Spain Biography

Hardcover. Boston, Twayne Publishers, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green cloth stamped in gilt, 166 pages. Virtues's place in Spanish drama is partly as one of the few to attempt tragedy, partly as one of the precursors of the national comedia, but above all as a pivotal figure in an important transitional period of Spain's political and cultural history. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Vintage, reprint, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 256 pages, b&w photos. Clean copy. A provocative memoir from Luis Bunuel, the Academy Award winning creator of some of modern cinema's most important films, from Un Chien Andalou to The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.Luis Bunuel's films have the power to shock, inspire, and reinvent our world. Now, in a memoir that carries all the surrealism and subversion of his cinema, Bunuel turns his artistic gaze inward. In swift and generous prose, Bunuel traces the surprising contours of his life, from the Good Friday drumbeats of his childhood to the dreams that inspired his most famous films to his turbulent friendships with Federico Garcia Lorca and Salvador Dali. His personal narratives also encompass the pressing political issues of his time, many of which still haunt us today--the specter of fascism, the culture wars, the nuclear bomb. Filled with film trivia, framed by Bunuel's intellect and wit, this is essential reading for fans of cinema and for anyone who has ever wanted to see the world through a surrealist's eyes.

Softcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, reprint, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 384 pages, illustrations. Philip II of Spain--ruler of the most extensive empire the world had ever known--has been viewed in a harsh and negative light since his death in 1598. Identified with repression, bigotry, and fanaticism by his enemies, he has been judged more by the political events of his reign than by his person. This book, published four hundred years after Philip's death, is the first full-scale biography of the king. Placing him within the social, cultural, religious, and regional context of his times, it presents a startling new picture of his character and reign. Drawing on Philip's unpublished correspondence and on many other archival sources, Henry Kamen reveals much about Philip the youth, the man, the husband, the father, the frequently troubled Christian, and the king. Kamen finds that Philip was a cosmopolitan prince whose extensive experience of northern Europe broadened his cultural imagination and tastes, whose staunchly conservative ideas were far from being illiberal and fanatical, whose religious attitudes led him to accept a practical coexistence with Protestants and Jews, and whose support for Las Casas and other defenders of the Indians in America helped determine government policy. Shedding completely new light on most aspects of Philip's private life and, in consequence, on his public actions, the book is the definitive portrayal of Philip II. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Taschen, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 416 pages, color illustrated, large format. This catalog raisonne brings together Velazquez's complete works--jaw-dropingly reproduced in extra-large format with a selection of delicious enlarged details--with insightful commentary on how his paintings give equal attention to all that they contain. To him, an old woman frying eggs or a buffoon was as important as a Pope or a King. For him, form was subservient to light and color; the brushstrokes were markers to help the viewers reconstruct each picture mentally--concepts adopted vehemently by the Impressionists. Velazquez's greatest talent was creating beauty from the grotesque, imbuing each subject with a human liveliness rarely seen on canvas. In its extensive detail and comparisons, Jose Lopez-Rey's book reveals the development of this vision. NOTE: DUE TO SIZE AND WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. New York, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 408 pages. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Containing uncensored and on-the-spot observations of Picasso at home and in company, Visiting Picasso is a wonderfully vivid, spontaneous and lively record of Roland Penroses many encounters with the artist and his family, friends and associates, from their first meeting in 1936 to the artists death in 1973. Over 70 photographs, many by Penroses wife Lee Miller, illustrate the colorful cast of characters.