chemistry

Hardcover. Rockport MA, Protean Pree, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, b&w illustrations. In 1943, the author was on track to become a doctor like his parents when he flunked organic chemistry at Harvard and enlisted in the army, finding himself heading off to fight in Europe with the 45th Infantry Division (in which famed editorial cartoonist Bill Mauldin also served). Garland chronicles the division's journey from the landing at Sicily through the liberation of Dachau and then, some 60 years later, also seeks to come to terms with his experiences and those of his comrades. Part personal and collective memoir and part history, Garland's book is loaded with recollections compiled from interviews, diaries, drawings, and photographs that he neatly fits into the historical framework. His writing is highly engaging and shares the story of the 45th and its 511 days in combat and four amphibious landings, providing an excellent narrative history of the division during World War II, as well as a personal reckoning.

Hardcover. London, Crosby Lockwood and Son, 1st, 1947, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 206 pages, b&w illustrations. Red cloth covers with gilt lettering on spine. Previous owner's name stamped on inside front cover, otherwise clean. Mild musty smell.

Hardcover. New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 179 pages. Mylar cover. Slight wear to dust jacket, else like new. Hailed by Time as an "extravagantly comic" novel, A Woman Named Drown is a wild and strange journey through America's South that follows a young PhD dropout who falls in with an amateur actress-cum-pool shark On the brink of earning his doctorate in chemistry, the unnamed narrator decides to chuck it all away in favor of real life. So begins an odd pilgrimage through the American South. In Tennessee, our hero is bewitched by an older, gin-swilling, pool-playing sometimes-actress who claims to have recently starred in a theatrical production about a "woman named Drown." He moves in with her and just as quickly begins encountering her strange compatriots. Before he knows it, they're heading farther south together--to Florida--where the data that the dropout scientist is collecting from life's laboratory is about to get quite contradictory.