Hardcover. Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly faded dust jacket. 569 pages, b&w photos. An authentic church father of the Post-Reformation era, the Basel professor's contributions to theology, the life of the church, and the world of culture and politics have been frequently noted. This work presents extraordinary new information and insight based on his own correspondence and notes.What one finds in this work is Barth's own running commentary on events and people - from 1886 to 1968. Everything is depicted from his perspective and chiefly in his own words, and this is precisely what makes the volume so fascinating and valuable. The brilliance, wit, and humanity of Barth shine through everywhere as he is seen as son, brother, student, editor, friend, pastor, husband, father, soldier, teacher, theologian, church leader, political critic, polemicist, ecumenist, author, preacher, music lover, senior citizen. Light pencil notes to margins to some pages.
Hardcover. San Francisco, Fraenkel Gallery, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 160 pages. Two volumes in slipcase. Both very clean, unmarked copies. Only minor edgwear to slipcase. The result of three years of work in California's Central Valley, Katy Grannan's new series The 99 features large-scale color portraits and black-and-white photographs. Grannan's recent photographs are set in the parched landscape and forgotten towns along Highway 99, including Modesto, Fresno and Bakersfield. In her intensely vivid color portraits, the artist works at midday when the sun is direct and the heat is unrelenting, presenting each individual, often simultaneously heroic and vulnerable, against stark, white backgrounds. In the black-and-white photographs, many of her subjects re-appear on Modesto's South 9th Street and along the banks of the Tuolumne River. Everyday rituals, small interactions and moments of beauty on the fringes of society are depicted in detail, conferring significance to what is often overlooked. This large-format, two-volume, slipcased monograph gathers this series for the first time.
Hardcover. San Francisco, Fraenkel Gallery, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 160 pages. Two volumes in slipcase. Very clean, like new in publishers shrink-wrap. The result of three years of work in California's Central Valley, Katy Grannan's new series The 99 features large-scale color portraits and black-and-white photographs. Grannan's recent photographs are set in the parched landscape and forgotten towns along Highway 99, including Modesto, Fresno and Bakersfield. In her intensely vivid color portraits, the artist works at midday when the sun is direct and the heat is unrelenting, presenting each individual, often simultaneously heroic and vulnerable, against stark, white backgrounds. In the black-and-white photographs, many of her subjects re-appear on Modesto's South 9th Street and along the banks of the Tuolumne River. Everyday rituals, small interactions and moments of beauty on the fringes of society are depicted in detail, conferring significance to what is often overlooked. This large-format, two-volume, slipcased monograph gathers this series for the first time.
Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 281 pages, b&w illustrations. "For, Lo! We live in an Iron Age--In the age of Steam and Fire!" wrote a poet mesmerized by the engines that were transforming American transportation, agriculture, and industry during his lifetime. Indeed, by the nineteenth century fire had become America's leitmotif--for good and for ill. "Keeping the flame" was deadly serious: even the slightest lapse of attention could convert a fire from friendly ally to ravaging destroyer. To examine the cultural context of fire in "combustible America," Margaret Hazen and Robert Hazen gather more than a hundred illustrations, most never before published, together with anecdotes and information from hundreds of original sources, including newspapers, diaries, company records, popular fiction, art, and music. What results is an immensely entertaining and encyclopedic history that ranges from stories of the tragic "great fires" of the century to fire imagery in folktales and popular literature. Dealing more with technology than with fire in nature, the book provides a vast amount of information on fire manipulation and prevention in urban life. Hazen and Hazen discuss the people who worked with fire--or against it. Founders, gaffers, blacksmiths, boilers at saltworks, and housewives knew how to "read" a fire and employ it for their purposes. A few dedicated investigators inquired about the scientific nature of heat and flame. And firefighters gradually progressed from "bucket brigades" to "using fire to fight fire" with the newly invented steam engine. The colorful stories of these Americans--the risks they took and the rewards they received--will fascinate not only social historians but also a broad audience of general readers. Clean copy.
Hardcover. New York, Random House, 1st US, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 638 pages. Hardcover. Illustrated with black & white photographs. Minor rubbing to surface of dust jacket. Clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 400 pages. Price-clipped. Clean covers and dust jacket, pages crisp and unmarked, tight binding; clean copy. A generation before Walt Disney, Fred Thompson was the "boy-wonder" of American popular amusements. At the turn of the 20th century, Thompson's entrepreneurial drive made him into an entertainment mogul who helped to define the popular culture of his day.In this lively biography, Woody Register tells Thompson's remarkable story and examines the transformation of commerce and entertainment as American society moved into an era of mass marketing and large-scale corporate enterprise. Getting his start as a promoter of carnival shows at world's fairs, Thompson was one of the principal developers of Coney Island, where he created the majestic Luna Park. Register traces Thompson's career as he built the mammoth Hippodrome Theater in Manhattan, where he mounted many productions noted for their spectacular--and spectacularly costly--staging effects. Register shows how Thompson's fantasies appealed to the growing legions of Americans who found themselves in a world that seemed increasingly "businesslike" and profit oriented. He illustrates how Thompson aggressively marketed to adult consumers a world of make-believe and childlike play, carefully crafting his own public image as "the boy who never grew up."Colorful, well-written, and insightful, The Kid of Coney Island brings to life a kaleidoscopic era in New York history as well as one of its most striking characters.
Hardcover. NY, Abrams, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 264 pages, profusely illustrated with vintage photos. A great trip through time to visit the Paris of the turn of the century and see the artists and writers of the time as they entered the life of this fascinating woman, Alice Prin, better known as Kiki of Montparnasse, model to all the great artists.
Softcover. San Diego, CA, IDW Publishing, Reprint, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 308 pages. Softcover. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor edgewear. This book is a centennial birthday bash hosted by Dean Mullaney, Bruce Canwell, and Brian Walker, with contributions by Brendan Burford, Lucy Shelton Caswell, Jared Gardner, Ron Goulart, Jeffrey Lindenblatt, Carl Linich, Paul Tumey, and Germund von Wowern. More than just comics, it's a celebration of the profound impact that King Features has had on popular culture!
Hardcover. Fort Worth, TCU Press, Reprint, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Two hardcover volumes,. Volume 1 - 164 pages. Ceremonial Dance, Ritual and Song. Full color and black & white illustrations. Dust jacket in clear plastic protective cover. Clean, tight copy. Volume 2 - 323 pages. Myths, Legends and Folktales. Full color and black & white illustrations. Dust jacket in clear protective cover. Clean, tight copy.
Softcover. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 286 pages. Kitchen Culture in America is a collection of essays that examine how women's roles have been shaped by the principles and practice of consuming and preparing food. Exploring popular representations of food and gender in American society from 1895 to 1970, these essays argue that kitchen culture accomplishes more than just passing down cooking skills and well-loved recipes from generation to generation. Kitchen culture instructs women about how to behave like "correctly" gendered beings. One chapter reveals how juvenile cookbooks, a popular genre for over a century, have taught boys and girls not only the basics of cooking, but also the fine distinctions between their expected roles as grown men and women. Several essays illuminate the ways in which food manufacturers have used gender imagery to define women first and foremost as consumers. Other essays, informed by current debates in the field of material culture, investigate how certain commodities like candy, which in the early twentieth century was advertised primarily as a feminine pleasure, have been culturally constructed. The book also takes a look at the complex relationships among food, gender, class, and race or ethnicity-as represented, for example, in the popular Southern black Mammy figure. In all of the essays, Kitchen Culture in America seeks to show how food serves as a marker of identity in American society. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. London, Mitchell Beazley, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket.144 pages. Illustrated with color photos by Dave Young.
Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in pictorial boards with a red cloth spine, color plates. Master cartoonist Charles Burns has never hidden his passion for comic books and pop culture from the 1950 and 1960s. Inspired by the romance, horror, and sci-fi comics of his youth, as well as the 1960s American underground, the author of Black Hole has created a collection of 80 original comic book covers that, through his own inimitable aesthetic, present an alternate universe of stories that never were, but that you will wish existed. The covers - some with otherworldly titles in alien letterforms, and others that riff on classic genres (Throbbing Hearts, Unwholesome Love) and eras (Drug Buddy, Huss) - each inspire a multitude of interpretations, build entire worlds, and suggest entire narratives that lie within their non-existent guts. This is Burns at his most playful, imaginative, and suggestive, using the format of the comic book to continue to explore many of the themes that run through all his longer-form work. Clean copy
Hardcover. NY, Harper Collins, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Beautiful color illustrations by Ruth Heller. Clean. This is an enchanting and magical variant of the favorite fairy tale. Publishers Weekly noted that "the text is especially noteworthy for its instructive but unobtrusive incorporation of Korean words." Children's Literature pointed out that "it should be noted that all the illustrations--from those depicting Korean rituals to the smallest clothing details--are the result of the illustrator's extensive research and passionate interest in Korean culture."
Hardcover. The New Press, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 448 pages. Viktor Koretsky (1909-1998) was a leading Soviet artist and the acknowledged master of the Soviet photographic poster. With a long and prolific career that spanned the early Stalin era through to the onset of Glasnost, Koretsky produced some of the most memorable images of World War II and the Cold War from the point of view of the USSR. The first comprehensive catalogue of Koretsky's work in any language, this stunning and richly illustrated album provides an essential introduction to the major examples of Koretsky's artistic output, including posters, original designs, and other political graphics. An introductory essay by noted art historian Erika Wolf provides a fascinating general overview of the Soviet political poster, situating Koretsky's work historically, politically, and artistically. The core of the volume is a series of two hundred full-color plates, each accompanied by a concise commentary that clarifies its significance; arranged chronologically, these works of political propaganda art brilliantly record the shifting political and artistic circumstances of the distinctive eras of their production&mdas;the first Five-Year Plan, World War II, Postwar Stalinism, the Thaw, the Brezhnev era, and the twilight of Soviet authoritarian culture. Richly annotated with related primary source quotations, a chronology, and a glossary of Soviet culture, Koretsky is a groundbreaking contribution to our understanding of this influential and little-understood artist.
Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 274 pages, color illustrations, very good paperback & cover (exhibition catalog) The essays are: the art of visual culture: comics; graphic novels; animated cartoons; computer & video games: anime; manga; visual art.
Hardcover. Paris, Editions Charles Massin & Cie, 1st French, 1953, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 176 pages. Illustrated with primarily black & white photographs. Darkening to endpapers. Black calf leather with raised bands on spine. Title in gilt on spine. Clean, tight copy. 16 color plates out of 131 total illustrations. Includes bw map. Text in French, translated from the original German by Maurice Muller-Strauss. The art of the central-latitude countries of the African continent. Includes (as named at the time of publication) Angola, Cameroun, Belgian Congo, Lower Congo, Ivory Coast, Gold Coast, Dahomey, Gabon, French Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Rhodesia, Sierra Leone, French Sudan, Togo, and Tanganyika. Map at back shows/lists these countries/territories, regional rivers, and local tribes.
Hardcover. New York, Calla Editions, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 208 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. This deluxe large-format volume presents scores of sumptuous color illustrations from La Vie Parisienne's heyday, the years between 1917 and 1922. Consisting chiefly of cover designs and editorial cartoons, the images abound in chic young beauties in fanciful and occasionally risque tableaux. Many of these illustrations have not been readily available for nearly a century, making this compilation of particular interest and value to lovers of graphic art and Parisian culture.
Hardcover. Germany, Daab, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 320 pages. Hardcover no dust jacket. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap.. The Label Book of Clothing Culture presents over 40 TOP labels within the fashion business which are among the very best in the world. Great names such as Barbour and Brioni stand next to numerous 'Hidden Champions' of clothing culture. But this extraordinary coffee-table book is about much more than mere fashion, it also presents craftsmanship and history, style and quality; it highlights those companies that have committed themselves to this tradition with heart and soul. The editor and enthusiastic art collector, Dr. Dr. Thomas Rusche, knows what he is talking about, since it is he that coined the term 'clothing culture.' He shares his knowledge of the true champions of the business and provides interesting background information about the companies presented here.
Hardcover. East Petersburg PA, Fox Chapel Publishing, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Cigar box labels in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were not only amusing and beautiful to admire, they were a testament to the printing process of chromolithography and an important precursor to today's methods of product advertising. Labeling America: Popular Culture on Cigar Box Labels showcases the unique collection of John Grossman which covers 90 years of cigar box labels and bands printed by four generations of George Schlegel Lithographers. What makes this archive unique is that the Schlegel Company kept meticulous sample albums and files showing an unbroken record of American graphic style evolution. The work of many other lithographers of that era either destroyed or irreversibly dispersed their work.Now housed at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, the carefully cataloged Grossman collection gives a glimpse into life at the turn of the century, when over 5 billion cigars were being sold in the United States via boxes with colorful labels depicting everything from women, animals, and sports icons to actors, heroes, and political figures. This book takes these beautifully printed slices of American culture and combines them with the history of chromolithography into an interesting story of America's changing tastes. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 257 pages. Orange cloth, gilt lettering to spine, top edge cosmetic stain. Slight wear to dust jacket, else a very nice, tight copy in protective brodart cover. Walker Percy (1916-1990) was one of the most prominent American writers of the twentieth century. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, he was the oldest of three brothers in an established Southern family that contained both a Civil War hero and a U.S. senator. Acclaimed for his poetic style and moving depictions of the alienation of modern American culture, Percy was the bestselling author of six fiction titles--including the classic novel The Moviegoer (1961), winner of the National Book Award--and fifteen works of nonfiction.
Softcover. NY, Vintage, reprint, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 510 pages, b&w illustrations. This monumental work of cultural history was nominated for a National Book Award. It chronicles America's transformation, beginning in 1880, into a nation of consumers, devoted to a cult of comfort, bodily well-being, and endless acquisition. 24 pages of photos. Like new, clean.
Hardcover. New York, M.E. Sharpe, 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 410 pages. Hardcover. White cloth covers with brown lettering. INSCRIBED by co-author Chang on front fly leaf. Clean, tight copy.
Softcover. New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 192 pages. Softcover. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to edges. Black and white portraits of citizens of Indiana, taken over 4 decades.
Softcover. NY, Phaidon Press, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 128 pages, 55 photos. Born in 1941, Larry Fink was a teenager in the 1950s in an America on the cusp of radical social change. Growing up on Long Island in New York, Larry Fink was disinterested in the consumer-driven culture of 1950s' America. A disaffected teenager, his parents transferred him to art school where his career as a photographer began to flourish. His parents were supportive of his interest in the arts, and Fink would later drop out of college to join a circle of artists living in Greenwich Village. Fink spent the 1960s watching and learning from the prominent photographers of the time: Henri Cartier- Bresson, Robert Frank, W. Eugene Smith, and in many ways, his photographic aesthetic and rebellious spirit encapsulate the dramatic lose of innocence that the US underwent after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. photographic mentor.