Search Results: Authors starting with B from ReadInk

Lexington MA/Toronto: Lexington Books / D. C. Heath and Co.. Very Good+. (c.1982). First Edition. Hardcover. 0669052329 . (no dust jacket, possibly as issued) [minor bumping at top of spine, slight wear evident at several corners, a touch of fading to spine, bookseller's label on front pastedown, some light pencil-underlining and annotation on the first few pages and throughout the last couple of chapters]. (figures, tables, B&W photographs) Everything you might want to know about Radar Cross-Section Estimation and Control (Chapter 1), Passive Enhancement Techniques (surveyed in Chapter 2), Spatial Coverage of Radar Reflectors (Chapter 3), Radar Cross-Section Measurement Techniques (Chapter 4), and more, so much more, all the way to Radar Cross-Section Models in Detection (Chapter 9). When I acquired this book, there was a bookmark inserted at page 21, and there are apparently no pencil annotations from that point until the last couple of chapters; my deduction is that the… Read More

Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press. Fine in Near Fine dj. 2016. First Edition. Hardcover. [lovely clean as-new book; the jacket shows just the slightest bit of scuffing to the front panel]. (B&W photographs, facsimiles) "Before film made them international comedy legends, the Marx Brothers developed their comic skills on stage for twenty-five years. In [this book, the author] offers the first comprehensive history of the foursome's hardscrabble early years honing their act in front of live audiences. [The book] draws on an unmatched array of sources, many not referenced elsewhere. Bader's detailed portrait of the struggling young actors both brings to vivid life a typical night on the road for the Marx Brothes and also illuminates the inner workings of the vaudeville business, especially during its peak in the 1920s." ****NOTE that additional postage charges will be assessed for international shipping of this heavy volume; if this concerns you, please… Read More

[Spain]: Francisco Baena Palma (copyright by). Fine in Fine dj. 1996. First Edition. Hardcover. [no discernible wear to either book or jacket (although the jacket is inside a mylar cover that remained in place for the scanned image, so some minor surface wear could be obscured)]. (color poster reproductions) A gorgeously-produced book of vivid color reproduction of vintage movie posters, a substantial number of which are Spanish posters for American films, primarily of the major studio era (1920s-1950s). The introductory textual matter is entirely in spanish, but laid in is a nicely-printed 12-page booklet in English entitled "The Movie Poster in Spain: Foreword"; it's unclear exactly what this is (it doesn't seem to match up directly with any of the text in the book itself), but might be released to some kind of museum exhibition. In any event, it's very informative -- and in English -- and also laid in there is a single-sheet "Fe de erratas/List of… Read More

(n.p.): Henry Major. Very Good+. (c.1938). First Edition. Hardcover. NOISBN . (no dust jacket, as issued) [light shelfwear, a touch of fraying to cloth at upper right corner of front cover]. (caricature sketches) Over 200 full-page caricature sketches of movie people (mostly actors, with an occasional director, writer or local Hollywood character tossed in) by Henry Major, with "Bugs" Baer contributing the captions, which range from moderately clever (Bette Davis: "The discoverer of perpetual emotion.") to corny (Walt Disney: "He gave them all a Mickey.") to just plain weird (Dolores Del Rio: "Only a great artiste can freeze in a blizzard of talcum powder." What does that even MEAN?) These are, I have to say, pretty darn good drawings; Major was a very active illustrator and caricaturist, and the fact that the majority of the sketches (the originals, I mean) were signed by their subjects suggests that he moved easily within the Hollywood crowd.… Read More

Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Fine. (c.2002). 1st Edition (softcover issue). Softcover. 1578062241 . [nice clean as-new copy, with no discernible wear]. (Conversations with Filmmakers) Series Trade PB (B&W photographs) A compilation of 16 published interviews with the American film director, culled from numerous sources, ranging in date from 1951 to 1988. Chronology; filmography; index. .

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Very Good+. [1923]. Unstated edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [solid copy, moderate wear at extremities, some dust-soiling to top edge, spine cloth slightly faded, minor soiling to bottom edge]. Novel set in pre-Revolutionary Mexico, purportedly a manuscript completed in 1880 (per the Preface) but only discovered and translated in 1911. [There is no date on the title page or copyright page (the 1923 date is from the Library of Congress catalog); the book was first published in London in 1922.] .

New York: Random House. Near Fine in Very Good dj. (c.1956). First Edition. Hardcover. [light wear to lower extremities; jacket browned at spine (as typical with RH plays of this period), miniscule chipping at spine ends]. (B&W photographs) Comedy about an elderly eccentric and her disturbed, pyromaniacal granddaughter, the latter looked after by a governess with a green thumb and a mysterious past. The original 1955 Broadway production starred (in the respective roles) Gladys Cooper, Betsy von Furstenburg and Siobhan McKenna, and ran for 182 performances; a West End (London) production the following year featured Edith Evans, Judith Stott and Peggy Ashcroft; Evans repeated her role in the 1964 film version, with Hayley Mills and Deborah Kerr stepping into the roles of the granddaughter and the governess. There have also been several revivals, notably Off-Broadway in 1982 and at London's Donmar Warehouse in 2008. .

London: Viking. Near Fine in Fine dj. 2012. First Edition. Hardcover. [no significnat wear to book, just some faint age-toning to the edges of the text block and the previous owner's name plus date & circumstances of purchase in ink along edge of rear pastedown (concealed beneath the rear jacket flap); the jacket is in flawless condition]. (B&W photographs) "When the 9th Duke of Rutland died alone in the cramped family archives on April 21, 1940, he son and heir, Charles, ordered the room sealed. Sixty years later, Catherine Bailey became one of the first historians allowed inside. What she discovered when she began reading through the duke's letters was a mystery involving one of the most powerful families in British society in the turbulent days leading up to World War I. The 9th Duke, who had devoted his entire adult life to organizing and cataloging several hundred years' worth of family correspondence, had carefully erased three period of his life from the… Read More

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Near Fine in Very Good+ dj. (c.1971). 2nd printing (B). Hardcover. [light soiling to bottom edges of covers, no other significant wear; the jacket has a tiny tear and some associated dog-earing at the top rear hinge, and a couple of tiny nicks at the bottom edge of the front panel]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the half-title page: "To Flip [sic] -- In love is / all --- / Pearl." (The inscribee, Fil Perell, was a Los Angeles restaurant critic/journalist and cable-access show host.) Laid in is a letter (TLS) on Pearl Bailey Production Corp. letterhead, thanking Perell (whose forename is also rendered incorrectly here as "Flip") for "the beautfiul words you wrote in your column" and making reference to his having attended her recent show at the Cocoanut Grove; it's signed with her full name. Signed by Author .

New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce. Very Good+ in Very Good- dj. (c.1948). First Edition. Hardcover. [good solid copy, mild shelfwear, light tanning to page edges and endpapers; jacket sunned at spine, minor edgewear/chipping along top/bottom edges, a bit of paper loss (no text affected) at spine ends, one-inch closed tear near bottom left-hand corner of front panel]. "The story of a small town going to judgment," centering around a murder trial and its effect on a community. .

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. Near Fine in Fair dj. (c.1964). 2nd impression. Hardcover. [very slight wear to extremities, generally a nice clean copy; the jacket has a ragged chip at the bottom rige corner of the rear panel, some discoloration to the spine, small tape stains at the lower corners of the front panel, a small tears at a couple of corners]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the front endpaper: "To Del, / - with best wishes / and total confidence -- / Elliott / June '64." The author's first novel, about an "aging, raging poet seeking to maintain his identity and independence in a world that wants to reduce him to its own level." The basis for the 1966 film of the same name, starring Sean Connery, Joanne Woodward, and Jean Seberg. The inscription in this copy is to Delbert Mann, who was first announced as the film's director at the time the rights to the novel were first acquired in 1964, at which time the film was to be produced at… Read More

San Francisco: Chronicle Books. Near Fine. (c.1985). 3rd printing. Softcover. 0877013608 . [light handling wear only]. Trade PB (B&W and color reproductions) This book "presents a fascinating colletion of the most ingenious designs and devices ever to represent a commercial product or serve. These two remarkable decades were times of sloganism, radio jingles, and visual puns. In terms of graphic design, the trademarks bridges the simplistic naiveté of the early century with the studied sophistication of the Madison Avenue approach. [This] is a book for the graphic designer and commercial artist, and will delight the nostalgia buff and collector of Americana." .

London: World Distributors / Consul Books (794). Very Good+. 1965. 1st Edition (pbo). Softcover. [light external wear, slight spine roll, some age-toning to page edges]. Mass Market PB One of several paperback originals issued in the U.K., based on the "Danger Man" TV series (1960-1968) starring Patrick McGoohan as a secret agent working for an international agency (generally understood to be NATO). The plot of this one concerns a pirate radio station that's being used as a tool by a dangerous group of saboteurs targeting Britain's nuclear program. (In the latter part of its run, the series played on American TV under the title "Secret Agent.") .

New York: E.P. Dutton. Near Fine in Near Fine dj. (c.1986). First Edition. Hardcover. [nice tight copy, both book and jacket show only minor handling wear]. The late author's first novel, a "gothic, intense and erotic" tale of an L.A. disc jockey who becomes drawn into the world of Dennis Contrelle, a brilliant rock composer of the '60s and '70s who has subsequently become " a recluse in a world guarded by high walls and savage servants." (The usual disclaimers aside, Phil Spector is said to have been the inspiration for Contrelle. I couldn't possibly comment.) .

New York: Harper & Row. Near Fine in Near Fine dj. (c.1977). First American Edition. Hardcover. [sharp-looking copy, with no discernible wear to book; the jacket has some very minor wear along the bottom edge, and the faintest bit of surface handling wear]. (B&W photographs) The autobiography of one of the most sensational performers of the twentieth century, "nearly completed before her death in 1975 [and] added to by her husband, Jo Bouillon, her sister, several of her adopted children, and her close friends." .

San Diego/New York/London: Harcourt, Inc.. Near Fine in Fine dj. (c.2000). First Edition. Hardcover. 015100448X . [very nice tight copy, the faintest bit of spotting on top edge, appears unread; jacket pristine, looks like it's been in protective cover from Day One]. Sci-fi/fantasy/time travel novel, set largely in early Los Angeles and Hollywood. .

New York/London: Charles Scribner's Sons. Good in Good dj. 1936. First Edition. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [ex-library book, although marked as such only by a rubber-stamped library name on all three sides of the text block, the pages somewhat rippled, a former owner's name plus date & place of purchase written in ink at top of front endpaper; the jacket is edgeworn, and all edges and folds have been internally reinforced with brown paper tape]. The author's first mystery novel, in which a schoolmaster (seemingly not unlike the author himself) and an police sergeant (an Irishman, naturally) team up to investigate the baffling murder of a prominent scholar. Per the jacket blurb, "the conflicting methods of the practical policeman and the scientific theorist are depicted with considerable humor, much keen character delineation, plenty of action and with a surprising solution." The author, a teacher in Connecticut, on several occasions sent the complete solutions… Read More

Lewisburg PA: The Press of Appletree Valley. Very Good+. 1986. First Edition. Hardcover. (brick-orange paper-covered boards; no dust jacket, probably as issued) [light foxing to front-cover paper lable, faint stain at right edge of front cover, small black smudge on rear cover]. This short poem (reprinted from the November 1985 issue of "Poetry" magazine), illustrated with four beautiful linoleum cuts, was the third of four limited editions of this Armenian-American poet's works to be issued by this small press. Balakian won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Laid in to this copy is Christmas card (apparently sent to the book's one-time owner), containing a brief poem ("I Sing of a Maiden") and illustrated on the front by a wood engraving by Barnard Taylor; handwritten inside is "Greetings of the Season from Ann and Barnard." (The card, also printed at The Press of Appletree Valley, is in Near Fine condition, the only blemish being a tiny brown… Read More

New York: Farrar & Rinehart. Near Fine in Very Good+ dj. (c.1937). First Edition. Hardcover. [a lovely clean copy, with no significant wear but the very faintest spotting to the bottom page edges (less squinty eyes would call it Fine with nary a pause); jacket lightly soiled at the rear panel, with some light wear and a couple of tiny tears along the top edge, very attractive nonetheless]. "A Panoramic Novel," sayeth the dust jacket -- which is another way of saying that the ever-popular Miss Baldwin (or her publishers) was not above pulling one of the oldest New-York-novelist tricks in the book, that of concocting a stew of "interrelated stories" about a wide array of urban characters, from sophisticated Social Register types to "racketeers, taxi-drivers, maids, actors, secretaries, and interns," in the hope that it would magically bubble into a novel with a unifying central theme. The double-copyright date, though (1936 and 1937), blows its cover: all… Read More

New York: Blue Ribbon Books. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. 1941. Reprint. Hardcover. [a touch of wear to extremities, pocket on rear pastedown (see notes), generally a nice clean copy; jacket shows edgewear and light rubbing, minor paper loss at both ends of spine]. (pen and ink drawings) "This book explains simply the famous Balkin system of reading character at sight scientifically. It will show you exactly how to judge others accurately and tell at a glance whether they are dishonest, stubborn, generous, sensitive, thick-skinned, impatient, etc. and how to deal with them. Learn here how to make friends and how to know the people you meet every day; how to judge your own character, recognize your own natural talents and weaknesses and use them to advantage or correct them. Find your right vocation or your hobby -- the things you were meant to do best, and thus increase your income and your happiness." Ah, yes, your income -- and as we know, this system led to the creation of… Read More