california

Hardcover. Boston, David R Godine, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 208 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Black and white pictures throughout. The FSA archive includes the work of dozens of photographers, from acknowledged giants like Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, and Dorothea Lange to Marion Post Wolcott and Russell Lee, whose names and work may be less familiar. This book collects work from nine of these trips: Evans in Louisana and Alabama, Shahn in West Virginia, Lange in California, and others, uniting them with Stryker's shooting scripts, letters, and other relevant archival documents. Reproduced in duotone, the 175 photographs in The Likes of Us were all printed from the original negatives at the Library of Congress.

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 712 pages. These superb stories from the nearly 20-year run of Love and Rockets define a world of Hispanic gang warfare, '80s California, punk rock, women wrestlers and the subtle battle to stay true to oneself. Hernandez's main characters are Maggie and Hopey, two adorable lesbian rockers who start out in a somewhat vague relationship and are then are separated by adventures both grand and demeaning. Maggie is a magnificent comics character, a tempestuous naif who wears her heart on her sleeve when she's not throwing it at a succession of bad boys who ignore her, even though Hopey is secretly the love of Maggie's life. Hopey, a mohawked imp, is more opaque, a symbol of the youthful rebellion of punk rock that all the characters are trying to return to in some way, even as real life sweeps them further away from their dreams. Maggie's weight gain over the years sends her self-esteem on a downward spiral, while Hopey goes on an endless tour with a band. Along the way, Hernandez gradually peels away the strip's early sci-fi trappings (dinosaurs and rocket ships) to create a devastatingly naturalistic world. Sharp b&w drawings capture the characters in minute detail with a wide range of emotions. Finally collected into one volume, these stories are among the greatest comics ever put to paper, and an essential piece of the literature of the punk movement.

Hardcover. NY, Basic Books, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, unclipped. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on the title page. Throughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the continent, turning noon into dusk, demolishing farm communities, and bringing trains to a halt as the crushed bodies of insects greased the rails. In 1876, the U.S. Congress declared the locust "the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country." From the Dakotas to Texas, from California to Iowa, the swarms pushed thousands of settlers to the brink of starvation, prompting the federal government to enlist some of the greatest scientific minds of the day and thereby jumpstarting the fledgling science of entomology. Over the next few decades, the Rocky Mountain locust suddenly--and mysteriously--vanished.A century later, Jeffrey Lockwood set out to discover why. Unconvinced by the reigning theories, he searched for new evidence in musty books, crumbling maps, and crevassed glaciers, eventually piecing together the elusive answer: A group of early settlers unwittingly destroyed the locust's sanctuaries just as the insect was experiencing a natural population crash. Drawing on historical accounts and modern science, Locust brings to life the cultural, economic, and political forces at work in America in the late-nineteenth century, even as it solves one of the greatest ecological mysteries of our time. 294 pages, clean copy.

Hardcover. Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1st Edition, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 424 pages. Hardcover. B/w illustrations throughout. Blue cloth cover boards, gilt title on black on spine. Light tanning to pages. Spine straight. Binding tight. Takes its place in the eight-volume History of London series, but it is a self-contained enquiry into the place of ninth- to twelfth-century London in the history of the City and of the urban renaissance.

Hardcover. NY, Prestel, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 160 pages. This photographic homage to Los Angeles presents a timeless depiction of the great city. In his book New York Sleeps, Christopher Thomas traveled the empty streets of New York City shooting dreamy cityscapes with a large-format Polaroid camera. For this new book he focuses his lens on Los Angeles, capturing in duotone images of the iconic buildings and spaces in the city: the Chinese Theatre without tourists, the Griffith Observatory peacefully alone, the Hollywood Boulevard without celebrities or onlookers. Around the city's artdeco buildings and mid-century drive-ins, sidewalks, and parking lots are vacant. Shot in the early morning, with the sun's rays just hinting between buildings, or at dusk, when the light is inchoate and mournful, these pictures are a tender valentine to Los Angeles. Fans of New York Sleeps will be thrilled to encounter another sublime project by Thomas. And residents and lovers of Los Angeles will be awestruck at this new interpretation of the City of Angels.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton , 2nd pr., 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright unclipped dust jacket. Explores John Steinbeck's long apprenticeship as a writer struggling through the depths of the Great Depression, and his rise to greatness with masterpieces such as The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. His most poignant and evocative writing emerged in his sympathy for the Okies fleeing the dust storms of the Midwest, the migrant workers toiling in California's fields and the labourers on Cannery Row, reflecting a social engagement-paradoxical for all of his natural misanthropy-radically different from the writers of the so-called Lost Generation. 446 pages, remainder dot on top edge otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Osterfildern GR, Cantz, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 184 pages with 140 b&w images by Stock. A monograph surveying Stock's career from the 1950s through the 1970s. Photographs and introduction by Dennis Stock (1928-2010); essay by Richard Whelan. This is dual language German/English book containing the photographic works of Stock. Covers his years as photojournalist, refugees, jazz, James Dean, Hollywood, Hippies, being on the road and California. Biography list of photos and places taken. Dust jacket with several closed tears, interior clean, very good.

Hardcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 270 pages, b&w illustrations. Drawing on the scholarship of folklore, historiography, and literary anthropology, this study traces the evolution of one of China's most enduring and controversial madmen, the legendary southern poet Ch'u Yuan, whose suicide by drowning is still commemorated annually in the colourful Dragon Boat festival. Light pen underlining to several pages of Intoduction, small name on front fly leaf. Otherwise clean.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st pbk, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 398 pages. Alex Stewart's excellent book tackles a subject which has been hidden in plain sight: the central importance of the big band, not as dead artifact of the Swing Era, but as a seminal and nurturing force through the entire history of jazz down to our own time. Through an attractive blend of ethnographic participant-observation, historiography, and formal analysis, Stewart puts the big band at the center of jazz, arguing for its indispensability as a locus of instrumental training and rehearsal, composition, legitimation, and professional networking. Informed and enriched by his own experience as a performer in those worlds. Light crease to front cover, clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Faber and Faber, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Unpaginated. Hardcover no dusk jacket issued. Color boards with black and white comics throughout. Light rubbing to rear board. Marble Season is the semiautobiographical novel by the acclaimed cartoonist Gilbert Hernandez, author of the epic masterpiece Palomar and cocreator, with his brothers, Jaime and Mario, of the groundbreaking Love and Rockets comic book series. Marble Season is his first book with Drawn & Quarterly, and one of the most anticipated books of 2013. It tells the untold stories from the early years of these American comics legends, but also portrays the reality of life in a large family in suburban 1960s California. Pop-culture references-TV shows, comic books, and music-saturate this evocative story of a young family navigating cultural and neighborhood norms set against the golden age of the American dream and the silver age of comics. Middle child Huey stages Captain America plays and treasures his older brother's comic book collection almost as much as his approval. Marble Season subtly and deftly details how the innocent, joyfully creative play that children engage in (shooting marbles, backyard performances, and organizing treasure hunts) changes as they grow older and encounter name-calling naysayers, abusive bullies, and the value judgments of other kids. An all-ages story, Marble Season masterfully explores the redemptive and timeless power of storytelling and role play in childhood, making it a coming-of-age story that is as resonant with the children of today as with the children of the sixties.

Hardcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 287 pages. Pictorial boards, no dust jacket issued. This beautifully illustrated book-the definitive volume on American sculptor Mark di Suvero-features more than two hundred images of his most important works, interspersed with short texts by the artist and by other writers who have inspired his art-making practice, plus a contribution by Francois Barre. Humanist in approach and populist in sensibility, di Suvero's sculpture is accessible, inviting, and inclusive. Praised in particular for his monumental assemblages incorporating steel and wood, di Suvero emerged as a superstar in the 1960s. He was the first living artist to show his sculpture at the Tuileries Gardens, Paris, and the first honored with three major exhibitions at Storm King Art Center. His distinctive, bold pieces can be found in museums and public collections all over the world, and he continues to be the subject of numerous exhibitions both in the United States and in Europe. Mark di Suvero: Dreambook is a celebration of his artistic oeuvre and of his long, distinguished career. 

Hardcover. New York, Aperture/SADEV, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 104 pages, b&w photographs, small format catalogue with extensive notes. A fine copy in the illustrated dust jacket. Bridges made aerial photographs of the earthworks in Peru, Yucatan and Chiapas, and in the U.S. in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Mississippi, South Dakota, as well as France and England. Preface by Haven O'More. Essays by Maria Reiche, Charles Gallenkamp, Lucy Lippard, Keith Critchlow. Clean, bright in an unclipped dust jacket.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 282 pages, b&w illustrations. Masks are found world-wide in connection with seasonal festivals, rites of passage, and curative ceremonies. They provide a means of investigating the paradoxical problems that appearances pose in the experience of transitional states. In this far-reaching work, A. David Napier studies mask iconography and the role played by masks in the realization of change. The masks of preclassical Greece?in particular those of the Satyr and the Gorgon?provide his starting point. A comparison of Greek to Eastern and especially Indian models follows, and the book concludes with an examination of the interpretation of Hindu ideas in Bali that demonstrates the importance of ambivalence in mask iconography. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. San Francisco, CA, California Academy of Sciences, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 96 pages. b&w and color illustrations throughout. Cream cloth with blind stamp of Dixon's thunderbird logo, original cream slipcase with foxing to cloth. No dust jacket. A clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Hatje Cantz, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 224 pages. The years from 1945 to 1985 are often identified as the moment in which Los Angeles established itself as a leading cultural center in America. However, this conception of its history entirely excludes the very controversial presence of the Mexican muralists, as well as the work of other artists who were influenced by them and responded to their ideas. It is likewise often thought that Los Angeles' Mexican culture arrived full formed from outside it, when in fact that culture originated within the city--it was in Los Angeles and Southern California that Jose Vasconcelos, Ricardo Flores Magon, Octavio Paz and other intellectuals developed the iconography of modern Mexico, while Anglos and Chicanos were developing their own. David Alfaro Siqueiros, Clemente Orozco, Alfredo Ramos Martinez and Jean Charlot made some of their earliest murals in Los Angeles, influencing the Mexican, Mexican-American and Chicano artists of the 1970s and 80s. MEX/LA: Mexican Modernism(s) in Los Angeles 1930-1985 focuses on the construction of different notions of "Mexicanidad" within modernist and contemporary art created in Los Angeles. From the Olvera Street mural by Siqueiros, to the Golden Age of Mexican cinema and the Disney silver-screen productions, to the revitalization of the street mural, up to the performance art of Guillermo Gomez-Pena, MEX/LA explores the bi-national and hybrid forms of artistic practices, popular culture and mass-media arts that have so uniquely shaped Los Angeles' cultural panorama.

Softcover. New York, Monacelli Press, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 183 pages, illustrated in color and b&w.Since 1988, New York-based architect Michael Bell has created a series of projects and essays that explore architectural and urban design for California, New York, and Texas -- the three most populous regions of the United States and, coincidentally, the three states in which he has lived and practiced. The first monograph on the architect, Michael Bell: Space Replaces Us; Essays and Projects on the City, includes both design work and writings.Bell has organized and designed two important installations, both of which include his work: "Endspace: Michael Bell and Hans Hofmann," at the University Art Museum, Berkeley, and "16 Houses: Owning a House in the City," at DiverseWorks in Houston, which featured his seminal Glass House @ 2 Degrees. Other projects included are an urban renewal scheme for a huge site in Far Rockaway, New York, and a series of residential projects, including the Ghent House, a modernist glass house currently under construction in upstate New York. Complementing the design projects are three major essays: "Having Heard Mathematics: The Topologies of Boxing," "Eyes in the Heat: RSE," and "New York City."

Hardcover. Berkeley CA , Ten Speed Press, reprint, 2002, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 231 pages. Hardcover. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on front end paper. Extensive color photography throughout. Gilt titles on dust jacket cover. Some soil from previous owners book plate on front end paper. Dust jacket priced clipped, otherwise clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. London, MQ Publications, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 383 pages. "Aline Kominsky Crumb was one of the pioneers of women's comics, a genre that emerged in California in the sixties & seventies. She became well known during that period for her autobiographical work, influencing many comic book artists after her. Need More Love draws on her remarkable body of comic strips over the past four decades, many featuring her self-effacing character Bunch. Need More Love is a unique blend of comics, art, photographs & memorabilia, & portrays the movers & shakers (and the jerks) of the art & music worlds from the sixties to the present. Aline promises the reader: "I am packing this book with sordid details from my real life. I don't have to make up anything! You'll get fabulous adventures, sex, humor and advice on behavior, lifestyle & aesthetic judgment."

Hardcover. London, MQ Publications, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 383 pages. "Aline Kominsky Crumb was one of the pioneers of women's comics, a genre that emerged in California in the sixties & seventies. She became well known during that period for her autobiographical work, influencing many comic book artists after her. Need More Love draws on her remarkable body of comic strips over the past four decades, many featuring her self-effacing character Bunch. Need More Love is a unique blend of comics, art, photographs & memorabilia, & portrays the movers & shakers (and the jerks) of the art & music worlds from the sixties to the present. Aline promises the reader: "I am packing this book with sordid details from my real life. I don't have to make up anything! You'll get fabulous adventures, sex, humor and advice on behavior, lifestyle & aesthetic judgment."

Newport Beach CA, The Newporter Resort, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, In 1986, the illustrator James McMullan traveled to Southern California on an assignment for an advertising campaign. There he began work on a series of paintings for the Newporter Resort in Orange County. While the project didn't allow him the creative freedom he normally had, McMullan still managed to bring his artistic flair to the images. Unfortunately most of the paintings were never used. This painting features the driveway and landscaping leading up to the entrance. Image size: 17 X 12", watercolor on texture white paper, signed. Unpublished.

Softcover. Escondido, CA, California Center for the Arts, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 148 pages. Softcover. Very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrapper edges. Only 1000 copies made. 62 plates, 36 in color & 53 illustrations. The first comprehensive monograph on the seven-decade career of the "passionate humanist" Harry Sternberg. His work runs the gamut from closely observed glimpses of life in New York in the 1920s and 1930s , through the WPA era, to metaphorical images of terror and hope and lyrical landscapes. Judaica is the strongest influence. "Exhibition checklist" (pp. 102-107); "Public collections and murals" (pp. 108-109); "Chronology" (p. 110-21) includes 39 illustrations; "Exhibition history" (pp. 122-33); "Bibliography" (pp. 134-47)

Softcover. Escondido, CA, California Center for the Arts, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 148 pages. Softcover. Very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrapper edges. Only 1000 copies made. 62 plates, 36 in color & 53 illustrations. The first comprehensive monograph on the seven-decade career of the "passionate humanist" Harry Sternberg. His work runs the gamut from closely observed glimpses of life in New York in the 1920s and 1930s , through the WPA era, to metaphorical images of terror and hope and lyrical landscapes. Judaica is the strongest influence. "Exhibition checklist" (pp. 102-107); "Public collections and murals" (pp. 108-109); "Chronology" (p. 110-21) includes 39 illustrations; "Exhibition history" (pp. 122-33); "Bibliography" (pp. 134-47)

Softcover. NY, Little, Brown & Company, reprint, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 271 pages. San Diego in the years before World War II. James Dillon is barely scraping by working a menial job in manufacturing, trying to raise a family and support his elderly mother and sister Frankie at the same time. He drinks too hard -- just like his father and nearly everyone in his extended family. With so many people crammed into one home, sometimes there's so much fighting he can barely stand it. But if James can survive the chaos of everyday life long enough, maybe -- just maybe -- there's a chance it'll all get better. Now and on Earth, Jim Thompson's first novel, draws on personal experience to depict a hardscrabble life in the sun-soaked streets of mid-20th century California. Chronicling the birth of a writer and the plight of the working man, it prefigures the American classics that followed, in a deeply-felt, autobiographical tale that shows a writer just coming into his own. Clean, unread copy.

Hardcover. Gibbs Smith, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 160 pages. Off the Grid confronts the ecological and cultural problems associated with the way we get and use energy, and explains how it is possible to live in a beautifully designed home using much less--no matter where your home is located. Our homes are connected by a nearly invisible grid of infrastructure that binds us together. It is a system of electrical poles, wire, substations, hydroelectric dams, telecommunication towers, and water extraction and sewage systems. From within this system we work, play, and raise families. We have also created one of the greatest environmental challenges known to modern civilization. The signs of our impact upon the world can be recognized in the reports of environmental changes occurring across the earth, and they can also be seen in the growing failures of the energy grids across the world as the current system is stressed beyond its capacity. Off the Grid beautifully illustrates that this is not just a concept for rural living; examples of homes that are "off the grid" to varying degrees are found in New York City; Ontario, Canada; Stuttgart, Germany; Belmont, California; Pipe Creek, Texas; Clyde Park, Montana; Twin Lakes, Minnesota; Laytonville, California; Venice, California; and New South Wales, Australia.