursuit are also covered in detail. Clean copy.
Hardcover. London, Blackie & Son, reprint, nd, Hardcover, red cloth covers stamped in 2-colors. 384 pages illustrated with three maps and a color frontis and 4 b&w plates by William Rainey. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st US, 1901, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth stamped in 3-colors plus gilt on front cover and spine, 393 pages plus publishers ads in rear. with twelve b&w illustrations by William Rainey, and a map.
Hardcover. Carbondale IL, Southern Illinois University Press, 1st, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 524 pages. Top edge gilt. This fifth volume of Horace Traubel's "With Walt Whitman in Camden" is the first to appear in print without the benefit of a final reading by the author. His wife, Gertrude Traubel, corrected only obvious slips and unnecessary repetitions, checking references that seemed unclear. While the manuscript was sometimes difficult to decipher, it was never in disjointed notes, but always a continuous narrative. Final volume of Horace Traubel's compilation of his daily conversations with poet Walt Whitman, capturing much of the poet's philosophy. Traubel was Whitman s intimate friend, biographer, and literary executor. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1st thus, 1910, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 210 pages, 60 color designs by Walter Crane. Beige cloth with torquoise and dark brown decoration by Crane. Green decorated end papers. Spine rubbed, light scratches on spine, front fly leaf chipped at corners, rear hinge partially cracked. Internally very good.
Hardcover. London, Blackie & Son, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth stamped in 2-colors, 384 pages. Color frontis and 4 b&w plates by Ralph Peacock. A tale of loyalty and courage in 11th-century Britain. Wulf and his best friend, Beorn, fight bravely for their Saxon king - capturing castles, rescuing shipwrecked survivors, repelling Viking invaders, and fighting the Battle of Hastings. Clean copy.