fiction novels

Hardcover. NY, Ten Speed Press, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in pictorial boards, no dust jacket issued, 201 pages. This sweeping, full-color comic book biography tells the complete life story of Jack Kirby, co-creator of some of the most enduring superheroes and villains of the twentieth century for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and more. Critically acclaimed graphic novelist Tom Scioli breathes visual life into Kirby's life story--from his days growing up in New York during the Great Depression and discovering a love for science fiction and cartoons to his time on the frontlines in the European theatre of World War II where he experienced the type of action and adventure he'd later imbue his comic pages with, and on to his world-changing collaborations at Marvel with Stan Lee, where the pair redefined comics as a part of pop culture.

Hardcover. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2nd pr., 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, red cloth with blind-stamped wreath around a portrait of a boy to front, gilt-stamped title to spine; lime green endpapers. Illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. Colophon page mentions this is the first book written by Roald Dahl for children, second issue with 4-line colophon, bound by The Book Press. Covers show wear and light soil, esp. rear panel. No markings.

Hardcover. NY, Library of America, 11th pr., Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Novelist, essayist, and public intellectual James Baldwin was one of the most brilliant and provocative literary figures of the postwar era, and one of the greatest African-American writers of this century. "Early Novels and Stories" presents the novels and short stories that established Baldwin's reputation as a writer who fused unblinking realism with rare verbal eloquence. This volume includes his first novel, "Go Tell It on the Mountain" (1953), "Giovanni's Room" (1956), and other early works. 970 pages, Remainder mark to bottom edge otherwise like new.

Hardcover. NY, Doubleday, reprint, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 320 pages. A brilliant, action-packed re-imagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. Copyright pages states First Edition with the number 10 above it, so a later printing. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Roberts Brothers, 1st US, 1876, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, brown cloth, gilt title to spine and gilt vignette of windmill and black borders to front cover. 310 pages.Originally published in Aunt Judy's Magazine as: The Miller's Thumb in 1873. Appears to be the first U.S. printing. Bright, clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Archipelago Books, 1st transl. thus, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover in pictorial wrappers, 114 pages. "This debut novel--by an acclaimed Argentinean writer, and first published in 1958--centers on a sixteen-year-old who becomes pregnant after an assault by an older man. Setting the story in the sweltering heat of Argentina's Pampas, Gallardo re-creates the world of ranchers and missionaries from the perspective of the girl, with her adolescent confusion and private sense of guilt. Gallardo juxtaposes her solitary desperation--she visits a local medicine woman for an abortion, and gallops recklessly on horseback to induce a miscarriage--with the conservative Catholic society that closes ranks against her." Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Literary Guild/Doubleday Doran & Co., reprint, 1938, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth covers with black stamping, 281 pages. Endpapers and b&w illustrations by Thomas Fogarty. The boyhood adventures of Jerry Foster set in rural Wisconsin in the 1800s. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Estes and Lauriat, 1st, 1895, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 195 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. 16 black & white drawings by George Foster Barnes. Front fly leaf is missing and there's some shelfwear to gilt-decorated covers. Rear cover has light wrinkle to cloth. Still, a clean, tight copy and relatively scarce. Depicts NY city street life in the late 1800s.

Hardcover. Dark Horse, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 216 pages. In the 1950s, when the world was faced with strange or anomalous threats, there was one man who was called on to set the situation right - Jet Scott of the Office of Scientifact! Whether it was tracking down deadly Banthrax germs, uncovering the source of strange ocean creatures, or discovering the cause of spontaneously combusting pipelines in Saudi Arabia, Jet Scott was the adventurer who could get to the truth!

Hardcover. Dark Horse, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 256 pages. Volume 2 of the collected strip from the 1950s. This is a lost gem of American comic strips. Jerry Robinson's fluid style and supreme draftsmanship are on full display here. Fun, fast-paced stories of a character who's part Bill Nye, part Indiana Jones. The highlight of this discovery is seeing how Robinson played with his own style, slightly altering it to suit each story.

Hardcover. Roslyn NY, Walter J. Black, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, illustrated boards. Three complete unabridged mysteries in one volume. Detective Book Club Edition. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. New York, Greenwillow, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 130 pages, Hardcover with dust jacekt. SIGNED BY FLEISCHMAN on title-page. Black & white illustrations by Jos. A. Smith. Spine faded, therwise clean, tight copy.

Softcover. New York, Pantheon Graphic Library, reprint, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Non-paginated. Softcover with light edgewear to cover wrapper. Color comics throughout by Chris Ware. Clean, tight copy. This first book from Chicago author Chris Ware is a pleasantly-decorated view at a lonely and emotionally-impaired "everyman" (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth), who is provided, at age 36, the opportunity to meet his father for the first time. An improvisatory romance which gingerly deports itself between 1890's Chicago and 1980's small town Michigan, the reader is helped along by thousands of colored illustrations and diagrams, which, when read rapidly in sequence, provide a convincing illusion of life and movement. The bulk of the work is supported by fold-out instructions, an index, paper cut-outs, and a brief apology, all of which concrete to form a rich portrait of a man stunted by a paralyzing fear of being disliked.

Boston, Atlantic Little Brown, 3rd, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, lightly worn dust jacket. Black & white drawings by Eric Von Schmidt. Jingo Hawks, of Mrs. Daggatt's Beneficent Orphan House in Boston, is hired out to General Dirty-Face Jim Scurlock as a chimney sweep. A mysterious Mr. Peacock 'buys' Jingo and they set out on a treasure hunt, pursued by Daggatt and Scurlock. Hilarious scenes follow . . . . Expressive line drawings enhance this rousing adventure. Clean copy.

NY, Lodestar/Dutton, 2nd pr., 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Lodestar Books, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. When an aged lunatic named Putnam arrives at a poorhouse farm in rural Vermont in 1855, he is treated as little more than a beast by everyone except the orphan Jip, who himself arrived at the charity orphanage/asylum after being found abandoned by the roadside. Jip and Putnam become friends, then allies of a sort, as Jip struggles to improve his own lot and that of his friend Lucy, the unfortunate daughter of the late town drunk. This historical tale by Katherine Paterson involves its young protagonist in the great 19th century struggle between slave owners and abolitionists while sending him into a test of his own loyalty and courage. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown & Co., reprint, 1927, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in black cloth with a color label on front cover, 316 pages. Eight color plates by Clara M. Burd. Name on inside front cover, otherwise a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1st thus, 1925, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light gray cloth, 207 pages. black & white illustrations by Eunice H. Stephenson. Previous owner's inscription on front end paper. Front cloth cover with two- color illustration and black lettering. Edgewear bottom edges, spine top and bottom. Still very good.

Hardcover. NY, Library of America, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 970 pages. Joan Didion's influence on postwar American letters is undeniable. Whether writing fiction, memoir, or trailblazing journalism, her gifts for narrative and dialogue, and her intimate but detached authorial persona, have won her legions of readers and admirers. Now Library of America launches its multi-volume edition of Didion's collected writings, prepared in consultation with the author, that brings together her fiction and nonfiction for the first time. Collected in this first volume are Didion's five iconic books from the 1960s and 1970s: Run River, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It As It Lays, A Book of Common Prayer, and The White Album. Whether writing about countercultural San Francisco, the Las Vegas wedding industry, Lucille Miller, Charles Manson, or the shopping mall, Didion achieves a wonderful negative sublimity without condemning her subjects or condescending to her readers. Chiefly about California, these books display Didion's genius for finding exactly the right language and tone to capture America's broken twilight landscape at a moment of headlong conflict and change. Remainder dot to bottom edge, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New York, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1st US, 1895, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 425 pages, with publisher's advertisement in back. Decorated cover and illustrations throughout. Corner and edge wear and fray, previous owner's inscription on front fly leaf, and spine soiling. Otherwise, clean and tight copy.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, John C. Winston Company, 1st, 1933, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket that has a paper scar to spine where label was removed. Illustrated on dj and cover of a man standing at a bar. B&w illustrations by Jack Gallagher. A satiric view of tipplers, depicted in the character of a Falstaffian American male apparently meant to counteract the caticature of prohibition and prohibitionists as a pinch-faced old spoil sport put forth by the cartoonist Rollin Kirby in the "New York World."

Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux , reprint, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Young William Jones is on a desperate search through darkest London for John Diamond, the son of a man his father apparently once cheated badly. Will he find him? Originally published in the United States in 1980 as"Footsteps", the novel combines a cast of remarkable eccentrics with superb sensory descriptions. The title was a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book.

Hardcover. Boston, Usher & Strickland, 1st, 1841, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 216 pages, embossed brown cloth covers, gilt on spine. An autobiographical narrative with temperance leanings. Much on nautical life from the seaman's perspective: whaling, slave trade and daily life aboard a ship. Three page preface signed L.C. Scarce. Previous owner's signature on front fly leaf otherwise very good.

Hardcover. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 160 pages. This book offers eleven essays on Fante's career, ranging from close thematic analysis of individual stories and novels to broadly informed assessments of Fante's life and art in the context of his times. Major areas explored in the book include Fante's treatment of the Italian-American experience; his relationship to other American writers of the 1930s and beyond; the deeply Catholic nature of Fante's fiction; his unique and still-seminal vision of Los Angeles; and his lifelong concern to render in fiction both the comedy and the horrors of the writing life. Clean copy.