Hardcover. NY, Farrar & Rinehart, 1st, 1940, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth covers stamped with black and gilt lettering. 506 pages with index. Illustrated by Henry C. Barrow. This book covers the (what was then) hundred years of history the AP Press had witnessed. A "fast-moving, action-filled narrative of the rise of The Associated Press--the inside story of the only world-wide non-profit news gathering association as it grew from pigeon post and pony express to telegraph and wireless, with a daily news report of over 1,000,000 words and its spot-news picture system which shoots newspaper photographs by electricity across the globe." Short tear to top of spine cloth, bookplate on inside front cover, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. NY, Overlook Duckworth, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 272 pages, b&w photos. Very good in a bright dust jacket.
Hardcover. NY, Bantam, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 518 pages, b&w illustrations. Appetite for America is the incredible real-life story of Fred Harvey--told in depth for the first time ever--as well as the story of this country's expansion into the Wild West of Bat Masterson and Billy the Kid, of the great days of the railroad, of a time when a deal could still be made with a handshake and the United States was still uniting. As a young immigrant, Fred Harvey worked his way up from dishwasher to household name: He was Ray Kroc before McDonald's, J. Willard Marriott before Marriott Hotels, Howard Schultz before Starbucks. His eating houses and hotels along the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad (including historic lodges still in use at the Grand Canyon) were patronized by princes, presidents, and countless ordinary travelers looking for the best cup of coffee in the country. Harvey's staff of carefully screened single young women--the celebrated Harvey Girls--were the country's first female workforce and became genuine Americana, even inspiring an MGM musical starring Judy Garland. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 354 pages, b&w illustrations. Describing Washington Square, Henry James wrote that it was "as if the wine of life had been poured for you, in advance, into some pleasant old punch bowl." Created in 1826 through the visionary efforts of philanthropist and New York City mayor Philip Hone, the elegant and vibrant square anchors one of the world's most storied neighborhoods, Greenwich Village. Today, the quarter retains much of the charm it possessed in earlier eras when it served as a mecca for artists and activists, intellectuals and indigents, brahmins and bohemians. Yet its history has been clouded by half-truths and myths, while some of its most colorful and influential residents-and its role in the city's growth-lie undiscovered. Neighborhood historian and preservationist Luther S. Harris has spent twenty years researching the real story of New York's social and cultural hub, and in Around Washington Square he has produced the definitive history of Greenwich Village, illustrated with more than two hundred photographs and engravings, many from his private collection. Harris's prodigious research efforts among city council minutes, real-estate tax and conveyance ledgers, directories, family histories, architectural records, institutional and business inventories, newspapers, private collections, and public archives have uncovered surprising facts about the origins of Greenwich Village and its influence on the development of Fifth Avenue and upper Manhattan. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Sydney AU, George Allen & Unwin, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Centenary history of the Sydney-based business Burns, Philip & Co. The company was firmly established as a merchant in Australia and throughout the South Pacific. The book is unique in relating this big mercantile firm to its customers, regardless of their culture. A rich and varied story of a truly Australian company and a major contribution to Australian business history. 392 pages, 24 b&w plates, endpapers map. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Brussels, 1st, 1965, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light blue cloth stamped in dark blue, 58 pages. An illustrated history of the Belgian financial institution. Tipped in color frontis of founder Samuel Lambert, b&w photos and illustrations. Text in English. A promotional piece. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. There was a time, back when the United States was young and the robber barons were just starting to come into their own, when fortunes were made and lost importing luxury goods from China. It was a secretive, glamorous, often brutal business--one where teas and silks and porcelain were purchased with profits from the opium trade. But the journey by sea to New York from Canton could take six agonizing months, and so the most pressing technological challenge of the day became ensuring one's goods arrived first to market, so they might fetch the highest price. "With the verse of a natural dramatist" (The Christian Science Monitor), Steven Ujifusa tells the story of a handful of cutthroat competitors who raced to build the fastest, finest, most profitable clipper ships to carry their precious cargo to American shores. They were visionary, eccentric shipbuilders, debonair captains, and socially ambitious merchants with names like Forbes and Delano--men whose business interests took them from the cloistered confines of China's expatriate communities to the sin city decadence of Gold Rush-era San Francisco, and from the teeming hubbub of East Boston's shipyards and to the lavish sitting rooms of New York's Hudson Valley estates. Clean, like new copy.
Softcover. NY, Watson-Guptill, 1st pbk, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 292 pages. A detailed resource on the comics and collectibles inspired by the classic character provides close-up photography and information on everything Batman, from the history of the character's graphic design to sixteen new pages of obscure memorabilia. Chip Kidd, who also wrote a neat "Batman Animated" coffee able book on the well-loved and critically acclaimed "Batman: The Animated Series" that debuted in 1992, turns here to the hobby (and serious business, for some) of collecting. He includes his own childhood remembrances of Bat-items, as well as wonderfully quirky photography. This book, full-color throughout, is not a "guide" to the collectibles, as it does not include price values or manufacturers (it does give the year and dimensions for each piece pictured). Plus, there is an editorial comment on the Andy Warhol Batman piece that's got a bit of an attitude. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Scribner, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 495 pages. Light edgewear to dust jacket, else a clean, tight copy. Goldenson was an unsung giant of the entertainment industry. He learned from Zukor and Balaban at Paramount, interacted with Sarnoff and Paley, and built a great company against great odds and all-powerful competition. That took great creativity. Any leader could learn a great deal from this man. The book is honest, humble, and very well-written. It is worth the price alone for his insights into the other moguls.
Softcover. NY, Skyhorse, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 361 pages, b&w illustrations. Burlesque was one of America's most popular forms of live entertainment in the first half of the 20th century. Gaudy, bawdy, and spectacular, the shows entertained thousands of paying customers every night of the week. And yet the legacy of burlesque is often vilified and misunderstood, left out of the history books.By telling the intimate and surprising stories from its golden age through the women (and men!) who lived it, Behind the Burly Q reveals the true story of burlesque, even as it experiences a new renaissance. Lovingly interviewed by burlesque enthusiast Leslie Zemeckis who produced the hit documentary of the same name, are former musicians, strippers, novelty acts, club owners, authors, and historians--assembled here for the first time ever to tell you just what really happened in a burlesque show. From Jack Ruby and Robert Kennedy to Abbott and Costello--burlesque touched every corner of American life. The sexy shows often poked fun at the upper classes, at sex, and at what people were willing to do in the pursuit of sex. Sadly, many of the performers have since passed away, making this their last, and often only interview. Behind the Burly Q is the definitive history of burlesque during its heyday and an invaluable oral history of an American art form. Funny, shocking, unbelievable, and heartbreaking, their stories will touch your hearts. We invite you to peek behind the curtain at the burly show.
Hardcover. New York, Crown Publishers, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 463 pages, b&w illustrations. What do you need to make money making movies? The answer, according to cult hero, creator of the sexploitation film, and the man the Wall Street Journal once dubbed the King Leer of Hollywood, Russ Meyer, is: "big bosoms and square jaws." In the first candid and fiendishly researched account of the late cinematic instigator's life, Jimmy McDonough shows us how Russ Meyer used that formula to turn his own crazed fantasies into movies that made him a millionaire and changed the face of American film forever.
Hardcover. GR, Steidl, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 272 pages. Bill Wood's business was photography, and he produced tens of thousands of images over the course of his career. A tall, slender, hardworking family man with a penchant for bow ties, Wood (1913-1979) was born, lived and died in the Fort Worth, Texas area, and his photography played a central role in how his clients chose to see and to portray themselves and their city. Bill Wood's Business features approximately 300 of Wood's photographs, alongside essays by Diane Keaton and Marvin Heiferman that pay homage to the skills Wood (and professional photographers like him) brought to the business of photography. What drew Keaton and Heiferman to this project was the extraordinary range of Wood's images, as well as a shared appreciation of archives and the construction of photographic realities. In an earlier collaboration, Still Life (1982), Keaton and Heiferman explored the Surrealism, the fantasies and the economic motivations percolating beneath the surface of the glamourous color publicity photographs that Hollywood studios orchestrated and distributed in the mid-twentieth century. Since then, Keaton (in her film and book projects) and Heiferman (in his curatorial, writing and publishing work) have continued to survey the quirks of American iconography. Keaton purchased the archive of Wood's negatives 20 years ago, and in Bill Wood's Business, she and Heiferman team up again to look at and through photographs, to show what they are intended to depict and what they actually reveal.
Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. It started with the searing sound of a slide careening up the neck of an electric guitar. In 1970, twenty-three-year-old Bruce Iglauer walked into Florence's Lounge, in the heart of Chicago's South Side, and was overwhelmed by the joyous, raw Chicago blues of Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers. A year later, Iglauer produced Hound Dog's debut album in eight hours and pressed a thousand copies, the most he could afford. From that one album grew Alligator Records, the largest independent blues record label in the world. Bitten by the Blues is Iglauer's memoir of a life immersed in the blues--and the business of the blues. No one person was present at the creation of more great contemporary blues music than Iglauer: he produced albums by Koko Taylor, Albert Collins, Professor Longhair, Johnny Winter, Lonnie Mack, Son Seals, Roy Buchanan, Shemekia Copeland, and many other major figures. In this book, Iglauer takes us behind the scenes, offering unforgettable stories of those charismatic musicians and classic sessions, delivering an intimate and unvarnished look at what it's like to work with the greats of the blues. It's a vivid portrait of some of the extraordinary musicians and larger-than-life personalities who brought America's music to life in the clubs of Chicago's South and West Sides. Bitten by the Blues is also an expansive history of half a century of blues in Chicago and around the world, tracing the blues recording business through massive transitions, as a genre of music originally created by and for black southerners adapted to an influx of white fans and musicians and found a worldwide audience.
Hardcover. Nashville TN, Thomas Nelson, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 192 pages, illustrated in color and b&w. For more than 75 years Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead have been one of America's favorite couples. Through war and peace, through boom and bust, through sexual revolution and social upheaval, Blondie has become the most widely read comic strip in syndication-in 35 languages and in 47 countries.It's all here in this definitive book for the Blondie fan: Blondie and Dagwood, their children Alexander and Cookie, their neighbors Herb and Tootsie Woodley, the family dog Daisy, Dagwood's boss Mr. Dithers, the mailman Mr. Beasley, and the neighborhood kid Elmo Tuttle. The book includes early history; Dagwood at work, Blondie's starting her catering business, favorite cartoon strips, and the story of Chic and Dean Young, the creators of Blondie.
Hardcover. NY, Pantheon, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket, 495 pages. Boogaloo--the synonym of choice among the cognoscenti for rhythm and blues--is a stylish and profound meditation on the art, influence, and commerce of black American popular music. At once deeply knowing and keenly observant, Arthur Kempton reveals the tensions between the sacred and the profane at the heart of "soul music," and the complex centrality of "Aframericans" in the evolution of our mass musical culture. What that culture is all about, who owns it, and who gets paid--these are issues of moment in his epic narrative. Kempton brilliantly traces the interconnections among a century's worth of signal personalities, events, and achievements: from Thomas A. Dorsey, the so-called Father of Gospel Music, whose career ("Got to Know How to Work Your Show") sheds light on Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown, among others, to the rise of that "handsome Negro lad," Sam Cooke (perhaps the greatest of soul singers) and his definitive crossover dreams; from Berry Gordy Jr.'s infatuation with Doris Day and his sharp business plan to capture and exploit the sounds of young America through Motown ("It's What's in the Grooves That Counts") to the founding of Stax Records and Memphis Soul by a white farm kid who grew up dreaming of being a country fiddler; from the visionary funk of George Clinton to the ascendancy of hip hop ("Sharecropping in Wonderland"), the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, and the story of Death Row Records. Clean copy.
Softcover. Boston, E.G. Bradshaw Company, 1905, Book: Fair, Softcover, 96 pages stapled. Minus wrappers, if it ever had any. A fascinating sales booklet, listing farms for sale n the New England area. Detailed descriptions, prices. Some with photos. Exterior pages worn, soiled chipped.
Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin , 2nd pr., 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Authorized biography of the early baseball executive who originated the workable farm system, developed efficient scouting, pioneered revolutionary training devises and techniques, and introduced black players to major league baseball. 312 pages includes index.
Hardcover. Lincoln NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 683 pages, b&w illustrations. He was not much of a player and not much more of a manager, but by the time Branch Rickey (1881-1965) finished with baseball, he had revolutionized the sport--not just once but three times. In this definitive biography of Rickey--the man sportswriters dubbed "The Brain," "The Mahatma," and, on occasion, "El Cheapo"--Lee Lowenfish tells the full and colorful story of a life that forever changed the face of America's game. As the mastermind behind the Saint Louis Cardinals from 1917 to 1942, Rickey created the farm system, which allowed small-market clubs to compete with the rich and powerful. Under his direction in the 1940s, the Brooklyn Dodgers became truly the first "America's team." By signing Jackie Robinson and other black players, he single-handedly thrust baseball into the forefront of the civil rights movement. Lowenfish evokes the peculiarly American complex of God, family, and baseball that informed Rickey's actions and his accomplishments. His book offers an intriguing, richly detailed portrait of a man whose life is itself a crucial chapter in the history of American business, sport, and society.
Softcover. Beverly MA, Rockport, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Flexibound, 312 pages, profusely illustrated in color. Brand Bible is a comprehensive resource on brand design fundamentals. It looks at the influences of modern design going back through time, delivering a short anatomical overview and examines brand treatments and movements in design. You'll learn the steps necessary to develop a successful brand system from defining the brand attributes and assessing the competition, to working with materials and vendors, and all the steps in between. The author, who is the president of the design group at Sterling Brands, has overseen the design/redesign of major brands including Pepsi, Burger King, Tropicana, Kleenex, and many more. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. Berlin, Brasch & Rothenstein, 1st, 1892, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 206 pages. Hardcover. Includes 2 of 3 fold-out maps. Note: Rear fold-out map is missing. Previous owners name in pencil at top of title page. Light wear. Clean, tight copy.
Softcover. Oxford UK, Clarendon Press, reprint, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, green paper wraps, 449 pages. A study of the West Indies in the mid-nineteenth century, this book draws together the experiences of more than a dozen different sugar colonies and forms them into a coherent historical account. The first part of the book examines the West Indies on the eve of emancipation in 1830-1865, a key passage in West Indian history. Green presents a clear general picture of the sugar colonies, and places British governmental policy toward the region in the context of Victorian attitudes toward colonial questions.
Softcover. Burlington VT, New England Telephone & Telegraph Company, 1933, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, light green card covers with dark blue lettering. 60 pages of listed subscriber phone numbers with ads throughout plus a 24 page classified business section. Directory covers Bristol, Burlington, Charlotte, Essex Center, Essex Junction and Richmond. Small perforated hole in upper corner, clean, bright copy of uncommon Vermont ephemera.
Softcover. Boston, Harvard Business School, 1st wraps, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Articles: U.S. Advertising in Latin America, Industrial Structure: the American Pottery Industry, Selling Elegant Glassware, etc. Paperback.