fiction

Hardcover. NY, Library of America , 4th pr., 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 990 pages. James M. Cain's pioneering novel of murder and adultery along the California highway, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), shocked contemporaries with its laconic toughness and fierce sexuality. Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1935) uses truncated rhythms and a unique narrative structure to turn its account of a Hollywood dance marathon into an unforgettable evocation of social chaos and personal desperation. In Thieves Like Us (1937), Edward Anderson vividly brings to life the dusty roads and back-country hideouts where a fugitive band of Oklahoma outlaws plays out its destiny. The Big Clock (1946), an ingenious novel of pursuit and evasion by the poet Kenneth Fearing, is set by contrast in the dense and neurotic inner world of a giant publishing corporation under the thumb of a warped and ultimately murderous chief executive. William Lindsay Gresham's controversial Nightmare Alley (1946), a ferocious psychological portrait of a charismatic carnival hustler, creates an unforgettable atmosphere of duplicity, corruption, and self-destruction. I Married a Dead Man (1948), a tale of switched identity set in the anxious suburbs, is perhaps the most striking novel of Cornell Woolrich, who found in the techniques of the gothic thriller the means to express an overpowering sense of personal doom. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, World Syndicate Publishing Co, reprint, 1907, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover. 287 pages. Black & white frontispiece. Some edgewear. Front hinge loose at title-page. Dust jacket with edgewear, soiling.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing Company, 1st, 1948, 240 pages. Paperback. Dell Mystery Book #207. Light creasing to paper wrappers. Hinge glue undone in front. Map on rear wrapper.

Hardcover. NY, Walker Books, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. In Sallis's beautifully written second book to feature Turner, an ex-cop and ex-con (after 2004's Cypress Grove), Turner is working as a deputy sheriff in Cripple Creek, Tenn., a small town where crime is minor and strictly local. Then, late one night, Sheriff Don Lee arrests drunk driver Judd Kurtz with $200,000 in a nylon gym bag hidden in the trunk of his car. Kurtz breaks out of the town jail, seriously wounding two officers in the process. Turner's investigation leads him to an organized crime connection in nearby Memphis that enmeshes him in a web of escalating violence.

Hardcover. NY, Meredith Press, 1st, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, lightly rubbed dust jacket. A story set in Nebraska in the 1800s. Centers on the relationship between Matt Bailey and a young Sioux brave, Red Bear. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Hyperion, ist, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket with a die-cut window, Newbery Medal sticker on front. Copyright page states First Edition with the lowest number being 2. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press , 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright. unclipped dust jacket. Clean.

Hardcover. NY, Greenwillow, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 337 pages, hardcover, like new copy of this Newbery Award Winner for 2006. First printing of the first edition with no medal sticker on cover.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1st, 1939, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardbound, 314 pages. Black & white illustrations with color frontispiece by Marguerite de Angeli. Dust jacket with chipping, soiling, closed tears. Chunk missing from top of spine. Brodart cover. Previous owners markings on half title page.

Hardcover. NY, Morrow, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Werner Ernst, a second-year medical resident, encounters the stark realities of the modern intensive care unit, the fears and illusions of the loved ones of the terminally ill, and the exhaustion and irony of doctors, nurses, and technicians. A first novel.

Hardcover. London, Macmillan, 1st, 1912, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 312 pages. Hardcover. Rare first edition. Covers bound in green with gilt title on spine and front cover. Previous owner's bookplate on front endpaper. Covers show some age wear: moisture stain on back cover, some soil and fraying/chipping on spine. Pages and edges have age-yellowing. Foxing on endpapers and preliminary/back pages, but doesn't affect text. Split at gutters in a few places, but binding still tight. In good condition for its age.

Hardcover. New York, Knopf, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover.339 pages. Slight sunning to dust jacket spine, else a very nice, tight copy. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Boswell's debut novel of an eccentric Arizona family was called "brilliant" "piercing" and "dazzling" by the critics, and adapted into a film with Peter Berg and Peter Coyote. Signed by author Boswell in ink on the title page.

Hardcover. NY, Harper and Brothers, reprint, nd, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, tan cloth with green and white design on front cover, spine with green lettering. 32 b&w plates by Remington.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1944, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 192 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #104. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Creasing to covers and spine. Frot wrapper is separated from spine. Pencil notation to first page.

Hardcover. London, Jonathan Cape, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 211 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. SIGNED and inscribed BY AUTHOR ON TITLE PAGE. Clean, tight copy with minor wear to edges.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st US, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 211 pages. The author's first collection of short stories, ten stories which explore the British experience of France over a period of 300 years, from the 17th century to the present. Remainder mark to bottom edge, else a beautiful copy,

Hardcover. NY, Horn Book, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 359 pages. Using as a framework his two essays "Out on a Limb with the Critics" and "Coming to Terms with Criticism," Paul Heins has selected contributions which expand and elucidate "the invariable questions that beset the criticism of children's books: the classification, defense, and evaluation of children's literature." Included is the controversial exchange between Eleanor Cameron and Roald Dahl on the validity of the child as critic; Jane Langton's perceptive and original discussion of the fine distinction between fantasy and reality in literature; Alvin Schwartz's remarks on folklore and humor; Mary Orvig's consideration of Swedish books in translation; and treatments of individual titles such as Watership Down, Tom Sawyer, and A Wizard of Earthsea. Name and stamp on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, G.P. Putnams, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Non-paginated. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. Color illustrations by McCully.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf , 1st, 1923, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with black stamping. Black & white illustrations (plus color frontis) by Dorothy P. Lathrop. Shows some wear and age, soiling to back cover, weak binding. No dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, W.W. Norton & Company, 1st, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Provides fresh insight into the age old tale of a woman who grows as an individual and literally explodes out of her marriage. May Sarton describes the burgeoning artist confined by a social contract. Light fading to spine. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1st Thus, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 128 pages. Hardcover. Illustrated throughout with black & white photographs. Dust jacket with light wear is price clipped - now protected with clear plastic cover. Minor sun fade to top and bottom edges of covers. Clean, tight copy.

Softcover. Seattle WA, Fantagraphics, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 134 pages. Clean, unmarked copy in excellent condition. "They were all there, the pimps, the fags, the whores, the curious, the alcoholic, the weird of the late '50s... blues lovers, Canadian bikers, thrill seekers, junkies, insomniacs, hepcats..." So begins "Down at the Kitty Kat," one of the 20-plus never-before-collected memoirs and yarns by Spain Rodriguez, one of the original gang of Zap Comix provocateurs. Although he's best known for his two-fisted tales of the chopper-riding Trashman, Spain's blunt graphic style and uncompromising gift for caricature, rendered in eye-punishing slabs of black and white, work equally well for more subtle fare -- such as these memoirs of his misspent youth. Cruisin' with the Hound ranges from Spain's days as an innocent young churchgoer to his time as a member of the Road Vultures motorcycle gang, with stops along the way for his discoveries of science fiction and other, more adult pursuits ("The Birth of Porn") -- as well as the "The Education of an Underground Cartoonist," describing his journey from a pimply Captain Marvel-reading scribbler to his arrival as a professional artist. But the heart of this collection is a cycle of stories ) set during Spain's teenage days in the 1950s, often featuring the doomed, dot-eyed Fred Toot.

Softcover. Greenwich, CT, Fawcett Gold Medal Publishing, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 127 pages. Paperback. Gold Metal Book #s1170. Small ink notation on 1st page. Light creasing to paper wrappers. Hinge cracked.