[light shelfwear to bottom edge, slight bumping to top rear corner; jacket sunned at spine, light edgewear and scuffing]. "This book, by a former New York city magistrate, is in part the inspiring story of his own life; in part a vivid record of the city he has loved; in part an account of the Fusion Administration, embodying perhaps the most revealing portrait of Fiorello H. LaGuardia ever written. It tells of a career unusual for its variety and constant interest, unique for its inception and meaning. For Judge Isaacs, on graduating from the College of the City of New York, had taken ... View More...
[minor soiling to cloth at top and bottom edges, no other significant wear; jacket somewhat faded at spine, with light overall soiling and age-toning]. Certainly one of the odder memoirs (if that's what it is) you're likely to encounter. The bulk of the book is the story of a woman named Anna Goldman Denny, who (like the book's author) is a native of St. Louis. She chronicles her life from childhood through her early career as an office worker in St. Louis and Chicago, her service with the Red Cross (stateside) during World War I, and in particular her long affair with an older man in her o... View More...
[nice tight copy, the faintest bit of soiling to bottom edges of boards but no significant wear; jacket shows very minor wear at corners and fore-edge, one tiny closed tear at top of front panel]. (B&W photographs) INSCRIBED ("To ________ / Sincerely") and SIGNED by the author on the ffep. The famous soprano's "warm and wonderful reminiscence of her brilliant career." Signed by Author View More...
[extremely light handling wear]. Trade PB (B&W and color photographs) INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the book's subject, Avraham Goldreich, on the title page. "The story of Avraham Goldreich, one of the first Navigators in [the] Israel Air Force." Although "written by" Gila Kolka, the narrative of Mr. Goldreich is presented in the first person. He tells the story of fleeing with his brother from Poland in 1942 and eventually making his way to Palestine, where he eventually becomes a navigator in the Israel Air Force, "one who has had a demonstrable influence on the development of aviation flight, ... View More...
[minor handling wear, a couple of stress lines in rear cover next to spine]. (B&W photographs) A translated condensation of interviews conducted by Tal Hammel (who began the activity as a high school project in Israel in 1980), which ultimately came to serve as "a moving record of oral contemporary history which documented the incredible contribution made by Ida Nudel to the renascent Jewish national movement in the Soviet Union." Repeatedly denied an exit visa throughout the 1970s and thus unable to join her family in Israel, Ida Nudel became known as the "Guardian Angel" of Soviet Jewish p... View More...
[tight clean copy, minimal shelfwear, remainder spray to bottom edge else Near Fine; jacket has one small closed tear and associated creasing at top of front panel, visible wear at top corners]. (B&W photographs) Autobiography of one of the world's first supermodels (before that term existed), who was also purported to be one of Truman Capote's primary inspirations for the character of Holly Golightly in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (although similar claims have been made by and on behalf of others). Leigh was a fashion-industry icon in the 1940s and 1950s (as was her sister, Suzy Parker... View More...
(price-clipped) [a bit of wear to bottom extremities, faint bookstore stamp at upper corner of ffep; jacket a little edgeworn, tiny bits of paper loss at spine ends, a few little nicks and tiny tears at edges]. The author's memoir of his year in confinement as a political prisoner in a remote region of southern Italy during the war between Italy and Ethiopia. Basis for the 1979 film directed by Francesco Rosi. View More...
[nice clean copy, with no significant wear, just the slightest age-toning to the fore-edge; jacket lightly soiled, with a little abrasion along the right-hand side of the top edge of the front panel]. Somebody ought to write a history of the "my-whacky-parent(s)" memoir, which had its heyday from the 1930s through the 1950s (think "Cheaper by the Dozen," "Life with Father," and most anything with the words "Papa" or "Mama" in the title). I'm not sure when it began to be supplanted by the parent-as-monster confessional -- I haven't written the history, a... View More...
[nice clean book with no discernible wear, but with the front hinge just barely starting to split at the bottom; jacket shows slight handling wear, minor scuffing to rear panel]. SIGNED by the author on the half-title page; below her signature is what appears to be an undecipherable scrawl, although perhaps to the trained eye it means something. "The story of a young woman's emotional and political education in the last year's of Mao's China." Signed by Author View More...
[bumped and slightly cracked at bottom corner of front cover, one-time owner's ink signature on ffep, otherwise tight and clean with no significant wear; jacket lightly edgeworn, small tear at top right-hand corner of front panel, small horizontal scrape on spine]. "The real, unvarnished facts, the revealing story about hair, presented authentically in a humorous autobiography [in which] facts are blended with fancy" -- one of the "fancies," perhaps, being the author's bona fides as a "cinema, radio and TV writer," given that any credits he may have achieved in this line of work seem to have ... View More...
[light shelfwear, foxing/spotting to edges of text block; jacket soiled, shallow chipping at spine extremities and along bottom of front panel]. (B&W photographic plates) Theatrical memoir by an English actress whose career stretched from the 1880s to the 1940s. She was married to the actor/playwright Henry V. Esmond from 1891 until his death in 1922; they appeared together in more than a dozen plays, and one of their children was Jill Esmond, actress and first wife of Laurence Olivier. In conjunction with her stage career, Eva Moore was also active in the women's suffrage movement (to which... View More...
(price-clipped) [moderately heavy shelfwear to bottom edges of covers, bumping to top of spine; jacket shows general handling wear, slight paper loss at several corners, a couple of what look like tape-shadows on the front panel, a few tiny edge-tears]. (B&W photographs) Memoir by an Indiana native who joined the U.S. Army at the age of nineteen (in 1898) "to avenge the sinking of the Maine," and was shipped off to fight in the Philippines, an experience to which he devotes several chapters of his book. He eventually settled in Los Angeles post-WWI, where his various careers included ... View More...
[nice clean copy with very slight wear at spine ends; jacket shows just a tiny bit of creasing and wear along top and bottom edges, minor puncture wound near bottom of rear hinge]. (Hispanic Civil Rights series) Series (B&W photographs) INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the title page: "To _____________, / With my best wishes, / Julian Nava / May 30, '08." Memoir by "one of the most renowned and distinguished elder statesmen of the Hispanic community of the United States. The child of poor Mexican immigrants, Nava rose through years of hardship and hard work to achieve what n... View More...
(laminated boards; no dust jacket) [nice clean book, virtually as new, with just a tiny dent at top of the rear cover]. (B&W photographs) Autobiography of the noted (and notorious) photographer -- "maestro della provocazione," as the rear-cover blurb puts it. The text is in Italian; the models are in, mostly, nothing. View More...
(no dust jacket) [very nice solid copy with minimal shelfwear, slight fading to spine cloth and along left and top edges of front cover, a bit of scuffing to rear cover]. (line-drawing chapter-head decorations) Legendary travel narrative, by a legendary traveler. Already married as a teenager in turn-of-the-century San Francisco, Maud Parrish assessed the socially-acceptable options available to young women at the time "You got married, were an old maid, or went to hell" decided that none of the above suited her, and took a powder. She headed first to the Yukon, where she became a dance-h... View More...
[nice tight copy, minor shelfwear and light soiling to bottom edge; jacket shows faint handling wear, minor wrinkling near bottom edge (front and back panels), slight rubbing to spine lettering]. (B&W photographs) INSCRIBED with a lengthy humorous inscription, to noted TV sports producer Don Ohlmeyer, and SIGNED by the author on the front endpaper. Very scarce memoir by one of the most well-known figures in American auto racing from the 1960s through 1981, his last full year behind the wheel. The inscription relates to Posey's mid-1970s stint as an commentator for ABC's coverage of the Indi... View More...
[solid clean copy, minor shelfwear, very light browning to page edges, small sticker shadow on ffep; jacket shows a little surface wear, minor wrinkling near bottom of front panel, diagonal crease at top front flap]. (B&W photographs) Self-serving political autobiography (although come to think of it, is there any other kind of political autobiography?), issued as part of the run-up to Reagan's successful 1966 run for Governor of California. The title derives from his most famous bit of movie dialogue, delivered in the 1941 film "King's Row" when his character discovers that his legs have bee... View More...
[tiny nick in top edge of rear cover, no other significant wear; jacket is flawless]. (B&W photographs) Biography of the TV comedy pioneer and sometime actor and author, drawing on "extensive research and on scores of interviews with those who knew Kovacs personally and professionally at every stage of his life -- from Trenton to Philadelphia to New York to Hollywood. What emerges is an engrossing and long-overdue portrait of a man far ahead of his time in [television, and] a man whose personal plife was filled with singular drama and great emotional riches." View More...
[no discernible wear to book; rear panel of jacket a little scuffed and soiled, tiny nick at top of rear panel]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on a blank page preceding the half-title page. Episodic memoir by "an Armenian-born man who has spent nearly his entire life in Iran," specifically Tehran. "Beginning in the 1920s with the Copperfield-like account of his birth, the author spans fifty years of Iranian history with his anecdotes and life story." Laid in are two items: a handwritten note from the author to the book's inscribee (a newspaper critic who he hopes will ... View More...
[minimal handling wear; clean inside and out]. (B&W photographs) The author was born in Leipzig, Germany, and grew up in a fairly privileged milieu (he describes his family as being of the "higher bourgeoisie"). The memories chonicled in this small book (62 pages) are largely of his school days in Leipzig, Cologne, and later as a fellow at the University of Rochester (N.Y.), as well as various travels around the world. Although there is no overt homosexual content, the author dwells quite often on a number of strong bonds that he formed with various other (male) students, and notes as well t... View More...