Yascha Mounk

Everything is like new, and no markings on the text, but there is a tear and some wear on the outer paper book jacket cover. 

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time

One of our leading public intellectuals traces the origin of a set of ideas about identity and social justice that is rapidly transforming America—and explains why it will fail to accomplish its noble goals For much of history, societies have violently oppressed ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. It is no surprise that many who passionately believe in social justice came to believe that members of marginalized groups need to take pride in their identity to resist injustice. But over the past decades, a healthy appreciation for the culture and heritage of minority groups has transformed into a counterproductive obsession with group identity in all its forms. A new ideology aiming to place each person’s matrix of identities at the center of social, cultural, and political life has quickly become highly influential. It stifles discourse, vilifies mutual influence as cultural appropriation, denies that members of different groups can truly understand one another, and insists that the way governments treat their citizens should depend on the color of their skin. This, Yascha Mounk argues, is the identity trap. Though those who battle for these ideas are full of good intentions, they will ultimately make it harder to achieve progress toward the genuine equality we desperately need. Mounk has built his acclaimed scholarly career on being one of the first to warn of the risks right-wing populists pose to American democracy. But, he shows, those on the left and center who are stuck in the identity trap are now inadvertent allies to the MAGA movement. In The Identity Trap, Mounk provides the most ambitious and comprehensive account to date of the origins, consequences, and limitations of so-called “wokeness.” He is the first to show how postmodernism, postcolonialism, and critical race theory forged the “identity synthesis” that conquered many college campuses by 2010. He lays out how a relatively marginal set of ideas came to gain tremendous influence in business, media, and government by 2020. He makes a nuanced philosophical case for why the application of these ideas to areas from education to public policy is proving to be so deeply counterproductive—and why universal, humanist values can best serve the vital goal of true equality. In explaining the huge political and cultural transformations of the past decade, The Identity Trap provides truth and clarity where they are needed most.

The Identity Trap

1aafbd89-0ba1-469b-957d-3bd51689ab08-0

Peter Guralnick

Very good condition. No markings throughout. Light signs of wear on the cover. 

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom

A gripping narrative that captures the tumult and liberating energy of a nation in transition, Sweet Soul Music is an intimate portrait of the legendary performers--Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, James Brown, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Al Green among them--who merged gospel and rhythm and blues to create Southern soul music. Through rare interviews and with unique insight, Peter Guralnick tells the definitive story of the songs that inspired a generation and forever changed the sound of American music.

Sweet Soul Music

134a72a7-e4f2-4240-871a-ebd5966cfaf2-1

Charlie Mackesy

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

From the revered British illustrator, a modern fable for all ages that explores life's universal lessons, featuring 100 color and black-and-white drawings. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" asked the mole. "Kind," said the boy. Charlie Mackesy offers inspiration and hope in uncertain times in this beautiful book based on his famous quartet of characters. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse explores their unlikely friendship and the poignant, universal lessons they learn together. Radiant with Mackesy's warmth and gentle wit, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse blends hand-written narrative with dozens of drawings, including some of his best-loved illustrations (including "Help," which has been shared over one million times) and new, never-before-seen material. A modern classic in the vein of The Tao of Pooh, The Alchemist, and The Giving Tree, this charmingly designed keepsake will be treasured for generations to come.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

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David Biespiel

Nearly mint condition. Bought new and read once. 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Home, Memory, and Texas

Acclaimed poet and essayist David Biespiel tells the story of the rise and fall of his Jewish boyhood in Texas, and his search for the answer to his life's central riddle: Are we ever done leaving home? Raised in the 1970s in Meyerland, the historic Jewish neighborhood of Houston, Biespiel explores the story of triumph and shame that changed his relationship to the world around him. With cinematic fluidity, he writes of his early years as a teenager who yearns for bold self-invention as he grapples with the enigmas of illness, death, love, and the meaning of faith. Growing up in a family devoted to Jewish identity, Biespiel comes under the tutelage of the head rabbi of the largest conservative congregation in North America. But after the rabbi kicks him out of the synagogue during a public quarrel, Biespiel leaves Texas and his religious upbringing behind. After a near-forty-year exile, Biespiel returns for a day to the world he left behind as a different person, to offer a moving meditation on the meaning of home, uncovering bittersweet realities of age, youth, and family with tenderness and devastating honesty. Written in the years that followed the devastation of Houston wrought by three 500-year floods in three years-including Hurricane Harvey, the worst flood in Texas history-Biespiel's account is by turns personal and philosophical, a meditation on time's inevitable losses and a writer's hard-won gains. A Place of Exodus is not only a memoir, but an essential companion for anyone who has journeyed far - and equally those who have stayed close to the unresolvable paradoxes of home, the aches of time and heart none of us can escape.

A Place of Exodus

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Thomas Sowell

Very good condition. No markings inside, mild wear on the cover.

An International History

Argues that all cultures are not created equally and suggests that the clash of cultures throughout world history resembles the theory of survival of the fittest

Conquests and Cultures

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Natsume Soseki

Bought new this year. No markings in the text. Mild wear to the cover and pages. 

The Three Cornered World

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George. Orwell

An empty purse leads an English writer to find lodgings in the slums of two great cities

Down and Out in Paris and London

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Jack. London

Pete Hamill

Very good condition. No markings in the text. Minimal wear on the cover. 

Jack London cut a mythic figure across the American landscape of the early twentieth century. But throughout his colorful life–from his teenage years as an oyster pirate to his various incarnations as a well-traveled seaman, Yukon gold prospector, waterfront brawler, unemployed vagrant, impassioned socialist, and celebrated writer–he retained a predilection for drinking on a prodigious scale. London’s classic "alcoholic memoirs"–the closest thing to an autobiography he ever wrote–are a startlingly honest and vivid account of his life not only as a drinker, but also as a storied adventurer. Richly anecdotal and beautifully written, John Barleycorn stands as the earliest intelligent treatment of alcohol in American literature, and as an intensely moving document of one of America’s finest writers. This Modern Library Paperback Classic includes illustrations from the original edition.

John Barleycorn

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Gene Brewer

Volume three in the trilogy. Excellent condition with no markings. Very minimal wear on the cover.

The Worlds of Prot

K-Pax III

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Jack Kerouac

Beautiful classic by the Beat author, invoking childhood memories and loss. Very good condition, no markings. Only mild wear on the cover. 

A Novel

"[A] pleasant and underrated surprise . . . [Visions of Gerard] has a winning simplicity and sweetness." --The Washington Post

The first book in Kerouac's Duluoz Legend, a novella detailing the writer's early life as refracted through the prism of the untimely loss of his brother

Unique among Jack Kerouac's novels, Visions of Gerard captures the scenes and sensations of earliest childhood, the first four years in the life of Ti Jean Duluoz as they unfold in the short, tragic-happy life of his brother, Gerard. Set in Kerouac's hometown of Lovell, Massachusetts, childhood's intensity, innocence, suffering, and delight unfold as Gerard interacts with animals, has visions of Our Lady in heaven, astonishes the priest in the church confessional, and observes his family as they laugh and drink and weep--that is, when he isn't sick and confined to bed.

A novel that Kerouac called "my best most serious sad and true book yet," Visions of Gerard is a beautiful, unsettling, and melancholic exploration of the meaning and precariousness of existence. 

Visions of Gerard

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Allison Markin Powell

Osamu Dazai

Slim volume by a respected author of Japanese literature. Like new with no markings. I bought it new this year and read it once. 

The novella that first propelled Dazai into the literary elite of post-war Japan. Essentially the start of Dazai's career, Schoolgirl gained notoriety for its ironic and inventive use of language. Now it illuminates the prevalent social structures of a lost time, as well as the struggle of the individual against them--a theme that occupied Dazai's life both personally and professionally. This new translation preserves the playful language of the original and offers the reader a new window into the mind of one of the greatest Japanese authors of the 20th century.

Anthony

@anthony450865

Books Listed

Following

Followers

Yascha Mounk

The Identity Trap

Peter Guralnick

Sweet Soul Music

Charlie Mackesy

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

David Biespiel

A Place of Exodus

Thomas Sowell

Conquests and Cultures

Natsume Soseki

The Three Cornered World

George. Orwell

Down and Out in Paris and London

Jack. London; Pete Hamill

John Barleycorn

Gene Brewer

K-Pax III

Jack Kerouac

Visions of Gerard

Allison Markin Powell; Osamu Dazai

Schoolgirl

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Yascha Mounk

The Identity Trap

Peter Guralnick

Sweet Soul Music

Charlie Mackesy

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

David Biespiel

A Place of Exodus

Thomas Sowell

Conquests and Cultures

Natsume Soseki

The Three Cornered World

George. Orwell

Down and Out in Paris and London

Jack. London; Pete Hamill

John Barleycorn

Gene Brewer

K-Pax III

Jack Kerouac

Visions of Gerard

Allison Markin Powell; Osamu Dazai

Schoolgirl

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