1968, a relic of Doctor No's Books, Records & Comics long history.

From Belmont Books, a genre publishing company formed by the co-owners of Archie Comics, the Belmont Double. A very limited run series of Science fiction novels and novelettes from May 1965 to May 1969. There seem to have been about eight productions, although these perfectly sized paperbacks are rather hard to find in physical form, let alone much publication information.

This particular edition features 'Father of Lies' by John Brunner and  'Mirror Image' by Bruce Duncan. John Brunner would win the Hugo award the following year for his acclaimed 'Stand on Zanzibar'. Bruce Duncan was a nom-de-plum for Irving A. Greenfield, a prolific author of over 300 novels including 'Ancient of Days' and 'Only the Dead Speak Russian'.


Back cover copy: 

BLANK SPACE- Time stands still in this innocent-looking area of the countrside. Things happen there that can't happen. The legendary and mythological have reality there ——but the very existence of the real is severely threatened. No one has ever returned from here.
Into this blank space walked 7 very real people——determined to learn why.

YOU ONLY DIE TWICE- A pretty dancer collapsed and died in the street. But an autopsy revealed she had actually died 72 hours before. A sailor returned from shore leave to a nuclear submarine——but he was not the same man who left. In fact, he was not a man at all...
Was there no one who realized the danger to earth these signs revealed?

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Georgia

Father of Lies/Mirror Image (Belmont Double 1968)

Stephen King

Published in the heart of King's drug addiction throes, The Tommyknockers, deviates from the author's typical horror story wheelhouse into the realm of science fiction.
....

“Something was happening in Bobbi Anderson's idyllic small town of Haven, Maine. Something that gave every man, woman, and child in town powers far beyond ordinary mortals. Something that turned the town into a death trap for all outsiders. Something that came from a metal object, buried for millennia, that Bobbi accidentally stumbled across. 
It wasn't that Bobbi and the other good folks of Haven had sold their souls to reap the rewards of the most deadly evil this side of hell. It was more like a diabolical takeover...an invasion of body and soul--and mind....”

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

The Tommyknockers (G.P.  Putnam's Sons 1st ed.)

a5bbe669-5928-44b2-8e3c-9b4352cab6f6-1

Jules Vern

Robert Baldick

"One of the finest adventures of silence and exploration ever written"

Once an ancient book is opened by Professor Lidenbrock, his life is changed forever. An old piece of paper has tumbled from the book, a parchment that will lead them on the expedition to end all expeditions. So begins a voyage thousands of feet under the sea, as the pair embark on a terrifying journey to find what lies at the centre of the earth.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

920cbd15-b680-4422-8c86-387f84945b38-1

This first Avon printing, featuring a “futuristic soldier who looks like Robin Williams in a funny hat”, is the first edition to include expurgated sections, earlier editions being abridged by the original editor due to spacial concerns.

A recounting of the author's Vietnam War experiences through the veil of Space Opera, The Forever War won The Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards in 1976 and spawned the two sequels Forever Peace (1997) and Forever Free (1999) as well as the companion novella, A Separate War.
....

“SPACE WAR IS HELL... Especially for Private William Mandella, drafted into a brutal interstellar conflict that raged millions of light years from Earth. But battling a savage alien enemy was not the hard part. Nor was fighting alongside a promiscuous co-ed cadre of misfits who considered Mandella a degenerate.”

“The real test would be coping with the astonishing changes the Earth would undergo during Mandella's tour of duty. For a while the loyal soldier aged mere months... his home planet was aging centuries.”

The Forever War

Richard Adams

Originally begun as a story told to his daughters on long car rides, and at their insistence that he turn the stories into a novel, Adams began writing what would become Watership Down, referencing The Private Life of the Rabbit (Ronald Lockley, 1964) to imbue his own brand of researched naturalism to the anthropomorphic fiction. Initially rejected by several major London publishers before being picked up by one-man publisher Rex Collings in 1972, who risked the last of his capital to publish the book. Gaining immediate success, Watership Down, would sell over a million copies in the next few years and go on to be awarded the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.

This edition was published in 1975 Avon's (the publishers of the first Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey) first printing of the novel.
....


Set in England's Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of friends, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.

One of the most beloved novels of our time, Richard Adams's Watership Down takes us to a world we have never truly seen: to the remarkable life that teems in the fields, forests and riverbanks far beyond our cities and towns. It is a powerful saga of courage, leadership and survival; an epic tale of a hardy band of adventurers forced to flee the destruction of their fragile community...and their trials and triumphs in the face of extraordinary adversity as they pursue a glorious dream called "home." Watership Down is a remarkable tale of exile and survival, of heroism and leadership...the epic novel of a group of adventurers who desert their doomed city, and venture forth against all odds on a quest for a new home, a sturdier future,

Watership Down (Avon 1st)

a3f08877-c80a-4e69-aa0b-3a5c02e55761-1

Peter Tompkins

Christopher Bird

Exploring the world of plants and its relation to mankind as revealed by the latest discoveries of scientists, The Secret Life of Plants includes remarkable information about plants as lie detectors and plants as ecological sentinels; it describes their ability to adapt to human wishes, their response to music, their curative powers, and their ability to communicate with man. Authors Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird suggest that the most far-reaching revolution of the twentieth century—one that could save or destroy the planet—may come from the bottom of your garden.

A Fascinating Account of the Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Relations Between Plants and Man

Explore the inner world of plants and its fascinating relation to mankind, as uncovered by the latest discoveries of science. A perennial bestseller.

In this truly revolutionary and beloved work, drawn from remarkable research, Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird cast light on the rich psychic universe of plants. Now available in a new edition, The Secret Life of Plants explores plants' response to human care and nurturing, their ability to communicate with man, plants' surprising reaction to music, their lie-detection abilities, their creative powers, and much more. Tompkins and Bird's classic book affirms the depth of humanity's relationship with nature and adds special urgency to the cause of protecting the environment that nourishes us.

The Secret Life of Plants

abbc3a87-1dd7-445b-ba95-73b2e7e0a7bb-1

Walker Percy

Condition Fair. A read and worn copy.

Winner of the National Book Award (in a year when Franny and Zooey, Catch 22, The Château, and The Spinoza of Market Street were all nominated), included in Time's “Best English Language Novels from 1923-2005” and ranked sixtieth on Modern Library's “Hundred Best Novels from the Twentieth Century”.

This is not a novel about going to the movies. It just happens to be that Binx Bolling, the novel's protagonist, is a moviegoer. In fact it is a skeptical novel; a philosophical glance into, if not a certain case study of, everydayness and objectivity clearly drawing influence from the likes of Sartre and Kierkegaard.

“On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, Binx Bolling is adrift. He occupies himself dallying with his secretaries and going to movies, which provide him with the "treasurable moments" absent from his real life. But one fateful Mardi Gras, Binx embarks on a quest - a harebrained search for authenticity that outrages his family, endangers his fragile cousin Kate, and sends him reeling through the gaudy chaos of the French Quarter. Wry and wrenching, rich in irony and romance, "The Moviegoer" is a genuine American classic.”

Winner of the 1961 National Book Award

The dazzling novel that established Walker Percy as one of the major voices in Southern literature is now available for the first time in Vintage paperback.

The Moviegoer is Binx Bolling, a young New Orleans stockbroker who surveys the world with the detached gaze of a Bourbon Street dandy even as he yearns for a spiritual redemption he cannot bring himself to believe in. On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, he occupies himself dallying with his secretaries and going to movies, which provide him with the "treasurable moments" absent from his real life. But one fateful Mardi Gras, Binx embarks on a hare-brained quest that outrages his family, endangers his fragile cousin Kate, and sends him reeling through the chaos of New Orleans' French Quarter. Wry and wrenching, rich in irony and romance, The Moviegoer is a genuine American classic.

The Moviegoer

4cd38a36-fb72-4b98-b8b0-7c8901b72ac9-1

J. D. Salinger

Nine Stories

85f4a145-92a8-4803-877d-d0ce5e986343-1

e. e. cummings

A collection of poems coupled with line drawings by the author.

E. E. Cummings’s erotic poems and drawings gathered in a single volume. Many years ago the prodigious and famously prolific E. E. Cummings sat in his study writing and thinking about sex. His private brooding gave way to poems and drawings of sexual and romantic love that delight and provoke. Here, collected for this first time in a single volume, are those erotic poems and sketches, culled from Cummings’s original manuscripts by the distinguished editor George James Firmage. from “16” may i feel said he (i’ll squeal said she just once said he) it’s fun said she (may i touch said he how much said she a lot said he) why not said she

Erotic Poems

31e6b5ed-11a2-422b-b96a-2a8dcfbccd49-1

Henrik Ibsen

This dark psychological drama was first produced in Norway in 1890 and depicts the evil machinations of a ruthless, nihilistic heroine: the infamous Hedda Gabler. Readers will discover a masterly exploration of the nature of evil, along with the potential for tragedy that lies in human frailty. A true masterpiece.

Hedda Gabler

0eeb2c11-59db-4b47-afd5-a55f9f7fde3d-1

Condition- Very Good; Hardcover with original dust jacket; Printed 1963

Inspired by the author's own family history (du Maurier being a fifth generation descendant of a master glassblower who relocated to England during the French Revolution), The Glass-Blowers is the dramatic story of a family of master craftsmen, the Busson family,  in France from the time of the Ancien Régime to the ascendance of Napoleon.

The world of the glass-blowers has its own traditions, it's own language - and its own rules. 'If you marry into glass' Pierre Labbe warns his daughter, 'you will say goodbye to everything familiar, and enter a closed world'. But crashing into this world comes the violence and terror of the French Revolution, against which the family struggles to survive.

Years later, Sophie Duval reveals to her long-lost nephew the tragic story of a family of master craftsmen in eighteenth-century France. Drawing on her own family's tale of tradition and sorrow, Daphne du Maurier weaves an unforgettable saga of beauty, war, and family.

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

The Glass-blowers

John Grisham

First edition. 

"The life of a ten-year-old  black  girl is shattered by two drunken and remorseless  white  men. The mostly white town of Clanton in Ford County, Mississippi, reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime—until  the girl’s  father acquires an assault rifle and takes justice into his  own  hands.
For ten days, as burning crosses and the crack of sniper fire spread through the streets of Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as  defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his client’s life—and then his own.”  -Johngrisham.com

Before "The Firm" and "The Pelican Brief" made him a superstar, John Grisham wrote this riveting story of retribution and justice -- at last it's available in a Doubleday hardcover edition. In this searing courtroom drama, best-selling author John Grisham probes the savage depths of racial violence...as he delivers a compelling tale of uncertain justice in a small southern town...Clanton, Mississippi. The life of a ten-year-old girl is shattered by two drunken and remorseless young man. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime. Until her black father acquires an assault rifle -- and takes justice into his own outraged hands. For ten days, as burning crosses and the crack of sniper fire spread through the streets of Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as young defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his client's life...and then his own... "From the Hardcover edition."

A Time to Kill

ed7b96c0-ea54-41d1-a189-67f19cec050b-1

One inch tear at top of Dust jacket, otherwise Near Fine condition.

Hercule Poirot's most famous case as well as Christie's most frequently adapted story takes place in the isolated environment of the titular luxury train, lending itself to tense detective work among an intimate and anxious cast of characters. Included in several best-of mystery fiction lists and adapted for radio, film, television, comic book and video game, this work is a true classic of the genre.


Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Murder on the Orient Express

A collection of plays by a massively influential Irish literary figure.

Mrs. Warren's Profession; Arms and the Man; Candida; Man and Superman

Plays by George Bernard Shaw

First printing (1990). Dust jacket in excellent condition.

Meg Venturi never expected the windfall she inherits when her grandfather dies. For some unknown reason the eccentric old millionaire has left her his profitable antique jewelry business. But there is a catch. Meg must share the business with an aloof, mysterious, and somewhat sinister young man called A.L. Riley. The town is whispering about her enigmatic new partner. Rumors spread about unspoken secrets, a dark and disturbing legacy... and murder. Soon a series of troubling events has Meg looking uncomfortably over her shoulder. The longer she stays in this tiny New England village the clearer two very troubling truths become: all that glitters is definitely not gold... and someone will stop at nothing to drive her away.


Into the Darkness

Chinua Achebe

A Novel

The contemporary African writer's classic novel depicting the destruction of traditional tribal life by the white man

Things Fall Apart

b51273a5-4b1d-40c7-80fc-bf1be1fc1051-1

William Golding

Lois Lowry

Jennifer Buehler

All pages and cover intact. Normal reader's wear.

Golding’s iconic 1954 novel, now with a new foreword by Lois Lowry, remains one of the greatest books ever written for young adults and an unforgettable classic for readers of any age. This edition includes a new Suggestions for Further Reading by Jennifer Buehler. At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued.

Lord of the Flies

4718fa5b-dc86-4497-97c5-c3f9a3056bc3-1

Jean Paul Sartre

Lloyd Alexander

One of Sartre s greatest existentialist works of fiction, The Wall contains the only five short stories he ever wrote. Set during the Spanish Civil War, the title story crystallizes the famous philosopher s existentialism.

The Wall

f1691858-0789-46d0-b84b-c9f9d9604675-1

Michio Kaku

A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimens Ion

An exploration of the theory of hyperspace by a professor of theoretical physics discusses the superstring theory and the concept of a jigsaw-puzzle universe

Hyperspace

39b04038-8427-4572-8730-f67db37a2efb-1

A defining work from a major figure of the beat movement.

Good condition. Corner crease on cover.

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

The Town and the City

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Thomas Wolfe

Scribner 2006. A little paint on cover, otherwise very good copy.                                                                             "A legendary author on par with William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Wolfe published Look Homeward, Angel, his first novel, about a young man's burning desire to leave his small town and tumultuous family in search of a better life, in 1929..." (Scribner)

The spectacular, history-making first novel about a young man's coming of age by literary legend Thomas Wolfe, first published in 1929 and long considered a classic of twentieth century literature.

A legendary author on par with William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Wolfe published Look Homeward, Angel, his first novel, about a young man's burning desire to leave his small town and tumultuous family in search of a better life, in 1929. It gave the world proof of his genius and launched a powerful legacy.

The novel follows the trajectory of Eugene Gant, a brilliant and restless young man whose wanderlust and passion shape his adolescent years in rural North Carolina. Wolfe said that Look Homeward, Angel is "a book made out of my life," and his largely autobiographical story about the quest for a greater intellectual life has resonated with and influenced generations of readers, including some of today's most important novelists. Rich with lyrical prose and vivid characterizations, this twentieth-century American classic will capture the hearts and imaginations of every reader.

Look Homeward, Angel

e695dff9-d5b4-414c-b44f-34759f41e163-1

A previously read book with normal edgewear and a few pages turned at the corner.

The Luminaries

Paladin (Grafton Books); Illustrations by the author; Some wear/stains evident in photos

Browse by categories

John Brunner/Bruce Duncan

Father of Lies/Mirror Image (Belmont Double 1968)

Stephen King

The Tommyknockers (G.P. Putnam's Sons 1st ed.)

Jules Vern; Robert Baldick