Pete Hamill

Well researched book about the history of Manhattan, with personal stuff thrown in.

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

California

My Manhattan

A history of Manhattan from the perspective of a forty-year journalist conveys the author's intimate knowledge of the region's neighborhoods and people, from former 1920s speakeasies and the alleyways of the meat-packing district to the streets of Greenwich Village and the cobblestones of South Street Seaport. 100,000 first printing.

Downtown

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Kim Gordon

Really in excellent shape, but the cover is a bit worn on the back. I enjoyed this! 

A Memoir

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Kim Gordon, founding member of Sonic Youth, fashion icon, and role model for a generation of women, now tells her story--a memoir of life as an artist, of music, marriage, motherhood, independence, and as one of the first women of rock and roll, written with the lyricism and haunting beauty of Patti Smith's Just Kids.

Often described as aloof, Kim Gordon opens up as never before in Girl in a Band. Telling the story of her family, growing up in California in the '60s and '70s, her life in visual art, her move to New York City, the men in her life, her marriage, her relationship with her daughter, her music, and her band, Girl in a Band is a rich and beautifully written memoir.

Gordon takes us back to the lost New York of the 1980s and '90s that gave rise to Sonic Youth, and the Alternative revolution in popular music. The band helped build a vocabulary of music--paving the way for Nirvana, Hole, Smashing Pumpkins and many other acts. But at its core, Girl in a Band examines the route from girl to woman in uncharted territory, music, art career, what partnership means--and what happens when that identity dissolves.

Evocative and edgy, filled with the sights and sounds of a changing world and a transformative life, Girl in a Band is the fascinating chronicle of a remarkable journey and an extraordinary artist.

Girl in a Band

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Francine Prose

Interesting narrative structure. Told through letters and articles and pieces of books, all fictional of course, though the club existed in real life.

A Novel

A richly imagined and stunningly inventive literary masterpiece of love, art, and betrayal, exploring the genesis of evil, the unforeseen consequences of love, and the ultimate unreliability of storytelling itself. Paris in the 1920s shimmers with excitement, dissipation, and freedom. It is a place of intoxicating ambition, passion, art, and discontent, where louche jazz venues like the Chameleon Club draw expats, artists, libertines, and parvenus looking to indulge their true selves. It is at the Chameleon where the striking Lou Villars, an extraordinary athlete and scandalous cross-dressing lesbian, finds refuge among the club’s loyal denizens, including the rising Hungarian photographer Gabor Tsenyi, the socialite and art patron Baroness Lily de Rossignol; and the caustic American writer Lionel Maine. As the years pass, their fortunes—and the world itself—evolve. Lou falls desperately in love and finds success as a race car driver. Gabor builds his reputation with startlingly vivid and imaginative photographs, including a haunting portrait of Lou and her lover, which will resonate through all their lives. As the exuberant twenties give way to darker times, Lou experiences another metamorphosis—sparked by tumultuous events—that will warp her earnest desire for love and approval into something far more.

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

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Greta Thunberg

Svante Thunberg

Malena Ernman

Beata Ernman

This is a remaindered book, but otherwise it’s in excellent condition. Loved the mom’s story.

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis

"A must-read ecological message of hope . . . Everyone with an interest in the future of this planet should read this book." --David Mitchell, The Guardian When climate activist Greta Thunberg was eleven, her parents Malena and Svante, and her little sister Beata, were facing a crisis in their own home. Greta had stopped eating and speaking, and her mother and father had reconfigured their lives to care for her. Desperate and searching for answers, her parents discovered what was at the heart of Greta’s distress: her imperiled future on a rapidly heating planet. Steered by Greta’s determination to understand the truth and generate change, they began to see the deep connections between their own suffering and the planet’s. Written by a remarkable family and told through the voice of an iconoclastic mother, Our House Is on Fire is the story of how they fought their problems at home by taking global action. And it is the story of how Greta decided to go on strike from school, igniting a worldwide rebellion.

Our House Is on Fire

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Roxane Gay

A Memoir of (My) Body

New York Times bestseller National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist Lambda Literary Award winner A best book of 2017: Time NPR People Elle The Washington Post The Los Angeles Times The Chicago Tribune Newsday St. Louis Post-Dispatch PopSugar BookRiot Library Journal Booklist Kirkus Reviews Shelf Awareness New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life. With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. Hunger is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers, and tells a story that hasn’t yet been told but needs to be.

Hunger

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Barbara Kingsolver

Camille Kingsolver

Steven L. Hopp

This hardcover is in pretty good shape, aside from some wear on the cover and some discoloration on the top. A classic modern food memoir about sustainability, organic food, gardening and healthy eating.

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Year of Food Life

Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat. "As the U.S. population made an unprecedented mad dash for the Sun Belt, one carload of us paddled against the tide, heading for the Promised Land where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows all around. We were about to begin the adventure of realigning our lives with our food chain. "Naturally, our first stop was to buy junk food and fossil fuel. . . ." Hang on for the ride: With characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Their good-humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that's better for the neighborhood and also better on the table. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet. "This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

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Alice Hoffman

Some wear on the jacket, a remainder mark. This is a really interesting fictional account of the family of one of the elders of Impressionism, Pissarro, and their time in colonial St. Thomas and Paris.

"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Dovekeepers and The Museum of Extraordinary Things: a forbidden love story set on the tropical island of St. Thomas about the extraordinary woman who gave birth to painter Camille Pissarro the Father of Impressionism"--

The Marriage of Opposites

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Qian Julie Wang

A more contemporary immigration story, mostly told from the point of view of a child.

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * The moving story of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world--an incandescent debut from an astonishing new talent * A TODAY SHOW #READWITHJENNA PICK

In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to "beautiful country." Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian's parents were professors; in America, her family is "illegal" and it will require all the determination and small joys they can muster to survive.

In Chinatown, Qian's parents labor in sweatshops. Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the stress of their new life on one another. Shunned by her classmates and teachers for her limited English, Qian takes refuge in the library and masters the language through books, coming to think of The Berenstain Bears as her first American friends. And where there is delight to be found, Qian relishes it: her first bite of gloriously greasy pizza, weekly "shopping days," when Qian finds small treasures in the trash lining Brooklyn's streets, and a magical Christmas visit to Rockefeller Center--confirmation that the New York City she saw in movies does exist after all.

But then Qian's headstrong Ma Ma collapses, revealing an illness that she has kept secret for months for fear of the cost and scrutiny of a doctor's visit. As Ba Ba retreats further inward, Qian has little to hold onto beyond his constant refrain: Whatever happens, say that you were born here, that you've always lived here.

Inhabiting her childhood perspective with exquisite lyric clarity and unforgettable charm and strength, Qian Julie Wang has penned an essential American story about a family fracturing under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the shadows, who never stops seeking the light.

Beautiful Country

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Anne Tyler is best known for The Accidental Tourist, and her characters are quirky, her plot lines about regular life. This is a first edition from 1988 in excellent condition, save for a gift note on the inside, some wear on the book jacket, and some dust on the top.

Breathing Lessons

Marisa de los Santos

Her novels are so readable—I usually devour in just a day or two. This one is for the collector: first edition!

"Ginny Beale is eighteen, ... with a brother she adores and a circle of friends for whom she would do anything. Because of one terrible night, she loses them all--and her adventurous spirit--seemingly forever. While the town cheers on the high school football team, someone sets the school's auditorium ablaze. Ginny's best friend Gray Marsden's father, a fire fighter, dies in the blaze. While many in the town believe a notoriously troubled local teen set the fire, Ginny makes a shattering discovery that casts blame on the person she trusts most in the world. Ginny tells no one, but the secret isolates her, looming between her and her friends and ruining their friendship, [and follows her into adulthood]"--Publisher marketing.

I'd Give Anything

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Katie Couric

Fun vacation read—AND it’ll make you cry. Best story is about her date with Howard Stern. #paperback #memoir #newrelease #nonfiction #bestseller 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

This heartbreaking, hilarious, and brutally honest memoir shares the deeply personal life story of a girl next door and her transformation into a household name.



For more than forty years, Katie Couric has been an iconic presence in the media world. In her brutally honest, hilarious, heartbreaking memoir, she reveals what was going on behind the scenes of her sometimes tumultuous personal and professional life - a story she's never shared, until now. Of the medium she loves, the one that made her a household name, she says, "Television can put you in a box; the flat-screen can flatten. On TV, you are larger than life but smaller, too. It is not the whole story, and it is not the whole me. This book is."



Beginning in early childhood, Couric was inspired by her journalist father to pursue the career he loved but couldn't afford to stay in. Balancing her vivacious, outgoing personality with her desire to be taken seriously, she overcame every obstacle in her way: insecurity, an eating disorder, being typecast, sexism . . . challenges, and how she dealt with them, setting the tone for the rest of her career. Couric talks candidly about adjusting to sudden fame after her astonishing rise to co-anchor of the TODAY show, and guides us through the most momentous events and news stories of the era, to which she had a front-row seat:  Rodney King, Anita Hill, Columbine, the death of Princess Diana, 9/11, the Iraq War . . . In every instance, she relentlessly pursued the facts, ruffling more than a few feathers along the way.  She also recalls in vivid and sometimes lurid detail the intense pressure on female anchors to snag the latest "get"--often sensational tabloid stories like Jon Benet Ramsey, Tonya Harding, and OJ Simpson.



Couric's position as one of the leading lights of her profession was  shadowed by the shock and trauma of losing her husband to stage 4 colon cancer when he was just 42, leaving her a widow and single mom to two daughters, 6 and 2. The death of her sister Emily, just three years later, brought yet more trauma--and an unwavering commitment to cancer awareness and research, one of her proudest accomplishments.



 Couric is unsparing in the details of her historic move to the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News--a world rife with sexism and misogyny.  Her "welcome" was even more hostile at 60 Minutes, an unrepentant boys club that engaged in outright hazing of even the most established women.  In the wake of the MeToo movement, Couric shares her clear-eyed reckoning with gender inequality and predatory behavior in the workplace, and downfall of Matt Lauer--a colleague she had trusted and respected for more than a decade.



Couric also talks about the challenge of finding love again, with all the hilarity, false-starts, and drama that search entailed, before finding her midlife Mr. Right.  Something she has never discussed publicly--why her second marriage almost didn't happen. 



If you thought you knew Katie Couric, think again. Going There is the fast-paced, emotional, riveting story of a thoroughly modern woman, whose journey took her from humble origins to superstardom. In these pages, you will find a friend, a confidante, a role model, a survivor whose lessons about life will enrich your own.

Going There

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#hardcover #firstedition #fiction #newyork

Three friends on the verge of their thirties--beautiful, sophisticated Marina Thwaite; Danielle, a quiet TV producer; and Julius, a freelance writer--make their way through New York City, until Marina's idealistic cousin, Bootie, arrives to complicate the

The Emperor's Children

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#hardcover #fiction #politicalfiction #postapocalyptic #california #climatechange (This is a library book but in really good condition.)

"Drought has transfigured Southern California into a surreal, phantasmagoric landscape. Most of the Southwest has been evacuated. Luz and Ray are holdouts, squatting in a starlet's abandoned mansion and subsisting on rationed cola and whatever they can loot, scavenge, and improvise, their love somehow blooming in this arid place. But when they cross paths with a mysterious child, and the thirst for a better future begins."--

Gold Fame Citrus

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Francis Conway is Swill - one of the 90% in the year 2041 who must subsist on the inadequate charities of the state. A young boy growing. Life, already difficult, is rapidly becoming impossible for Francis and others like him, as government corruption, official blindness and nature have conspired to turn Swill homes into watery tombs. And now the young boy must find a way to escape the approaching tide of disaster.

THE SEA AND SUMMER, published in the US as THE DROWNING TOWERS, is George Turner's masterful exploration of the effects of climate change in the not-too-distant future. Comparable to J.G. Ballard's THE DROWNED WORLD, it was shortlisted for the NEBULA AWARD and won the ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD.

The Sea and Summer

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#paperback #dystopian #fiction #scifi #suspense #thriller 

“One of the most intriguing future cities in years.” —Charlie Jane Anders “Simmers with menace and heartache, suspense and wonder.” —Ann Leckie A Best Book of the Month in Entertainment Weekly The Washington Post Tor.com B&N Sci-Fi Fantasy Blog Amazon After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering, complete with geothermal heating and sustainable energy. The city’s denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living, however, the city is starting to fray along the edges—crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaks” is ravaging the population. When a strange new visitor arrives—a woman riding an orca, with a polar bear at her side—the city is entranced. The “orcamancer,” as she’s known, very subtly brings together four people—each living on the periphery—to stage unprecedented acts of resistance. By banding together to save their city before it crumbles under the weight of its own decay, they will learn shocking truths about themselves. Blackfish City is a remarkably urgent—and ultimately very hopeful—novel about political corruption, organized crime, technology run amok, the consequences of climate change, gender identity, and the unifying power of human connection.

Blackfish City

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#hardcover #memoir #nonfiction #biography #autobiography #bestseller 

"An unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University"--Amazon.com.

Educated

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Climate change and a gripping novel!#paperback #science #thriller #action #climatechange

2021

Climate activists like Greta Nilsson and Edward Halliday united millions of people around the world in peaceful protest against the forces driving catastrophic climate change.




2031

A different type of eco warrior has emerged. Men and women prepared to imagine and implement the unthinkable. The few must perish so that the many might live.

Cull 2031

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#paperback #nonfiction #autobiography #juliachild #cooking #love 

A memoir begun just months before Child's death describes the legendary food expert's years in Paris, Marseille, and Provence and her journey from a young woman from Pasadena who cannot cook or speak any French to the publication of her legendary Mastering cookbooks and her winning the hearts of America as "The French Chef." Reprint. 175,000 first printing.

My Life in France

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Pulitzer prize winning author Annie Dillard's poignant, vivid memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950's details the exhilaration of a young, vibrant girl discovering the world around her and exploring it with a keen mind and curiosity.

An American Childhood

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#hardcover #fiction #holocaust First U.S. Edition

Rejected by her fiancé after traveling to post-WWII Montreal, an enigmatic Lily accepts the marriage proposal of her ex's smitten brother Nathan, who is shocked to discover that Lily is not the woman she claimed to be when she disappears, leaving behind their baby, a diary and a large uncut diamond.

The Imposter Bride

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(Part of The Essential Poets series)

Briefly discusses Browning's life and career, and gathers a selection of his poems from each stage of his career

The Essential Browning

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#parenting #nonfiction #paperback This is still the best, most useful book I read about parenting. I still use most of the concepts a decade later, even though my kid is a teenager now.

Details a program for improving communication between parents and children, providing sample dialogues, role-playing exercises, and humorous yet illuminating cartoons

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk

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Traditional Crafts and the Artisans Keeping Them Alive (Arts and Crafts Book, Gift for Artists and History Lovers)

Almost Lost Arts features the stories of 20 artisans who have devoted their lives to preserving traditional techniques.

From globemakers and bookmenders to cassette tape manufacturers and neon sign makers, the profiled artisans represent a diverse mix of media, ages, genders, and cultural backgrounds.

Gorgeous photographs reveal these craftspeople's studios from places like Oaxaca, Kyoto, Milan, and Tennessee.

* Each maker is accompanied by an in-depth profile telling their story
* Features two essays that discuss the challenges and rewards of engaging deeply with the past
* An inspiration to makers, collectors, and history lovers

Almost Lost Arts is a celebration of tactile beauty and a tribute to human ingenuity.

This book takes readers in-depth with each artisan and explores how people around the world are saving traditional arts from obscurity.

* A visual delight and an inspirational read for anyone who treasures handmade goods: collectors, makers, and those who dream of quitting their office jobs and learning a craft
* The perfect gift for artists, makers, collectors, crafters, fans of vintage ephemera, history lovers, trivia buffs, travelers, parents, and millennials
* Elegant three-piece case and foil stamping make this a highly giftable book
* Great for fans of Back to Basics: How to Learn and Enjoy Traditional American Skills by Reader's Digest, Cræft: An Inquiry Into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts by Alexander Langland, and In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs by Grace Bonney

Almost Lost Arts

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#hardcover #family #fiction #literaryfiction

Enid Lambert begins to worry about her husband when he begins to withdraw and lose himself in negativity and depression as he faces Parkinson's disease.

Browse by categories

Pete Hamill

Downtown

Kim Gordon

Girl in a Band

Francine Prose

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

Greta Thunberg; Svante Thunberg; Malena Ernman; Beata Ernman

Our House Is on Fire

Roxane Gay

Hunger

Barbara Kingsolver; Camille Kingsolver; Steven L. Hopp

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Alice Hoffman

The Marriage of Opposites

Qian Julie Wang

Beautiful Country

Anne Tyler

Breathing Lessons

Marisa de los Santos

I'd Give Anything

Katie Couric

Going There

Claire Messud

The Emperor's Children

Claire Vaye Watkins

Gold Fame Citrus

George Turner

The Sea and Summer

Sam J. Miller

Blackfish City

Tara Westover

Educated

Nick Thomas

Cull 2031

Julia Child; Alex Prud'homme

My Life in France

Annie Dillard

An American Childhood

Nancy Richler

The Imposter Bride

Robert Browning

The Essential Browning

Adele Faber; Elaine Mazlish; Brehl (Editor)

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk

Emily Freidenrich; Narayan Khandekar (Contribution by); Margaret Shepherd (Contribution by)

Almost Lost Arts

Jonathan Franzen

The Corrections

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