culture

Hardcover. London, Dewi Lewis, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 160 pages. These photographs--rejects found at a commercial photolab in the States--were taken at the time of the Vietnam War--a pivotal period in American history. Here is the intimacy that danced in the eyes of family photographers as they framed everyday life--as it was in the fall of 1968.The images, predominantly prints from early 126mm point-and-shoot cameras, are an uninterpreted presentation of everyday life. Reflecting both private and public spheres of consciousness, they convey unmediated perspectives of mores, values and icons through what was intended to be personal visual documentation in its most direct form. No dj issued.

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. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover. Introduction by William Mills. French text rendered by James and Elisabeth Spohrer. Brown tweed with photo and blind stamped cover. Clear plastic cover not present. Numerous full page black & white photographs by Turner Browne, map of Louisiana highlighting the Cajun Country, text in English and French,

Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 422 pages. Poets of the twentieth century Elizabeth Bishop's friend James Merrill once observed that 'Elizabeth had more talent for life--and for poetry--than anyone else I've known.' This new biography reveals just how she learned to marry her talent for life with her talent for writing in order to create a brilliant array of poems, prose, and letters--a remarkable body of work that would make her one of America's most beloved and celebrated poets. In Love Unknown, Thomas Travisano tells the story of the famous poet and traveler's life. Bishop moved through extraordinary mid-twentieth century worlds with relationships among an extensive international array of literati, visual artists, musicians, scholars, and politicians -- along with a cosmopolitan gay underground that was then nearly invisible to the dominant culture. Drawing on fresh interviews and newly discovered manuscript materials, Travisano illuminates that the 'art of losing' that Bishop celebrated with such poignant irony in her poem 'One Art' --perhaps her most famous-- was linked in equal part to an 'art of finding,' Like new.

Hardcover. NY, Biblioasis, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 290 pages. Bruce Jay Friedman has done it all, charming the glitziest industries of American golden-age culture for more than half a century. Lucky Bruce is his long-awaited memoir, and it's everything we'd expect and more: here is Friedman at his best, waltzing from Madison Avenue to Hollywood and back again, and reilluminating with brilliant clarity the dazzle of post-war American life. Cameos by Joseph Heller, Philip Roth, Mario Puzo, Lillian Hellman, Warren Beatty, Marlene Dietrich, Brian Grazer, Candida Donadio, Crazy Joe Gallo, Joyce Carol Oates, Jack Richardson, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Kurt Vonnegut, and the irreplaceable Elaine. Clean copy.

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. Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 1st pbk, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 390 pages. Magic and Modernity is the first book to explore comparatively how magic-usually portrayed as the antithesis of the modern-is also something that is at home in modernity. "Magic" and "modernity" are rarely regarded as belonging together. Evolutionism regarded magic as quintessentially "unmodern." Although psychologists and romantic artists have sometimes declared magic to be a human universal, few modern scholars in the humanities and social sciences have studied how modern culture and institutions incorporated and even produced magic. Light pencil marking to about 30 pages.

Softcover. NY, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, a collection of twenty detachable posters featuring cycling from such iconic Magnum photographers as Henri Cartier- Bresson, Martin Parr, Abbas, Robert Capa, and others.Since its founding in 1947 by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, and David "Chim" Seymour, Magnum Photos, the legendary co-operative has powerfully chronicled the peoples, cultures, events, and issues of the time. Still in publisher's shrinkwrap.

Hardcover. London, Chris Boot, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 252 pages. In this volume, ten Magnum photographers turn their lenses on contemporary Georgia. Situated on the cusp of Russia and Asia, but with a European culture dating back to the 7th century BC, Georgia was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1922. Its independence was restored in 1991, but it then suffered from civil war and a breakdown of its economic infrastructure. In the last decade, however, despite ongoing tensions in its relations with Russia, Georgia has mounted a spirited comeback. Magnum photographers Antoine d'Agata, Jonas Bendiksen, Thomas Dworzak, Martine Franck, Alex Majoli, Gueorgui Pinkhassov, Martin Parr, Paolo Pellegrin, Mark Power and Alec Soth visited the country during spring 2009, each pursuing their own theme (Alec Soth goes in search of the 'most beautiful woman in Georgia', for example). All found themselves enchanted by the Georgian people, something strongly conveyed in their photographs as well as in personal text journals which accompany the images. This well-designed volume also includes a fold-out map, marked with each photographer's journey; a chapter showing the best of Magnum photographers' work over 60 years (including by Magnum's founders Robert Capa from his visit to Georgia with John Steinbeck in 1948 and Henri Cartier-Bresson); and an illuminating introduction by the Paris-based New Yorker writer, and Georgia expert, Wendell Steavenson.

Softcover. NY, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. Since its founding in 1947 by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, and David "Chim" Seymour, Magnum Photos, the legendary co-operative has powerfully chronicled the peoples, cultures, events, and issues of the time. This collection of twenty detachable posters features iconic images from these Magnum photographers and more.

Hardcover. Washington.DC, Smithsonian, 1st , 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Black & white illustrations.

Hardcover. Washington DC, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 342 pages, b&w illustrations. In a bright, unclipped dust jacket.

Hardcover. Boston/New York, Bedford/ St. Martin's, 4th pr., 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 1224 pages plus appendix, color illustrations. Pictorial boards, very heavy textbook. Clean, tight copy. Light bump to cover corner otherwise very good. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. NY, William Morrow, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 350 pages, B&w frontispiece of Houssaye. A condensation of his six-volume Confessions. Entertaining observations of nineteenth century Parisian life, culture and government. Clean copy in a lightly worn dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Harper & Row, 1st, 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, turquoise cloth with gilt lettering on the spine, 272 pages, b&w illustrations. Bibliography. Index. The author considers the paradoxical period between the social and political revolutions of 1848 and the death of optimisn in 1914. Besides presenting a revealing and fascinating account of great social contrasts, the author introduces the reader into other aspects of life during this period, the relaxations and dissipations of both the rich and poor, from the showboat and the music hall to the lavish spectacles of the Nineties and the beginnings of jazz. Clean copy. No dust jacket.

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. Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 1056 pages, b&w illustrations. This work presents a biography of the artist Marc Chagall in dialogue with events and ideologies of his time. It encompasses different aspects of his life (1889-1985) including his roots in folk culture, his personal relationships and his interests.

Hardcover. New York, D.A.P.//La Fabrica , 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 192 pages. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. America's first female war correspondent, Margaret Bourke-White was also something of a media star, with the portrait of her decked out in flying gear, camera in hand, about to set off on a bombing raid, being a favorite pin-up among U.S. forces. Focusing on the work Bourke-White made in the 1930s and 40s in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union and the U.K., Moments in History presents 150 classic photographs alongside revelatory extracts from letters and publications in periodicals. Bourke-White traveled to the USSR when the first Five-Year Plan was being implemented; she documented the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, and the Allied bombing of Germany. In the summer of 1945 she was commissioned by Life to make a photographic record of the destroyed German cities. She was present at the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp and the Leipzig-Thekla forced labor camp. She recorded the partition of India and the Korean War, and one of her most famous pictures of this period is "Gandhi," which shows the subject at his spinning wheel. Also included in the catalogue are some of the word-picture sequences Bourke-White did for Fortune and Life, as well as extracts from her correspondence with personalities from the worlds of politics and culture, such as Winston Churchill and Georgia O'Keeffe. Bourke-White wanted to be the "eyes of the age," and her pictures testify to (as she put it) her "unquenchable desire to be present when history is being made."

Hardcover. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 356 pages. One of the world's largest tyre makers and an international corporation with interests in countries around the world, Michelin is also a uniquely French company, one that throughout its history has closely identified itself with the country's people and culture. In the process, it has helped shape the self-image of 20th-century France. This volume offers a provocative history of the company and its innovative advertising campaigns between 1898, when Bibendum - the company's iconic "Michelin Man" - was first introduced, to 1940, when France fell to the Nazis and the company's top executive, Edouard Michelin, died. Both events indelibly changed the company and the national context in which it operated. Clean copy.

Softcover. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 132 pages, color illustrations. Culling more than 150 of the most colorful and sometimes unbelievable posters from 1957-1990. Includes an illuminating bilingual essay discussing the posters' creation, the role of cinema in Mexican popular culture, and the ups and downs of its film industry.

Softcover. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 132 pages, color illustrations. Culling more than 150 of the most colorful and sometimes unbelievable posters from 1957-1990. Includes an illuminating bilingual essay discussing the posters' creation, the role of cinema in Mexican popular culture, and the ups and downs of its film industry.

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.

Softcover. Philadelphia PA, Philadelphia Museum of Art , 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 397 pages, 127 color plates, many bw plates. Issued in conjunction with a series of 1984 exhibitions. "The Dutch in the seventeenth century placed a premium on naturalistic accounts of their surroundings, be they in the form of portraits, landscapes, still lifes, or scenes of everyday life -- what we have come to call 'genre' painting. With this art, the painter recorded the look, the manners, the character of those quotidian events, which comprise day-to-day existence." This book features essays on both the artists and on life and culture during this time. The catalogue addresses 127 paintings: first, in color plates, and secondly, with lengthy annotations and small BW illus. The concluding bibliography is substantial. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Kluwer Academic/Plenum , 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 237 pages. Hardcover with laminated boards. Previous owner's stamp in front fly leaf, otherwise, clean, tight copy with minor wear to covers. Black and white pictures throughout.