Search Results: FICTION from Downtown Brown Books, ABAA

Tokyo: Kaizosha, 1929. First Edition. Very good. A sequel to Tekisasu mushuku ta sanjuichi pen [Hoboing in Texas and Thirty-one Other Stories] modeled after The Decameron. Hasegawa "spins stories about people's lives in an urban space, although the time and place are no longer the medieval Rome of the Decameron but twentieth-century New York. The main characters are 'Merican-Japs ["meriken jappu"] whose background and reasons for immigration and migration vary, but what is common to them is that they live in a poor, dark neighborhood in Manhattan. Living like hobos, they work as gamblers, acrobats, bootleggers, owners of illegal bars, poets, or assistants to tipsters."-Kyoko Omori, Detecting Japanese Vernacular Modernism, p. 239. These stories are set amongst the immigrants of Third Avenue in New York: "It may be said they happily established a country - a country that exists even if it does not appear on a map of the world... A Bulgarian marries a Turk and has an American baby girl. The American… Read More

New York: Random House, 2006. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. The second novel by the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winner Olive Kitteridge. First edition (first printing, with a numberline ending in 1). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Inscribed by the author with a reference to her alma mater, Bates College, and the title of the book: "For Dawn, Another Batsie abiding with me-Thank you! Elizabeth Strout.

New York: W. W. Norton, 2020. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. This is the Powell's Indiespensable (no. 85) version, a signed first edition, in a special slipcase, with a small booklet printing an interview with Enright. First edition (first printing). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket and a fine slipcase. Signed by the author. With the booklet. Still SEALED, with a split to the shrinkwrap to insert the booklet into the slipcase.

Boston: David R. Godine, 1977. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. A collection of short stories, two of which were adapted for the film "We Don't Live Here Anymore" directed by John Curran. 178 pages. First edition (first printing). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket but for a touch of wear at the top of the spine. Signed by the author and uncommon thus.

New York: Random House, 1982. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Very good. A memoir of the Nobel Prize-winning writer's childhood years (roughly 1934 to 1944) in a small town in Nigeria. 230 pages. First American edition (first printing, with no later printings noted). A near fine copy in a dust jacket with a bit of fading to the author's name on the spine, a one-inch closed tear at the spine-edge of the front panel that has been repaired on the back (verso) with transparent tape; a second piece of tape is affixed to the base of the spine. Signed by Soyinka on the dedication page.

New York: Riverhead Books, 2020. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. A novel. First edition (first printing, with a numberline ending in 1). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Signed by the author on the title page. With an information card from the Parnassus Books Signed First Editions Club laid in. As a book published during COVID, it is uncommon signed on the title page, as very few author events were held during the pandemic.

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. A sort of road novel about a struggling Houston writer who drives to California and back. First edition (first printing stated). A near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket. Nicely inscribed, "For Jack, a little book I dashed off after my first long book. Larry.

New York: Scribner, 2014. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction; a moving novel set in France and Germany during the Second World War that was made into a streaming series for Netflix. 531 pages. First edition (first printing, with a numberline ending in 1). A very good copy in a very good dust jacket. The spine ends are a bit bumped and there is shelf wear at the flap folds of the dust jacket. Two stocks of paper were used to print the page block; one of them has tanned more than the other. The jacket does not have any prize stickers or emblems.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. The first volume of the Border Trilogy. Winner of the National Book Award & the National Book Critics Circle Award. First edition (stated). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket that has a bit of shelfwear.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Near fine. The first volume on the Border Trilogy. Winner of the National Book Award & the National Book Critics Circle Award. Made into a film starring Matt Damon. First edition (stated). A very good copy in a near fine dust jacket. The top edge of the page block is lightly spotted, the page block is just separating from the spine, and there is some mild bumping and shelfwear to the top edge of the jacket. A nice enough, but not perfect, copy.

New York: DIA Films, 1970. Very good. An unproduced screenplay about disaffected upperclass youth in New York, seemingly an early collaboration between Trow, a New Yorker writer, and Ivory, part of the James Ivory, Ismail Merchant, and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala trio that formed Merchant Ivory Productions. The screenplay appears to date from the Viet Nam War era and explores some of the themes of Savages (1972), the first Merchant Ivory film based on a Trow script. The script is not dated but the first Merchant Ivory film released by DIA Films was Bombay Talkie, from 1970. No copy of this screenplay is recorded in the James Ivory papers at the University of Oregon. Title leaf plus 92 numbered leaves, printed rectos (front-side) only. Bound in printed vinyl Studio Duplicating Service covers with screw brads. Very good.

New York: Dana, 1895. Ephemera. Very good. A head-and-shoulder's portrait of the novelist Amelia E. Barr (1831-1919), the author of some 80 books in the late 19th and early 20th century. Barr, née Huddleston, was born in Lancashire, England, and emigrated to the US in 1853. Her first novel was published in 1872. Image, roughly 4 by 5-3/4 inches, on a larger card mount. The back (verso) of the mount promotes the photography technique used, "Carbonette Our 1895 production." A very good contrast image, with dark charcoal tones. The mount has notes in color and regular pencil on the lower front margin as well as various notes on the back (verso).

San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1974. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. A collection of drawings made by Steadman, a British artist, during his peak period, where he commented on American scenes and cultures. These are both published and previously unpublished works from his Rolling Stone assignments with Hunter S. Thompson, as well as works commissioned on Disneyland, the Kentucky Derby, Dallas, Miami, etc. Some of the drawings are thematic, classified under the chapter titles Money, Vietnam, and Police. With an introduction, in the form of an interview with the editor, by Hunter S. Thompson, with whom Steadman collaborated on the books Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. Unpaginated, but about 176 pages. 9-1/8 by 12-1/4 inches. First edition (first printing). A very good copy in a very good dust jacket. Signed "HST" and "Hunter" by Thompson, and dated 10/12/79 on the introduction. This copy with a previous owner's bookplate and… Read More

Tokyo: Daigakukan, 1906. First Edition. Trade paperback. Very good. A little known Meiji-era novel narrated by a young Japanese immigrant in the United States. The narrator seems to have come from the class of poor young people with knowledge of the modern world but little chance of advancement in tradition-bound Japan. He offers opinions and philosophical musings on life, making this a combination of travelog, immigration guide, and sardonic look at 20th century life. A sense of the writer's attitude can be found in his nom de plume, which translates to "returnee to the heavenly shores," although the character for heaven (天) can also mean imperial. From the tone of the book, the double entendre heavenly/imperial is offered sarcastically. For more on this and similar books, see "Meiji go hanki no tobei netsu: America no ryuukou" by Tachikawa Kenji (Shirin, Vol. 69, no. 3, May 1986). OCLC: 672445413 (National Diet Library). First edition. A very good or better copy but for a crack on the back… Read More

Chapel Hill: Algonquin, 2018. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. A novel about a man who is unjustly convicted of a crime and the effect on his marriage when he is exonerated. Selected for Oprah's Book Club. First edition (first printing). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Signed by the author on the title page.

[Portland, OR]: Twenty-third Avenue Books and First Choice Books, 1998. First Edition. Fine. A 12-by-18 inch broadside printing of the opening lines of McCourt's acclaimed memoir, Angela's Ashes, published in an edition of 250 copies, signed by McCourt in conjunction with a reading in Portland. The broadside is printed letterpress with a three-color woodblock illustration by (an uncredited) Julie Freeman. This is a very attractive keepsake for a much-loved book. This is one of 50 copies numbered with Roman numerals and printed on deckle edge paper; there were also 200 copies numbered with Arabic numerals, five designated publisher copies, and an unknown, but significant number of unnumbered copies, all signed by McCourt. First edition of this broadside, one of 50 copies with Roman numerals, signed by McCourt. (Your number may differ from the photograph.).

[Portland, OR]: Twenty-third Avenue Books and First Choice Books, 1998. First Edition. Fine. A 12-by-18 inch broadside printing of the opening lines of McCourt's acclaimed memoir, Angela's Ashes, published in an edition of 250 copies, signed by McCourt in conjunction with a reading in Portland. The broadside is printed letterpress with a three-color woodblock illustration by (an uncredited) Julie Freeman. This is a very attractive keepsake for a much-loved book. This is one of 200 numbered copies; there were also 50 copies numbered with Roman numerals, five designated publisher copies, and an unknown, but significant number of unnumbered copies, all signed by McCourt. First edition of this broadside, one of 200 numbered copies signed by McCourt. (Your number may differ from the photograph.).

[Portland, OR]: Twenty-third Avenue Books and First Choice Books, 1998. First Edition. Fine. A 12-by-18 inch broadside printing of the opening lines of McCourt's acclaimed memoir, Angela's Ashes, published in an edition of 250 copies, signed by McCourt in conjunction with a reading in Portland. The broadside is printed letterpress with a three-color woodblock illustration by (an uncredited) Julie Freeman. This is a very attractive keepsake for a much-loved book. This is one of 5 copies, not listed on the colophon, but designated as a publisher's copy. It differs from the other copies in the edition in that it has a small deckled edge and the artist has initials, "JF" next to Frank McCourt's signature. First edition of this broadside, one of 5 "publisher's" copies signed by McCourt and initialed by Julie Freeman. (Your number may differ from the photograph.).

Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2000. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 311 pages. Correct first edition--the Canadian edition (numberline ending in 1). Fine in a fine dust jacket. Signed by the author on the title page.

Sydney, Australia: HarperCollins, 2007. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Near fine. The Australian first edition of the seventh and final volume in the Masters of Rome Series. 631 pages. First Australian edition (with a numberline ending in 1; and likely the correct first edition, as McCullough is Australian). Light wear to the bottom edge of the boards; a bit of light staining to the top edge of the page block, thus very good. In a near fine dust jacket. Signed by McCullough on the title page. Scarce.