Search Results: Authors starting with P from ReadInk

New York: Simon and Schuster. Good. (c.1971). 1st U.S. printing. Softcover. [edgewear to covers, some weakness at front hinge, rubbing/scuffing to covers, some creasing in rear cover]. (Classic Film Scripts) Series Trade PB (B&W photographs) Translation of the director's original shooting script for the film which secured a measure of immortality for the luminous Louise Brooks -- even though, unbeknownst to her (or anyone else), her film career would come to a grinding halt only a few years later. The film was controversial (and much-censored) upon its original release, and so this script is probably the closest approximation of Pabst's full, unexpurgated version. Includes Brooks's own typically candid reminiscence of the film's production, "Pabst and Lulu." .

New York: Simon and Schuster. Near Fine in Near Fine dj. (c.1977). First Edition. Hardcover. 0671228943 . [a very nice copy, with just minor traces of wear to both book and jacket]. (B&W photographs) INSCRIBED (to "Norman" [Lear]) and SIGNED by the author on the ffep; the inscription makes reference to page 168, where Lear is mentioned in the text. The author tells his "free-swinging, behind-the-ropes story of his fifteen years in boxing," as a corner man for hundreds of fighters, most notably Muhammad Ali, who provided the book's introduction. Signed by Author .

London: Oberon Books. Fine in Near Fine dj. 2008. First Edition. Hardcover. [nice clean copy, no discernible wear to book; jacket very slightly bumped at top corners of front panel]. (B&W and color photographs, facsimiles) INSCRIBED briefly and SIGNED by the author on the title page. The "undisputed First Lady of Musical Theatre" "takes us through her career from her earliest stage appearances -- which included the celebrated first UK production of 'Hair,' and working with Joan Littlewood's ground-breaking Theatre Workshop in London's East End -- to her starring roles in some of the biggest musicals of the past 40 years: 'Grease,' 'Evita,' 'Cats,' 'Chess' and 'Sunset Boulevard.' She also talks about the challenges of taking on established roles in works as diverse as 'Anything Goes,' 'Piaf' and 'Sweeney Todd.'" Foreword by Andrew Lloyd Webber. **** NOTE that additional shipping… Read More

London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.. Good. 1911. First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [solid copy, moderately shelfworn, dust-darkening to top of text block, slight fading to spine cloth, a couple of small tears in cloth at top of spine]. One of the more uncommon short-story collections by this prolific author, containing twenty-one tales in all, including several of a semi-fantastical or macabre nature (such as "Post-Mortem," about a depressed poet who plots to fake his suicide and assume a new identity). Although he's occasionally cited as an influence on H.P. Lovecraft, he seems to have more often written in a lighter, somewhat de Maupassantian vein (he even mentions de Maupassant in passing in one story); one contemporary critic cited his "luminous insight into human character seved by a sympathetic and painstaking hand." .

Los Angeles: Madam Pajaud Enterprises. Near Fine. 1977. Second Edition. Stapled wraps. [a handful of minor scrape marks on the covers, no other significant wear]. A sort of food-history of America, structured around the progression of native, ethnic and immigrant groups that have contributed dishes to our polyglot cuisine, with a representative example (or several) from each: Native Americans; The English Colonials; The Dutch; Plantation Life; The African Influence; Scandinavia in America; The French; The Spaniards; The Germans; The Frontier; The New Americans (The Chinese; The Jews; The Italians). Considering it's just 59 pages long, this little book covers a lot of culinary territory; includes a three-page bibliography of sources. Signed by Author .

New York: Coward-McCann, Inc.. Near Fine in Very Good dj. (c.1951). 3rd impression. Hardcover. NOISBN . [book is nice and clean, with no significant wear; jacket shows wear and various tiny nicks along top and bottom edges, light rubbing overall]. (line drawings) Termed "an extravaganza" by its author, this is a partly-fictional, partly-factual story based on incidents in the lives of Isabella Stewart Gardner and artist John Singer Sargent, "whose intimacy lasted from the day he first painted her portrait in 1888 until she died in 1924." .

New York: Simon and Schuster. Near Fine in Very Good- dj. 1961. First Edition. Hardcover. NOISBN . [tight clean copy, minor shelfwear, light smudge on top edge; jacket browned at spine and fore-edge, several ragged tears, moderate soiling esp. to rear panel]. A group of four stories set during the Civil War. "Here the men on both sides of the war are seen, not as historical figures, but as living human beings bathed in an atmosphere of devastating reality. It is as if the [Matthew] Brady prints, in all their sharpness and honesty, had suddenly become infused with life, with sound and smoke, with the fear and tedium of war." The story titles are: "The Butcher's Bill"; "My Brother's Keeper"; "The Rooster"; "The Short Straw." .

New York: Simon and Schuster. Very Good+ in Very Good+ dj. (c.1965). First Edition. Hardcover. [nice tight clean copy, minor shelfwear to lower extremities, the teensiest bit of fraying to cloth at lower rear corner; the jacket shows light handling wear only]. An ambitious novel "that takes you into the creation, the execution and the climax of a modern revolution, that lays bare the relity and the myth of the decisive act of twentieth-century politics." Although set in an fictional Latin American country during the 1920s, the book presents an historically-informed "understanding of the forces, the motives and the compulsive ambitions that create and sustain" a revolution. (The title refers to an ancient Greek tradition that involved the ritual public slaughter of one hundred oxen; in the book, it's recast as a threat by the country's dictator to have one hundred innocent men, women and children executed during each hour that the revolution continues.)… Read More

Garden City NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc.. Near Fine in Very Good+ dj. 1950. First Edition. Hardcover. [a nice clean book with just a touch of shelfwear; the jacket has some minor wear along the top edge, a tiny closed tear and associated diagonal crease at the bottom front hinge]. (cartoon illustrations) The author "covers every phase of suburban living in a lively and amusing fashion, [including] chapters on the local taxi service, pets, children, the neighbors (including the one who trimmed the bushes on the author's lawn, so that he could watch down the street), buying a house, the handyman (a great American institution), and a masterful dissertation on catching trains." .

London: T.E. Books. Fine in Near Fine dj. 1984. First Edition. Hardcover. 0950943908 . [very nice book, no discernible wear; jacket shows only light scuffing and minor surface wear]. (B&W and color photographs, musical facsimiles) A brief biography of the great film composer, coupled with a critical survey of his most important scores. Includes a list of Tiomkin's principal awards and honors, and a complete filmography (titles only). .

New York/London: G.P. Putnam's Sons. Good+. 1928. First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [shelfworn but solid copy, with firm binding; internally clean except for some minor ink markings on ffep; spine cloth discolored/darkened, light bumping/fraying at spine ends and most corners]. One of the best-known works of this Danish essayist, poet, novelist and social critic (1896-1975) -- and one of only two of his many novels to be translated into English and published in America -- this novel, centered around a lighthouse on a lonely North Sea outpost, was an exploration of the destructive effects of technological progress on the natural world. .

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. (c.1957). First Edition. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [book shows a bit of wear at both ends of spine, very light foxing to top of text block, one-time owner's name stylishly lettered on front endpaper; jacket spine panel is quite faded, with light scuffing and a small surface-scar to the rear panel]. A comic novel set in the advertising world, relating "the hilarious adventures of Joe and George -- two of the most wildly likable guys ever to engage in riotous battle with the gold-plated brass hats of Advertising Row." .

Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma. Near Fine. 1997. First Edition. Softcover. [minor handling wear only, teensy dog-earing to corners of front cover]. Trade PB (B&W photographs) In a series of essays written over a period of ten years, the author grapples with "the question of modernity by questioning cinema as a whole....by discovering new geneaologies that trace the path by which the modern wave of the 1950s-60s came about." (This is an excerpt from my rough partial translation of the cover blurb.) Works discussed include FANTOMAS, VERTIGO, LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE, LA NUIT DE CARREFOUR (NIGHT AT THE CROSSROADS), LE MEPRIS (CONTEMPT), ET LA VIE CONTINUE and the films of Andy Warhol. In French. .

New York: E.P. Dutton & Company. Very Good. (c.1927). First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [solid clean copy, light bumping at several corners, very slight fraying to cloth at lower extremities, small bookseller's rubber stamp (Bertrand Smith, Long Beach, California) on front pastedown]. First novel by an author who had an intermittent output over the course of the quarter-century or so. (I find four novels for her in OCLC, the last in 1952; she also seems to have been involved in social work in some fashion, and her name appears on several additional books in that field; she also contributed several magazine pieces on the topic of immigration to Harper's Magazine in the early 1920s.) This one's a romantic-triangle potboiler, about a girl who has to go to work (as a "pacer" in a pickle factory) at age 16 after her aunt the dressmaker becomes ill and can no longer work; she ends up in an unhappy marriage to the pickle factory owner, then subsequently falls… Read More

(Mexico): (no publisher indicated). Very Good. 1971 (c.1963). First English Edition. Softcover. [light soiling and edgewear to covers]. (line drawings) Mexican novel about down-and-outers (various direct translations suggested for the title are "The Lowest of the Low" and "Those from the Depths"). From the translator's introduction: "Never had I read such sordidness -- that still retained a spark of human dignity. Never had such degradation been punctuated not only with pathos but with humor. The Scavengers exist. The Mexicans know it. Visiting tourists see them from the windows of sightseeing buses. Even dignataries [sic] on state visits must catch sight of them. But before this book, who knew of how they lived, of what they thought, of how they loved or lusted or fought?" .

Garden City NY: Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc.. Very Good in Very Good dj. 1941. First Edition. Hardcover. NOISBN . (price-clipped) [light shelfwear, a good sound book slightly blemished by some spotting on the top edge of the text block; jacket shows some wear and very shallow chipping along bottom edge, minor paper loss at a few corners and at spine ends]. Short humorous stories, reprinted from The New Yorker, concerning the denizens of a venerable (and entirely fictional) New York law firm. .

New York: Phoenix Press. Very Good. (c.1937). First Edition. Hardcover. NOISBN . (no dust jacket) [solid copy, minor bumping/wear at several corners, spine very slightly turned]. "Beautiful Hope Lawrence, debutante niece of socially prominent Mrs. Gwendolyn Meredyth Lawrence, was expected to make a brilliant marriage. Instead, she fell in love with a red-headed newspaper reporter, Peter Neal, who admitted he loved her, but would not ask her to marry him. Hope does the asking and nothing her aunt nor her wealthy suitor nor Marta Jennings, the girl Peter had loved, can think of was successful in keeping them apart. Only marriage to Peter wasn't easy for a girl trained to riches. Hope tries desperately to live on Peter's salary, but can't. Secretly, she goes to work for a famous French designer, wearing beautiful clothes and being seen in them at smart places." .

New York: Hurst & Company. Very Good. (c.1888). Later Printing. Hardcover. (pictorial cloth; no dust jacket) [external wear to covers and corners, gilt spine lettering rubbed, bottom front corner bumped, spine a little turned; hinges a little tender, but binding fully intact; minor spotting on a few pages]. (B&W frontispiece portrait of A.C. Gunter) Novel set during the Civil War. W.H. Parkins (whoever he was) was obviously a less important personage than Archibald Clavering Gunter in bringing this book before the reading public. Only Gunter's name appears on the book's spine and front cover, and it's printed on the title page in letters twice the size of the author's name; on top of that, in the back of the book there are a full dozen pages of advertisements for Gunter's various books (which, by the way, help to date this particular printing at circa 1904); for gosh sake, even the frontispiece portrait is of Gunter! Although forgotten today, in his time Mr.… Read More

Reggio Emilia [Italy]: Tipolitografio Emiliana. Fine in Near Fine dj. 2003. First Edition. Softcover. [nice clean book with minimal handling wear, essentially presents as-new]. (color reproductions) A second collection (six years after the publication of the first) of "letters" mailed by artist Mario Avati to his friend Anselmo Gualdi -- although "letters" is something of a misnomer, as what is actually reproduced in this volume are the envelopes in which the letters were mailed, each of which has been decorated by Avati with colorful, often whimsical drawings, many of which are themed to the locations from which they were mailed. The 322 envelopes reproduced here (two per page) include human figures, animals, birds, buildings, landscapes, renderings of famous artworks, etc. -- basically, it seems, whatever struck the artist's fancy at a given time or place. Avati (1921-2009) was a painter, engraver, printmaker and book illustrator who achieved his greatest renown… Read More

Jefferson NC/London: McFarland & Company, Inc.. Fine. (c.2002). First Edition. Softcover. [nice clean as-new book, with no discernible wear]. Trade PB (B&W photographs) "This book traces the history of film and televisoin adaptations (nearly 30 to date) of six novels: 'Sense and Sensibility,' 'Price and Prejudice,' 'Emma,' 'Mansfield Park,' 'Persuasion,' and 'Northanger Abbey.' [The author] compares the adaptations to the novels and to each other, and analyzes the adaptations as cinematic art." .