essays

Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 366 pages. Previous owner's signature on front end paper. Markings in pencil to a handful pages. Else a clean, tight copy. Twelve original essays advance the understanding of theistic metaphysics and it's capacity to illuminate a variety of fundamental issues.

Softcover. Philadelphia, PA, Running Press, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 256 pages. Softcover. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor edgewear. Color illustrations throughout. Donuts are America's favorite treat and, in Donut Nation, Ellen Brown travels the United States in search of the best donut shops. From beloved mom-and-pop establishments and roadside cafes to innovative boutiques and artisanal restaurants, there are more than seventy hand-crafted donut shops to take you from Maine to Arizona.

Hardcover. New York, Da Capo Press, Reprint, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover. (Library of American Art Series) 1971 reprint of the original 1926 edition. 110 pages. b&w illustrations. Brown cloth, gilt lettering to spine and front cover. Light wear and unfortunate paper-clip impressions to upper edge of some pages. Still a nice, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, New Directions, 1st, 1969, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, lightly wrinkled dust jacket that's unclipped. This is Snyder's first essay/excerpt collection, "Earth House Hold" being a play on the roots of the word "ecology. 143 pages. Dust jacket with foxing, tanning. No markings.

Softcover. NY, Columbia University Press, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 395 pages. The essays gathered here, in addition to those by editors Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloob, are written by leading scholars of Asian cultures--among them Donald Keene, Peter Awn, Barbara Stoler Miller, Ainslie Embree, Burton Watson, C.T. Hsia, Paul Anderer, and others. They introduce classics from the Islamic, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese traditions, providing entree to texts which have emerged as monuments of Asian thought and literature. Among the works discussed are the Qu'ran, the philosophy of history of Ibn Khaldun, the Upanishads, the epic Mahabarata, the philosopher Mencius, the Lotus Sutra, T'and Poetry, the Tale of Genji, and the poet Basho.

Softcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 75 pages illustrated in color. In his insightful and engrossing lecture, Leo Steinberg surveys and critiques the work of Robert Rauschenberg, one of the great American post-war artists. He also discusses his own experience as a critic in the exciting and turbulent art world of New York in the 1950s and 1960s. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1st, 1905, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth stamped in gilt, 3 colors. Beautiful gilt and sihouette vignette of the London skyline. 80 black and white drawings by Joseph Pennell. Top edge gilt. A collection of periodical pieces written over a span of thirty years by James, all about his travels in England. Name and date on front fly leaf, otherwise a clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 1938, 522 pages. Hardcover. Green tweed cloth covers with black & gilt printed design to cover & spine. Dust jacket with moderate toning, now protected with a plastic cover. Light toning & several illustrations in bw throughout. A clean copy.

Hardcover. Little Rock AK, Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 358 pages. For those who care about literature or simply love a good laugh (or both), Charles Portis has long been one of America's most admired novelists. His 1968 novel True Grit is fixed in the contemporary canon, and four more have been hailed as comic masterpieces. Now, for the first time, his other writings--journalism, travel stories, short fiction, memoir, and even a play--have been brought together in Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany, his first new book in more than twenty years. All the familiar Portis elements are here: picaresque adventures, deadpan humor, an expert eye for detail and keen ear for the spoken word, and encounters with oddball characters both real and imagined. The collection encompasses the breadth of his fifty-year writing career, from his gripping reportage of the civil rights movement for the New York Herald Tribune to a comic short story about the demise of journalism in the 21st century. New to even the most ardent fan is his three-act play, Delray's New Moon, performed onstage in 1996 and published here for the first time.

Hardcover. London, Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1st, 1923, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 194 pages. Dark blue cloth covers, gilt titles to spine, titles and border blind stamped to front. Light rubbing and edgewear, spine slightly faded, previous owner's short ink inscription to front endpaper, pencil underlining and markings to some page margins, pencil notations to rear endpaper; otherwise a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 134 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. SIGNED BY HALL ON BOOKPLATE ON FRONT END PAPER. Gutter crack on page 132, otherwise tight copy. Newspaper clipping laid in.

Hardcover. NY, D. Appleton & Company, 1st, 1852, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth with black title to front board and to spine. 261 pages, publisher's ads. Contains of an early review of Harriet Beecher Stowe's bestselling novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, as well as accounts of travels to the Nubian Desert and Arctic, a history of Spanish literature, and literary essays and reviews of works by Dickens, Tennyson, Thackeray, and Hawthorne. Mild foxing, some light chipping and wear to spine.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown, and Company, 1st, 1905, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, maroon boards with gold-color lettering on spine, xii, 392 pages. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 306 pages. Red cloth, no dust jacket issued. Light wear to edges, else a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. London, Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 2nd, 1874, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 164 pages, plus 24 pages of new works from publishers. Green cloth covers, gilt titles to spine, blind stamped titles and border to front cover. Light edgewear and rubbing to covers, spine cracked at inside of front hinge, previous owner's inscription to front endpaper, Edinburgh Medical Society stamp to title page, short pencil notations to rear endpaper; otherwise a very neat, tight copy.

Hardcover. UK, Oxford University Press, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 284 pages. Thirteen original essays by leading scholars explore aspects of Spinoza's ethical theory and, in doing so, deepen our understanding of the richly rewarding core of his system. Given its importance to his philosophical ambitions, it is surprising that his ethics has, until recently, received relatively little scholarly attention. Anglophone philosophy has tended to focus on Spinoza's contribution to metaphysics and epistemology, while philosophy in continental Europe has tended to show greater interest in his political philosophy. This tendency is problematic not only because it overlooks a central part of Spinoza's project, but also because it threatens to present a distorted picture of his philosophy. Moreover, Spinoza's ethics, like other branches of his philosophy, is complex, difficult, and, at times, paradoxical. The essays in this volume advance our understanding of his ethics and also help us to appreciate it as the centerpiece of his system. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Austin TX, University of Texas Press, 1stt, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Three essays (on the Shelterbelt Project, New Deal critics, and FDR's attempt to expand the Supreme Court) make up the second annual Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures; foreword by C. B. Smith; edited by Harold M. Hollingsworth and William F. Holmes. Bound in bright green cloth-covered boards with silver lettering on the front board and spine.

Hardcover. London, England, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, Reprint, 1962, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 480 pages. Hardcover. Previous owner's bookplate on front endpaper and names written on front flyleaf. Light pencil notes and underlining. Spine straight. Black cover boards, gilt title on spine. Split at gutter on title page, but binding good. Bradley was a leading member of the philosophical movement known as British idealism.

Hardcover. London, SCM Press Ltd., 1st, 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Poor, Hardcover, bound in original publishers gray fleck cloth, with black title/design labels. 337 pages. Dust jacket chipped, bottom third of spine gone. Internally clean.

Hardcover. New York, Rockefeller Institute Press, 1st, 1960, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, brown cloth stamped in gilt and black, 395 pages. Previous owners name on inside front cover. Clean, tight cover.

Softcover. London, Olive Press, Reprint, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 178 pages. Softcover. Illustrated in sepia tones, copious illustrations throughout. Light foxing top edge. Toning to covers & spine. Otherwise clean & unmarked.

Hardcover. Knoxville TN, University of Tennessee Press, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 235 pages. Evelyn Scott was a significant literary figure in American letters of the 1920s and 1930s, an important contributor in the experimental forms and techniques of the modernist movement. She wrote and published in many genres -- the novel, short fiction, poetry, memoir, criticism, and drama. Since that time, Scott's work has been forgotten by most readers and critics, and her reputation as an important writer of her day has been obscured. This collection, which features an introduction and thirteen critical essays, is the first volume to focus on Scott's work rather than her intriguing yet troubled life and initiates a long-needed examination of Scott's innovations in fiction, memoir, and other genres. The various essays take diverse critical approaches to Scott's canon, including her best-known works -- Escapade and The Wave -- and explore her views on topics such as women, politics, religion, art, and the South. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Chicago, University Of Chicago Press, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 236 pages. A butler school in Houston, a livestock auction in Little Rock, a home for "frozen guys" in California, JFK's humidor in Manhattan--all are jumping off points for Friedman's baleful and sharply satirical scrutiny of American life and behavior in the second half of the twentieth century. Travel with Friedman from Harlem to Hollywood, from Port-au-Prince to Etta's Eat Shop in Chicago. In these pieces, which were published in literary and mass-circulation magazines from the 1960s to the 1990s, you'll meet such luminaries as Castro and Clinton, Natalie Wood and Clint Eastwood, and even Friedman's friends Irwin Shaw, Nelson Algren, and Mario Puzo. Friedman is a master of the essay, whether the subject is crime reporting ("Lessons of the Street"), Hollywood shenanigans ("My Life among the Stars"), or his outrageous adventures as the editor of pulp magazines (the classic "Even the Rhinos Were Nymphos"). We could sing his praises as a journalist, humorist, and social critic. But, as Buckley tells us, being Bruce Jay Friedman is enough. Clean copy.