Wolfgang Herrndorf

Tim Mohr

Michael Maar

A different noir novel set during the 70’s in the Sahara.  If it was a movie, think David Lynch with a dollop of Quentin Tarantino.  Don’t let the number of pages fool you since it’s well written and briskly paced.

It’s been handled with kid gloves so it’s in excellent condition.

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Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

California

Set in the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, this darkly sophisticated literary thriller by one of Germany's most celebrated writers is now available in the US for the first time. North Africa, 1972. While the world is reeling from the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, a series of mysterious events is playing out in the Sahara. Four people are murdered in a hippie commune, a suitcase full of money disappears, and a pair of unenthusiastic detectives are assigned to investigate. In the midst of it all, a man with no memory tries to evade his armed pursuers. Who are they? What do they want from him? If he could just recall his own identity he might have a chance of working it out. . . . This darkly sophisticated literary thriller, the last novel Wolfgang Herrndorf completed before his untimely death in 2013, is, in the words of Michael Maar, “the greatest, grisliest, funniest, and wisest novel of the past decade.” Certainly no reader will ever forget it.

Sand

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Robert Polito

Brand new and sealed boxset.  A perfect gift for any fan of noir or treat yourself!

Price qualifies for Free Shipping!

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Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

A Library of America Boxed Set

American Noir: 11 Classic Crime Novels of the 1930s, 40s, And 50s

54edd6cc-73eb-4760-9d45-8e479f946a90-0

Benjamin Cawthra

Interesting book that analyzes how photography influenced the perception of jazz from the Big Band Swing era to Bebop and beyond.

The book is in mint condition with some shelf-wear on the dust jacket.

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Photography and Jazz

Miles Davis, supremely cool behind his shades. Billie Holiday, eyes closed and head tilted back in full cry. John Coltrane, one hand behind his neck and a finger held pensively to his lips. These iconic images have captivated jazz fans nearly as much as the music has. Jazz photographs are visual landmarks in American history, acting as both a reflection and a vital part of African American culture in a time of immense upheaval, conflict, and celebration. Charting the development of jazz photography from the swing era of the 1930s to the rise of black nationalism in the ’60s, Blue Notes in Black and White is the first of its kind: a fascinating account of the partnership between two of the twentieth century’s most innovative art forms. Benjamin Cawthra introduces us to the great jazz photographers—including Gjon Mili, William Gottlieb, Herman Leonard, Francis Wolff, Roy DeCarava, and William Claxton—and their struggles, hustles, styles, and creative visions. We also meet their legendary subjects, such as Duke Ellington, sweating through a late-night jam session for the troops during World War II, and Dizzy Gillespie, stylish in beret, glasses, and goatee. Cawthra shows us the connections between the photographers, art directors, editors, and record producers who crafted a look for jazz that would sell magazines and albums. And on the other side of the lens, he explores how the musicians shaped their public images to further their own financial and political goals. This mixture of art, commerce, and racial politics resulted in a rich visual legacy that is vividly on display in Blue Notes in Black and White. Beyond illuminating the aesthetic power of these images, Cawthra ultimately shows how jazz and its imagery served a crucial function in the struggle for civil rights, making African Americans proudly, powerfully visible.

Blue Notes in Black and White

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Peter Caddick-Adams

Three riveting WWII books for the price of one!  

Monte Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell and The Pointblank Directive are hardcovers and both in excellent condition since they were read through over a few evenings.  

Dam Busters is a paperback and is in very good condition with standard wear to the corner tips of the covers and a slight edge dent on the top of the spine.  These are very minor but I like to be as descriptive as possible on the condition of the books I sell.  

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Oversized Hardcover (4 to 6 lbs)

Offers an authoritative account of the lesser-known yet devastatingly brutal battle waged by the Italian campaign during World War II.

Monte Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell + Bonus Books - The Pointblank Directive and Dam Busters

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Patrick Leigh Fermor

The full trilogy of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s classic travel books.  Paperback versions of A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and a hardcover copy of The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos.

All three are in excellent condition and are fascinating to read especially if you’re interested in the history of Central Europe since Fermor infuses his travels with a thorough knowledge of old European history. 

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Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Full Trilogy of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s famed chronicle of his travel adventure through Central Europe. 

Originally published: Great Britain: John Murray (Publishers), an Hachette UK company, 2013.

A Time of Gifts, Between the Woods and the Water and The Broken Road

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Thorkild Hansen

Colin Thubron

James McFarlane

Kathleen McFarlane

The book is new and has never been read.  There is a very slight wrinkle (photo #3) on the edge area at the top of the spine (received it this way via NYRB Book Club).  It is very minor but wanted to disclose it.

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The Danish Expedition Of 1761-1767

A riveting account of a landmark expedition that left only one survivor, now back in print for the first time in decades. Arabia Felix is the spellbinding true story of a scientific expedition gone disastrously awry. On a winter morning in 1761 six men leave Copenhagen by sea—a botanist, a philologist, an astronomer, a doctor, an artist, and their manservant—an ill-assorted band of men who dislike and distrust one another from the start. These are the members of the Danish expedition to Arabia Felix, as Yemen was then known, the first organized foray into a corner of the world unknown to Europeans. The expedition made its way to Turkey and Egypt, by which time its members were already actively seeking to undercut and even kill one another, before disappearing into the harsh desert that was their destination. Nearly seven years later a single survivor returned to Denmark to find himself forgotten and all the specimens that had been sent back ruined by neglect. Based on diaries, notebooks, and sketches that lay unread in Danish archives until the twentieth century, Arabia Felix is a tale of intellectual rivalry and a comedy of very bad manners, as well as an utterly absorbing adventure. Arabia Felix includes 33 line drawings and maps.

Arabia Felix

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George B. Nesbitt

Imani Perry

St. Clair Drake

A revealing and forthright memoir of a highly educated Black lawyer’s experience of trying to live a free and  equal life under the cloud of institutionalized racism in Midcentury America.

The book has been handled with kid gloves so it’s in excellent 

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Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

An Untold Memoir of Midcentury Black Life

"Like many twentieth-century Black families, the Nesbitts achieved an incredible transformation over the course of a single generation: from performing manual labor on the rural farms of the deep south to holding advanced degrees and owning property in the urban midwest, their family's story was lived or dreamed of by many who moved north during the Great Migration. In Being Somebody and Black Besides, George B. Nesbitt recounts the extraordinary struggles he, his parents, and his five siblings faced in their upwardly mobile journey from the Great Migration through the Freedom Struggle. Born in Champaign, Illinois, Nesbitt earned a law degree at the University of Illinois, enduring racist lectures and administrators who sought to penalize him when he advocated for racial equality. After graduating, he served in World War II, facing discrimination and harassment like many Black soldiers. And when the war was over, despite his education he held many jobs, some quite lowly, before he became deputy assistant to the secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Kennedy administration. A keen observer and narrator of race, Nesbitt recounts with righteous and justified anger his bitter struggles and incredible triumphs, shared by Black men and women in America. His beautifully written memoir is a rare example of a sustained first-person narrative about black life in this era. While many of his experiences will resonate with today's readers, others will provide a crucial glimpse into a chapter of Black life and its place in the unfinished struggle for racial justice in our country"--

Being Somebody and Black Besides

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Kathryn J. McGarr

Interesting read on how the press and U.S. Government officials interacted with each other during the 1940s and 50s with an intense balancing act between the truth and the message the government wanted conveyed to the public.  The tightrope frayed and eventually gave out and this book reveals why.

The book was read through in a few sittings so it’s in excellent condition.  The book jacket has some wrinkling at the top back cover (photo #3) - very minor but still wanted to disclose it.

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Public Lies and Professional Secrets in Cold War Washington

"Kathryn McGarr reveals how the Cold War consensus was deliberately created, shaped, maintained, and protected by a coterie of influential journalists in Washington, DC, who calculated what they would do (or not do) for sustained access to information. The compact among journalists, elected officials, and other government operatives constrained knowledge for everyone in a time when political insight was centrally controlled and defined. Yet these reporters, many of them outsiders from the Midwest, did this not out of malfeasance but for social and political benefit, ever conscious of the need to cultivate, placate, and blend with their sources"--

City of Newsmen

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Lawrence Tabak

A sad and shocking chronicle of how a small Wisconsin community was literally bulldozed by political con men from local politicians to Scott Walker and Trump.  The book reveals just how fraudulent and ridiculous (at times almost comical) the economics were that resulted in the destruction of the rural community of Mount Pleasant.  A truly shameful chapter in Wisconsin and U.S. politics.

The book was read in a couple of sittings so it’s in excellent condition. 

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Imaginary Jobs, Bulldozed Homes, and the Sacking of Local Government

Powerful and resonant, Foxconned is both the definitive autopsy of the Foxconn fiasco and a dire warning to communities and states nationwide. When Wisconsin governor Scott Walker stood shoulder to shoulder with President Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan at the White House in July 2017, they painted a glorious picture of his state’s future. Foxconn, the enormous China-based electronics firm, was promising to bring TV manufacturing back to the United States with a $10 billion investment and 13,000 well-paying jobs. They actually were making America great again, they crowed. Two years later, the project was in shambles. Ten thousand construction workers were supposed to have been building what Trump had promised would be “the eighth wonder of the world.” Instead, land had been seized, homes had been destroyed, and hundreds of millions of municipal dollars had been committed for just a few hundred jobs—nowhere near enough for Foxconn to earn the incentives Walker had shoveled at them. In Foxconned, journalist Lawrence Tabak details the full story of this utter collapse, which was disturbingly inevitable. As Tabak shows, everything about Foxconn was a disaster. But worse, he reveals how the economic incentive infrastructure across the country is broken, leading to waste, cronyism, and the steady transfer of tax revenue to corporations. Tabak details every kind of financial chicanery, from eminent domain abuse to good old-fashioned looting—all to benefit a coterie of consultants, politicians, and contractors. With compassion and care, he also reports the distressing stories of the many individuals whose lives were upended by Foxconn.

Foxconned

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Heather Hendershot

Compelling, in-depth analysis of the media coverage of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, both inside and outside the convention hall.  Loads of detail presented in a highly readable fashion.  Well worth reading especially considering the light it shines on Chicago Mayor Daley’s attempts at manipulating the news media and its profound effect on how future Presidents like Nixon and Trump would treat the media.

Hardback in mint condition.  Fast shipping!

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Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America

Introduction Breaking the News, Chicago Style -- The Storm before the Storm -- Day One: "If the Democratic Party can't be democratic, what hope is there for democracy?" -- Day Two: "We filibustered with Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum matters until the American people had gone to bed." -- Day Three: "You do what's right, you don't have to give a worry about the television medium." -- Day Four: "Maybe this is a kiss-and-make-up session, but it's not really intended quite that way, Mayor Daley." -- The Storm after the Storm -- Conclusion From Biased News to Fake News.

When the News Broke

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Multatuli

Ina Rilke

David McKay

Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Read through once but handled with kid gloves.

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Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company

A fierce indictment of colonialism, Max Havelaar is a masterpiece of Dutch literature based on the author's own experience as an adminstrator in the Dutch East Indies in the 1850s.

The Dutch East Indies, January 1856. The new Assistant Resident, Max Havelaar, arrives in the remote regency of Lebak, preceded by his reputation as a quixotic idealist. Some think him a fool, others a genius, but "one thing is certain- he was an unusual man, and worthy of observation." As Havelaar crusades against corruption, he makes a few unsettling observations of his own. Why don't the financial statements add up? Was the previous Assistant Resident's death really an accident? And why are his superiors obstructing his efforts to learn the truth?

A few years later in Amsterdam, the stolid Dutch coffee broker Batavus Drystubble obtains Havelaar's papers from the threadbare Scarfman, who wanders the streets in search of work. Drystubble pores over the documents in the hopes of lucrative revelations about the coffee trade. But his spirited young son Frits and romantic-souled German assistant Ernest Stern discover something much more astonishing- a scandal that strikes at the heart of the whole Dutch colonial enterprise...

Based on the author's true experiences as an administrator in Java, Max Havelaar is a fiery indictment of colonial misrule and one of the masterpieces of Dutch literature. This is the first new English translation of Multatuli's furious and funny masterpiece in more than fifty years.

Max Havelaar

389707af-d7fc-42ba-8971-154be39dc332-1

Suzanne Boorsch

Douglas Cushing

Alexa A. Greist

Elisabeth Hodermarsky

Sinclaire Marber

John Moore

Heather Nolin

Janet Ross

Brand New/Sealed

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The Arthur Ross Collection of European Prints

Published on the occasion of the exhibition "Meant to Be Shared: Selections from the Arthur Ross Collection of European Prints at the Yale University Art Gallery" held at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, December 18, 2015-April 24, 2016, the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, January 29-May 8, 2017 and at the Syracuse University Art Galleries, New York, August 17-November 19, 2017.

Meant to Be Shared

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Driss Chraibi

Hugh A. Harter

Adam Shatz

Brand New - has not been read.

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The Simple Past came out in 1954, and both in France and its author’s native Morocco the book caused an explosion of fury. The protagonist, who shares the author’s name, Driss, comes from a Moroccan family of means, his father a self-made tea merchant, the most devout of Muslims, quick to be provoked and ready to lash out verbally or physically, continually bent on subduing his timid wife and many children to his iron and ever-righteous will. He is known, simply, as the Lord, and Driss, who is in high school, is in full revolt against both him and the French colonial authorities, for whom, as much as for his father, he is no one. Driss Chraïbi’s classic coming-of-age story is about colonialism, Islam, the subjection of women, and finding, as his novel does, a voice that is as cutting and coruscating as it is original and free.

The Simple Past

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Extremely Rare - Brand New and Sealed in its Original Shrinkwrap

Check out my store for other quality Art books.

Splendor and Misery in the Weimar Republic 

Roberto M. Dainotto

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A Cultural History

What makes Tony Soprano so likeable? Why would we rather leave the cannoli and take the gun? Do we truly want Scarface's Tony Montana to succeed? Is Michael Corleone a misunderstood hero or a despicable villain? Roberto Dainotto traces the complex and fascinating development of the Mafia: its rural beginnings in Western Sicily; its growth into what has been aptly described as a global multinational of crime; and its parallel evolution in music, print and on the big screen. The book probes the tension between the real Mafia - its brutal and often violent reality - and how we imagine it to be: a mythical assembly of codes of honour, family values and chivalric masochism. Rather than dismissing such Mafia stereotypes as untrue, Dainotto sets out to understand what needs and desires, material and psychic longings, are satisfied by our Mafia fantasies. Exploring the rich array of films, books, television, music and even video games portraying and inspired by the Mafia, this book offers not only a social, economic and political history of the Mafia but a new way of understanding our enduring fascination with what lurks behind the sinister omerta of the family business.

Jim Diaz

@jim694381

Books Listed

Following

Followers

Wolfgang Herrndorf; Tim Mohr; Michael Maar

Sand

Robert Polito

American Noir: 11 Classic Crime Novels of the 1930s, 40s, And 50s

Benjamin Cawthra

Blue Notes in Black and White

Peter Caddick-Adams, L. Douglas Keeney, James Holland

Monte Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell + Bonus Books - The Pointblank Directive and Dam Busters

Patrick Leigh Fermor

A Time of Gifts, Between the Woods and the Water and The Broken Road

Thorkild Hansen; Colin Thubron; James McFarlane; Kathleen McFarlane

Arabia Felix

George B. Nesbitt; Imani Perry; St. Clair Drake

Being Somebody and Black Besides

Kathryn J. McGarr

City of Newsmen

Lawrence Tabak

Foxconned

Heather Hendershot

When the News Broke

Multatuli; Ina Rilke; David McKay; Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Max Havelaar

Suzanne Boorsch; Douglas Cushing; Alexa A. Greist; Elisabeth Hodermarsky; Sinclaire Marber; John Moore; Heather Nolin; Janet Ross

Meant to Be Shared

Driss Chraibi; Hugh A. Harter; Adam Shatz

The Simple Past

Ingrid Pfeiffer

Splendor and Misery in the Weimar Republic

Roberto M. Dainotto

The Mafia

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Browse by categories

Wolfgang Herrndorf; Tim Mohr; Michael Maar

Sand

Robert Polito

American Noir: 11 Classic Crime Novels of the 1930s, 40s, And 50s

Benjamin Cawthra

Blue Notes in Black and White

Peter Caddick-Adams, L. Douglas Keeney, James Holland

Monte Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell + Bonus Books - The Pointblank Directive and Dam Busters

Patrick Leigh Fermor

A Time of Gifts, Between the Woods and the Water and The Broken Road

Thorkild Hansen; Colin Thubron; James McFarlane; Kathleen McFarlane

Arabia Felix

George B. Nesbitt; Imani Perry; St. Clair Drake

Being Somebody and Black Besides

Kathryn J. McGarr

City of Newsmen

Lawrence Tabak

Foxconned

Heather Hendershot

When the News Broke

Multatuli; Ina Rilke; David McKay; Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Max Havelaar

Suzanne Boorsch; Douglas Cushing; Alexa A. Greist; Elisabeth Hodermarsky; Sinclaire Marber; John Moore; Heather Nolin; Janet Ross

Meant to Be Shared

Driss Chraibi; Hugh A. Harter; Adam Shatz

The Simple Past

Ingrid Pfeiffer

Splendor and Misery in the Weimar Republic

Roberto M. Dainotto

The Mafia

Get The App