biography

Softcover. Philadelphia, Quirk, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 270 pages. The man. The movies. The life. The legend. Hes played a deranged grounds keeper, a bellowing lounge singer, a paranormal exterminator, and a grouchy weatherman. He is William James Bill Murray, Americas greatest national treasure. From his childhood lugging golf bags at a country club to his first taste of success on Saturday Night Live, from his starring roles in Hollywood blockbusters to his reinvention as a hipster icon for the twenty-first century, The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray chronicles every aspect of his extraordinary life and career. Hes the sort of actor who can do Hamlet and Charlies Angels in the same year. He shuns managers and agents, and he once agreed to voice the lead in Garfield because he mistakenly believed it was a Coen Brothers film. Hes famous for crashing house parties all over New York Cityand if he keeps photo bombing random strangers, he might just break the Internet. Part biography, part critical appreciation, part love letter, and all fun, this enormous full-color volume, packed with color film stills and behind-the-scenes photography, chronicles every Murray performance in loving detail, recounting all the milestones, legendary Murray stories, and controversies in the life of this enigmatic performer. Like-new condition.

Hardcover. NY, Rodale, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. While The Big O: My Life, My Times, My Game will not disappoint basketball purists longing for Oscar Robertson's play-by-play of favorite games, the attraction of this autobiography is Robertson's perspective on the evolution of the sport and on the racial struggles that were the context of his formative years. Called by many basketball experts the greatest all-around player ever, Robertson earned an astonishing array of honors including an Olympic gold medal, 12 NBA All-Star appearances, the NBA Rookie of the Year award, and the 1964 NBA MVP award. Most remarkably, Robertson remains the only player in basketball history with a triple-double season (double-digit averages for scoring, rebounds, and assists).While Robertson could have easily candy-coated this impressive record for his retrospective, he devotes large sections of his book to the racial battles he faced off court, and his final chapters recount his controversial efforts as an NBA union leader to create free agency, a pension plan, and disability protection for players. In telling his life story, he lays bare the racism and mistreatment he suffered at the hands of individuals and institutions throughout his career, from the Mayor of Indianapolis and Cincinnati University to the NBA and CBS Sports. At times, his critiques can seem excessive (e.g. his discussions of the distortions in the film Hoosiers, while interesting, are repeated a bit too often), and some sections (like his attempts to compare himself to contemporary players) border on self-indulgence. Yet, he seems justified in arguing that his achievements--largely accomplished on second-rate teams, against a back-drop of unprecedented racial strife, and before the modern era of sports-media saturation--are easily underrepresented. In the end, The Big O offers a complex, human portrait to complement a spectacular sports career.

Hartford CT, Clapp and Benton, 1st, 1832, Book: Good, Hardcover, leather bound, 422 pages. A rare, early 19th-century account of the famed American President, focusing primarily on his career as a military officer and as a lawyer. This 1832 first edition of Goodwin's book includes a portrait frontispiece of Andrew Jackson. It is filled with information regarding his early childhood, civil life as lawyer senator and judge, as well as heroics in the War of 1812, the Creek War, and the American Revolution with an inclusion of his time in the presidency. Previous owner's name on verso of frontis. Covers show edgewear, top 2" of title page missing, frontispiece engraving of Jackson has a repaired tear. Still a solid copy, spine label with gilt title.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A reminder of the time when America fell in love with a tall, lanky, curly-haired pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. For a time in the 1970s, the country was in thrall to Mark Fidrych, who came to be known as "The Bird" for his resemblance to Big Bird. Fidrych emerged in the summer of 1976 and became an unlikely but legitimate phenomenon. Wilson tells the Bird's story in this biography of the Massachusetts native whose antics included tending to his own pitching mound during games and allegedly talking to the baseball. Clean copy.

Softcover. Louisville KY, Chicago Spectrum Press, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, b&w illustrations throughout. INSCRIBED BY HAMILTON on the front fly leaf. Ed Hamilton was raised on a street, in a neighborhood, that no longer exists. But Walnut Street and the now razed black professional district are vibrant and alive in this account of how one skinny black youth became a nationally acclaimed sculptor. This autobiography chronicles not just one man, but a way of life. It is filled with photos of art work now located all over the U.S., in private homes, public plazas, and prestigious museums.

Hardcover. NY, One World/Ballantine, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A fictional narrative base on the life of America's first black female millionaire. Born to former slaves on a Louisiana plantation in 1867, Madam C.J. Walker rose from poverty and indignity to become America's first black female millionaire, the head of a hugely successful company, and a leading philanthropist in African American causes. Renowned author Alex Haley became fascinated by the story of this extraordinary heroine, and before his death in 1992 he embarked on the research and outline of a major novel based on her life. Now with The Black Rose, critically acclaimed writer Tananarive Due brings the work to inspiring completion. "I got my start by giving myself a start," Madam C.J. was fond of saying as she recounted her transformation from the uneducated laundress Sarah Breedlove to a woman of wealth, culture, and celebrity. Madam C.J. was nearing forty and married to a maverick Denver newspaperman when the wonder-working hair care method she discovered changed her life. Seemingly overnight, she built a marketing empire that enlisted more than twenty thousand bright young African American women to demonstrate and sell her products door-to-door. By the time she died in 1919, Madam C.J. Walker had constructed her own factory from the ground up, established a training school, and built a twenty-room mansion at Irvington on the Hudson, New York, called Villa Lawaro.

Softcover. Madison WI, University of Wisconsin, reprint., 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover in pictorial wraps, 244 pages. The Blind African Slave recounts the life of Jeffrey Brace (ne Boyrereau Brinch), who was born in West Africa around 1742. Captured by slave traders at the age of sixteen, Brace was transported to Barbados, where he experienced the shock and trauma of slave-breaking and was sold to a New England ship captain. After fighting as an enslaved sailor for two years in the Seven Years War, Brace was taken to New Haven, Connecticut, and sold into slavery. After several years in New England, Brace enlisted in the Continental Army in hopes of winning his manumission. After five years of military service, he was honorably discharged and was freed from slavery. As a free man, he chose in 1784 to move to Vermont, the first state to make slavery illegal. There, he met and married an African woman, bought a farm, and raised a family. Although literate, he was blind when he decided to publish his life story, which he narrated to a white antislavery lawyer, Benjamin Prentiss, who published it in 1810. Upon his death in 1827, Brace was a well-respected abolitionist. In this first new edition since 1810, Kari J. Winter provides a historical introduction, annotations, and original documents that verify and supplement our knowledge of Brace's life and times. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Abrams Press, 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 352 pages, b&w illustrations. The first full biography of the star Negro Leaguer and Hall of Famer James 'Cool Papa" Bell (1903-1991) was a legend in black baseball, a lightning fast switch hitter elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. Bell's speed was extraordinary; as Satchel Paige famously quipped, he was so fast he could flip a light switch and be in bed before the room got dark. Wheeler recounts the life of this extraordinary player, a key member of some of the greatest Negro League teams in history. Born to sharecroppers in Mississippi, Bell was part of the Great Migration, and in St. Louis, baseball saved Bell from a life working in slaughterhouses. Wheeler charts Bell's ups and downs in life and in baseball, in the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, where he went to escape American racism and MLB's color line.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st US, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, tan cloth covers with gilt lettering on spine, 203 pages, b&w illustrations. Memoir by sister of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Previous owner's stamp otherwise clean, Lacks dust jacket.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 3rd pr., 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket. 411 pages; index; 24 illustrations, including color frontispiece of Abigail and John; from the Introduction: " 'The Book of Abigail and John' is a Bicentennial updating of Charles Francis Adams' contribution ('Familiar Letters') to the nation's Centennial. It contains what the present editors consider the best letters of John and Abigail Adams, written from their courtship beginning late in 1762 to their reunion in Europe in August 1784.To these letters have been added a number of letters to "third parties" and selected diary and autobiographical passages that reveal the two as man and woman, husband and wife, father and mother." Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. NY, New Directions, 2nd pr., 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, second printing, 316 pages plus index, sewn paperback cover price $2.45, very good lightly used copy.

Hardcover. Minneapolis MN, Augsburg Publishing House, 1st, 1946, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards with a blue cloth spine. The story of Martin Luther for children, illustrated in color and b&w by John Ellingboe. Edgewear to covers, clean internally.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A groundbreaking new biography of Ezra Pound, one of the most controversial poets of the twentieth century, told through the stories of his illustrious visitors at St Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, DC. An extraordinary book of real passionate research. In 1945, Ezra Pound was due to stand trial for treason for his broadcasts in Fascist Italy during the Second World War. But before the trial could take place Pound was pronounced insane. Escaping a potential death sentence he was shipped off to St Elizabeths Hospital near Washington, DC, where he was held for over a decade. At the hospital, Pound was at his most contradictory and most controversial- a genius writer - 'The most important living poet in the English language' according to T. S. Eliot - but also a traitor and now, seemingly, a madman. But he remained a magnetic figure. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell and John Berryman all went to visit him at what was perhaps the world's most unorthodox literary salon- convened by a fascist and held in a lunatic asylum. Told through the eyes of his illustrious visitors, The Bughouse captures the essence of Pound - the artistic flair, the profound human flaws - whilst telling the grand story of politics and art in the twentieth century. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Pegasus Books, 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 338 pages, b&w illustrations. At the turn of the last century, the Guggenheim family ran the most powerful mining conglomerate on earth. Decades later came the Guggenheim museum, which became the hub of the world's most powerful art brand. In between, the Guggenheim name was uttered in every field from aviation to politics, from journalism to rocketry. But who was behind this epic sphere of influence? It took three generations of Guggenheims to build the wealth in its first era. Yet it was the singular force of Harry Guggenheim who would guide the family's next generation of businesses into modernity. Part angel investor, part entrepreneur, part technologist, Harry launched businesses whose impact on 20th century America went far beyond the Guggenheims' mines or museum. His visionary investments continue to profoundly influence our world and hold valuable business lessons for billionaire dynasty builders like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. A flawed but brilliant man, Harry Guggenheim was the confidante to five American presidents and a key financial force behind commercial aviation and space exploration, two innovations that catapulted the nation into the future. Clean copy.

Softcover. Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, reprint, 1969, Softcover, 436 pages. "The best of the many studies of E.M. Forster...It is rich with biographical detail and background data...The one book about Forster his readers need to refer to." Stanley Weintraub. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Chapel Hill NC, University of North Carolina Press, 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 324 pages, b&w illustrations. Published for the Williamsburg, VA Institute of Early American History & Culture. Instead of recounting, in detail, the public events of John Adams's extraordinary career, Peter Shaw views as a whole Adams's character, thought, and acts, personalizing for the reader the most remote of our Founding Fathers. This compact but comprehensive biography brilliantly portrays the poignant revelations of John Adams's inner life implicit in the recently released Adams family manuscripts. The formal side of Adams is reconciled with his remarkably colorful private life by the author's penetrating grasp of the whole man. Adams's behavior appears less eccentric when viewed in the context of its origin in the village life of eighteenth~century Massachusetts; and his politics and ideas appear less abstractly motivated when viewed in the light of the evolution of his character. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Winchester UK, St. Paul's Bibliographies, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 142 pages. Mary Elliott (then Mary Belson) began writing for children in 1809, at a time when increasing literacy and wealth and more progressive understanding of the reading needs of children were creating a growing demand for more and more books for young people. Beginning with two books in verse - one a lively tale about town and country mice, the other, an anthology including many of her own poems - she went on to produce a stream of books on a variety of subjects. Her stories, some eventful and exciting, were mostly about real children learning to tackle the everyday circumstances and difficulties which they encountered in the world around them. These books were made all the more attractive by her publisher, William Darton, who provided them with entertaining illustrations, many of them interesting today for their depiction of contemporary scenes and fashions. Mary Elliott's books soon spread across the Atlantic, and American publishers reissued many of them, sometimes adapting the text to local circumstances. Although her books are now forgotten, they cannot be disregarded by researchers into the history of childhood and of children's literature. This bibliography contains about 470 entries. Clean.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1st, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, price-clipped dust jacket, white cloth covers with gilt design, 177 pages. B&w illustrations by Demi Hitz. Stated First Edition. INSCRIBED BY TRANSLATOR FRANCIS CARPENTER on the front fly leaf. The 1st complete translation of thousand year old classic work. Includes biography of Lu Yu. Embellished by Demi Hitz's illustrations. Includes ritual of preparation, ingredients, environment Chinese tea ceremony. Light chipping, small tape repairs to rear of dust jacket. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 48 pages illustrated in color by S.D. Schindler. Clean copy.

Softcover. New York, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 300 pages. Softcover with light edgewear to paper wrappers. Clean, tight copy. Color and black and white illustrations throughout. The definitive Comics Journal interviews with the cartoonists behind Zap Comix, featuring: Supreme 1960s counterculture/underground artist Robert Crumb on how acid unleashed a flood of Zap characters from his unconscious; Marxist brawler Spain Rodriguez on how he made the transition from the Road Vultures biker gang to the exclusive Zap cartoonists' club; Yale alumnus Victor Moscoso and Christian surfer Rick Griffin on how their poster-art psychedelia formed the backdrop of the 1960s San Francisco music scene; Savage Id-choreographer S. Clay Wilson on how his dreams insist on being drawn; Painter and Juxtapoz-founder Robert Williams on how Zap #4 led to 150 news-dealer arrests; Fabulous, Furry, Freaky Gilbert Shelton on the importance of research; Church of the Subgenius founder Paul Mavrides on getting a contact high during the notorious Zap jam sessions; and much more. In these career-spanning interviews, the Zap contributors open up about how they came to create a seminal, living work of art.

Hardcover. Boston, N.H. Whitaker, reprint, 1831, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, white boards with green cloth spine with a paper spine label. 420 pages. B&w frontis "Genius of Romance", Opposite title page has a drawing of White. Henry Kirke White was an English poet and hymn-writer. He died at the young age of 21. This edition of his complete works includes his poetry, as well as his letters and other writings. The volume also includes an account of his life and a critical evaluation of his work by Robert Southey. Ex-lib with residue, stamping to endpapers, spine extremities worn, light soil to covers. Interior of the book is clean with minimal foxing.

Hardcover. Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, reprint, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, beige cloth covers, black lettering to spine, 288 pages. About 1307 a remarkable woman in Japan sat down to complete the story of her life. The result was an autobiographical narrative, a tale of thirty-six years (1271-1306) in the life of Lady Nijo, starting when she became the concubine of a retired emperor in Kyoto at the age of fourteen and ending, several love affairs later, with an account of her new life as a wandering Buddhist nun. Through the vagaries of history, however, the glory of Lady Nijo's story has taken six and half centuries to arrive. The Confessions of Lady Nijo or Towazugatari in Japanese, was not widely circulated after it was written, perhaps because of the dynastic quarrel that soon split the imperial family, or perhaps because of Lady Nijo's intimate portrait of a very human emperor. Whatever the cause, the book was neglected, then forgotten completely, and only a single manuscript survived. This was finally discovered in 1940, but would not be published until after World War II in 1950. This translation and its annotations draw on multiple Japanese editions, but borrow most heavily from the interpretations offered by Tsugita Kasumi. No dust jacket. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise a bright, clean copy.

Softcover. Saranac Lake NY, Outskirts Press , 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 216 pages. SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY SHAW. like new. Shaw's memoir and account of his friendship with Jon Cody, an older one-armed dope dealer and leather craftsman in the Adirondack backcountry.

Hardcover. NY, Lyle Stuart, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 190 pages, b&w illustrations. The story of the rise and near-collapse of the Playboy Empire, told by the manager of Playboy's London casinos. Clean copy.