Ann Cleeves

In tip-top, great condition, save for
faded/yellowish pages.  A fantastic read by Cleeves, a star author!!

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

New York

Featuring Shetland Detective Jimmy Perez

Too Good to Be True

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Douglas J.   Penick

This is the NYRB (New York Review Books) Book Club selection for October 2024. 

A Retelling

A new, haunting rendering of the ancient Indian stories “Tales of the Vetala.” The twenty-five tales included in The Oceans of Cruelty constitute one of the oldest collections of stories in the world, a book that offers both a set of uncanny, unsettling, and unforgettable narratives and a profound meditation on what weird thing it is that drives us to tell and to listen to stories. “Tales of the Vetala” is one of the names under which these stories have made their way from ancient India to the world at large, a Vetala being a corpse-spirit, and the frame story to the collection as a whole tells of a young king who bears the burden of a double spell. He has fallen under the power of a sorcerer, whose demand is that he fetch to him a Vetala to be his servant, and he has fallen under the power of the Vetala itself. Like a bat, the Vetala roosts upside down in the branches of a tree, and night after night the king is driven to take it down and bear it on his back to the burial ground where, once laid to rest, it will fall into the sorcerer's hands. Night after night, king and spirit make their way from tree to burial ground, and as they do the spirit whispers a riddling story in the king's ear. If the king knows the answer to the riddle, he must tell it; as soon as he tells it, the spirit flies back to the tree. Thus story follows story, the king's labors continue, and neither he nor the spirit finds rest. Only when the king has no idea what the answer to the riddle may be, when he is unable at last to respond to the story at all, will his obligation to the sorcerer be fulfilled and will he be set free, though when that comes to pass—well, that's when the whole story takes a new turn. Within this framework, The Oceans of Cruelty unfolds a suite of tales of suicidal passion, clever deceit, patriarchal oppression, obligatory self-sacrifice, changing bodies, and narrow escapes from death. Here are all the passions, and here is the play of appearance and desire from which stories are drawn and that make us come back hungry for story, wondering how will the story end and when at last will we be done with all those stories? Douglas Penick's recreation of this ancient work brings out all its humor and horror and vitality, as well its unmistakeable relevance in a world of stories gone viral.

The Oceans of Cruelty: Twenty-Five Tales of a Corpse-Spirit

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Rebecca Godfrey

Leslie Jamison

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Novel

A dazzling, richly imagined novel about Peggy Guggenheim—a story of art, family, love, and becoming oneself—by the award-winning author of Under the Bridge, now a Hulu limited series starring Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone “Godfrey brilliantly resurrects the avant-garde adventurer Peggy Guggenheim as a feminist icon for our times.”—Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation “Magnificent . . . Readers will be won over by Godfrey’s incandescent portrait of a singular woman.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review Venice, 1958. Peggy Guggenheim, heiress and now legendary art collector, sits in the sun at her white marble palazzo on the Grand Canal. She’s in a reflective mood, thinking back on her thrilling, tragic, nearly impossible journey from her sheltered, old-fashioned family in New York to here: iconoclast and independent woman. Rebecca Godfrey’s Peggy is a blazingly fresh interpretation of a woman who defies every expectation to become an original. The daughter of two Jewish dynasties, Peggy finds her cloistered life turned upside down at fourteen, when her beloved father perishes on the Titanic. His death prompts Peggy to seek a life of passion and personal freedom and, above all, to believe in the transformative power of art. We follow Peggy as she makes her way through the glamorous but sexist and anti-Semitic art worlds of New York and Europe and meet the numerous men who love her (and her money) while underestimating her intellect, talent, and vision. Along the way, Peggy must balance her loyalty to her family with her need to break free from their narrow, snobbish ways and the unexpected restrictions that come with vast fortune. Rebecca Godfrey’s final book—completed by her friend, the acclaimed writer Leslie Jamison, following Godfrey’s death in 2022—brings to life the woman who helped make the Guggenheim name synonymous with art and genius.

Peggy

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Tracy O'Neill

What a compelling memoir—strongly recommend!

A Memoir

A National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 honoree delivers her first work of nonfiction: a compulsively readable, genre-bending story of finding her missing birth mother and, along the way, learning the priceless power of self-knowledge. In 2020, Tracy O'Neill began to rethink her ideas of comfort and safety. Just out of a ten-year relationship, thirtysomething, and in a world playing by new rules, she was driven by an acute awareness that the mysterious birth mother she'd never met--may be dying somewhere in South Korea. Hiring a grizzled private investigator, O'Neill took his suggested homework to heart and, when he disappeared before the job was done, picked up the trail, becoming her own hell-bent detective. Covid could have already gotten to her mother. Yet the promise of whom and what she might discover--the possibility that her biological mother was her own kind of outlaw, whose life could inspire her own--was too tempting. Written like a mystery novel, Woman of Interest is a tale of self-discovery, featuring a femme fatale of unique proportions, a former CIA operative with a criminal record, and a dogged investigator of radical connections outside the nuclear family and fugitivity from convention. O'Neill gorgeously bends the detective genre to her own will as a writer, stepping out of the shadows of her own self-conception to illuminate the hope-filled woman of interest she is becoming.

Woman of Interest

0390584f-1573-426e-8b8b-cb3cf385c933-0

Jacqueline Winspear

Actually, it’s in excellent condition, save for yellowed and faded pages. 
This is the first in the Maisie Dobbs series — and it is wonderful. 

In her first case, private detective Maisie Dobbs must investigate the reappearance of a dead man who turns up at a cooperative farm called the Retreat that caters to men who are recovering their health after World War I. Reissue.

Maisie Dobbs

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Marc Chernoff

Angel Chernoff

Alyssa Milano

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Reality, and Turn Your Trials into Triumphs

Instant New York Times bestseller · Empowering advice for overcoming setbacks from the authors of the popular blog Marc & Angel Hack Life Marc and Angel Chernoff have become go-to voices in the area of personal development, reaching tens of thousands of fans each day with their fresh and relatable insights. Now they're writing the book they wish they'd had when they needed it most. Getting Back to Happy reveals their strategies for changing thought patterns and daily habits to bounce back from tough times. Sharing never-before-published stories and advice, the book shows us how to harness the power of daily rituals, mindfulness, self-care, and more to overcome whatever life throws our way--in order to become our best selves.

Getting Back to Happy

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Elle Luna

Find and Follow Your Passion

Who hasn’t asked the question “How can I find and follow my true calling?” Elle Luna frames this moment as “standing at the crossroads of Should and Must.” “Should” is what we feel we ought to be doing, or what is expected of us. “Must” is the thing we dream of doing, our heart’s desire. And it was her own personal journey that inspired Elle Luna to write a brief online manifesto that, in a few short months, has touched hundreds of thousands of people who’ve read it or heard Elle speak on the topic. Now Ms. Luna expands her ideas into an inspirational, highly visual gift book for every recent graduate, every artist, every seeker, every career changer. The Crossroads of Should and Must has a universal message—we get to choose the path between Should and Must. And it gives every reader permission to embrace this message. It’s about the difference between jobs, careers, and callings. The difference between going to work and becoming one with your work. Why knowing what you want is often the hardest part. It gives eye-opening techniques for reconnecting with one’s inner voice, like writing your own obituary (talk about putting life in perspective). It talks about the most common fears of choosing Must over Should—money, time, space, and the ultimate fear: total vulnerability—and shores up our hesitation with inspiring stories of and quotes from the artists and writers and thinkers who’ve faced their own crossroads of Should and Must and taken the leap. It explains the importance of mistakes, of “unlearning,” of solitude, of keeping moving, of following a soul path. Presented in four chapters—The Crossroads, The Origin of Should, Must, and The Return—inspired by the hero’s journey outlined by Joseph Campbell, The Crossroads of Should and Must guides us from the small moment, discovering our Must, to the big moment—actually doing something about it, and returning to share our new gifts with the world.

The Crossroads of Should and Must

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Stacey O'Brien

Actually, it is in excellent condition, save for the faded, yellowed pages. 
A beautiful read!

The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl

Wesley the Owl

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Condition is somewhere between good & very good. Back of book jacket is yellowed along the top; slight tear on jacket front; pages are faded. Otherwise, in fine shape!

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Van Gogh

Yves Montand

"Yves Montand was one of our century's greatest entertainers - consummate music-hall performer, singer, dancer, star of stage and screen. His extraordinary life story is captivatingly told for the first time in this unusual book - part memoir, part biography - a unique collaboration between Montand and two writers." "Born to Italian Communist peasants who fled Mussolini's Italy, Montand grew up in the seething port city of Marseilles, where he worked in his sister's hairdressing salon and dreamed of the movies. By the age of seventeen he had sung his first song in a music hall. The rest is the stuff of legend, re-created here in fascinating and vivid detail: the fantastic successes on the Riviera; the endless, obsessive rehearsals to refine every aspect of his performances; the wartime crises during the German Occupation; Montand's triumphant conquest of Paris, as the city opened its arms to the "singing prole" from the Midi whose every appearance was a glamorous, sold-out event." "Adding to the legend, of course, were his engrossing liaison with Edith Piaf and his introduction to the luminaries of Parisian cultural life, including Jacques Prevert, Marcel Carne, Pablo Picasso, and dozens more. By the time of his brutally affective starring performance in Henri-Georges Clouzot's chilling The Wages of Fear, he had achieved unimaginable celebrity and was married to the charismatic Simone Signoret. The story of the intense but sometimes turbulent love between these two magnetic, highly competitive, and extremely political artists is a central part of the book." "Despite his limitless success in France, Montand had longed from the start to go to Hollywood, and perhaps the most riveting chapters of his life story focus on his coming to America to make movies. The description of his rehearsals and eventual love affair with Marilyn Monroe is, of course, required reading, but there is much more - Montand's perfectionist dedication to every aspect of filmmaking; his friendship with Arthur Miller and other writers; his fascination with American politics; and his frank views on Hollywood stars, roles, and movies."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

You See, I Haven't Forgotten

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Joan Druett

Whaling Wives at Sea, 1820-1920

"This is the colourful tale of the whaling ships that plied the Pacific, Atlantic and Antarctic oceans in the nineteenth century, and the men and women who worked and lived on them. Women? Yes - an extraordinary number did accompany their husband-skippers on their long and perilous voyages, despite danger, privation and the undoubted brutality of the trade." "The women travelled from a variety of motivations - to keep their men from the demon grog and the voluptuous, sexually-generous maidens of the Pacific, to spread the Christian word and morals of the day, or simply because they did not like being separated from their menfolk for the four or five years each voyage typically lasted." "This book is about the experiences of these women on board the windjammer whalers and in the boisterous, brawling ports of nineteenth century New Zealand, Hawaii, Australia, Chile and Peru, as well as on a host of exotic islands. It is a book that demanded to be written, and is the result of five years' research on two continents."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Petticoat Whalers

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Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

Although pages are discolored from a long & happy shelf life, the book is in mint condition. 

American Country

Jim Long

Condition is actually very good, better than good! See above pic of small stain along the bottom row of pages…overall, pages are a little faded, but otherwise, solid. PS—my husband loved this book!

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Turn discarded branches from your routine pruning into sturdy and beautiful bentwood projects for your lawn and garden. With Jim Long’s easy step-by-step instructions for creating durable fences and picturesque trellises from salvaged tree limbs, you’ll be inspired to build your own unique landscape features. Add life to your creation with one of many suggested climbing plants and watch as your structure becomes a vibrant, blooming sculpture. You’ll soon be enjoying a lazy afternoon resting in the dappled shade of your homemade bentwood arbor.

Making Bentwood Trellises, Arbors, Gates and Fences

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M. J. Ryan

Book is in mint shape, save for faded pages from a long & happy shelf life. A fulfilling read!

How to Give and Receive Joy Every Day of Your Life

In Attitudes of Gratitude, M. J. Ryan teaches readers how to unlock the fullness of their hearts and lives through the expression of gratitude. "Gratitude helps us to return to our natural state of joyfulness," she writes, "where we notice what's right instead of what's wrong. It makes us feel complete, that we have everything we need, at least in this moment." In her introduction to this 10th anniversary edition, Ryan recounts current research that bolsters her original thinking--people who practice gratitude on a daily basis are, by and large, happier, healthier, and more effective in the world. She also shares with readers brand new, top 10 gratitude practices, which readers of the first edition and people she's taught and counseled over the years have provided to her. The concept of this book is very simple and very profound: "Gratitude creates happiness." It's a fact of life (and science as it turns out). Plants create carbon dioxide and gratitude creates happiness

Attitudes of Gratitude

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Bernard Malamud

Kevin Baker

A Malamud classic. 
The book is mint, save for yellow pages from a long & happy shelf life. 


The classical novel (and basis for the acclaimed film starring Robert Redford) now in a new edition

Introduction by Kevin Baker

The Natural, Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is also the first--and some would say still the best--novel ever written about baseball.

In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material--the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era--and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work. Four decades later, Alfred Kazin's comment still holds true: "Malamud has done something which--now that he has done it!--looks as if we have been waiting for it all our lives. He has really raised the whole passion and craziness and fanaticism of baseball as a popular spectacle to its ordained place in mythology."

The Natural

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Sue Halpern

A special book. 
I’d say its condition is closer to “very good,” save for faded pages from a long shelf life—but it’s in solid shape. 

The Quest for Privacy in a Crowded World

Why do we often long for solitude but dread loneliness? What happens when the walls we build around ourselves are suddenly removed--or made impenetrable? If privacy is something we can count as a basic right, why are our laws, technology, and lifestyles increasingly chipping it away?

These are somong the themes that Sue Halpern eloquently explores in these profoundly original essays. In pursuit of the riddle of solitude, Halpern talks to Trappist monks and secular hermits, corresponds with a prisoner in solitary confinement, and visits and AIDS hospice and a shelter for the homeless places where privacy is the first--and perhaps the most essential--thing to go. This is a book that lends weight to the ideas that have become dangerously abstract in a society of data bases and car faxes, a guide not only ot the routes to solitude but to the selves we discover only when we arrive there.

Migrations to Solitude

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George R. Stewart

Emma Rothschild

This is the August 2024 New York Review Books book club selection. 

From the author of Storm, a breathtaking novel about a raging fire and the path of destruction and change it leaves in its wake. Spitcat, a raging forest fire in the Sierra Nevada of California, had a lifespan of merely eleven days, "yet its effects could be reckoned ahead in centuries." So writes George R. Stewart in this engrossing novel of a fire started by lightning in the dry heat of September, and fanned out of control by unexpected winds. The book begins with the origins of the fire--smoldering quietly at first, unnoticed, then suddenly bursting into a terrifying inferno, devouring trees and animals over acre after acre and leaving nothing but desolation in its wake. Firefighters and lookouts, forest rangers and smokejumpers—as well as animals in the forest, many of them the bewildered victims of the blaze, and all the varied trees and bushes there—are characters of this realistic story.

Fire

6790554c-fa05-4826-a001-a94d95b882dd-0

Charles Leik

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

A compilation of photos of barns with brief introductory text.

Barns

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Muriel Spark

Just read this for a lively book discussion—what a sharp little gem this is!

"The short dirk in the hands of Muriel Spark has always been a deadly weapon," said The New York Times, and "never more so than in The Abbess of Crewe." An elegant little fable about intrigue, corruption, and electronic surveillance, The Abbess of Crewe is set in an English Benedictine convent. Steely and silky Abbess Alexandra (whose aristocratic tastes run to pâté, fine wine, English poetry, and carpets of "amorous green") has bugged the convent, and rigged her election. But the cat gets out of the bag, and--plunged into scandal--the serene Abbess faces a Vatican inquiry.

The Abbess of Crewe

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Tal Ben-Shahar

It’s mint, save for some page discoloration along the top. 

Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

Can You Learn to Be Happy? YES . . . according to the teacher of Harvard University’s most popular and life-changing course. One out of every five Harvard students has lined up to hear Tal Ben-Shahar’s insightful and inspiring lectures on that ever-elusive state: HAPPINESS. HOW? Grounded in the revolutionary “positive psychology” movement, Ben-Shahar ingeniously combines scientific studies, scholarly research, self-help advice, and spiritual enlightenment. He weaves them together into a set of principles that you can apply to your daily life. Once you open your heart and mind to Happier ’s thoughts, you will feel more fulfilled, more connected . . . and, yes, HAPPIER. “Dr. Ben-Shahar, one of the most popular teachers in Harvard’s recent history, has written a personal, informed, and highly enjoyable primer on how to become happier. It would be wise to take his advice.” --Ellen J. Langer, author of Mindfulness and On Becoming an Artist “This fine book shimmers with a rare brand of good sense that is imbedded in scientific knowledge about how to increase happiness. It is easy to see how this is the backbone of the most popular course at Harvard today." --Martin E. P. Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness

Happier

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Joanna Trollope

Closer to very good condition!
Ah, what a wonderful read. Joanna Trollope nails it every time!

Lizzie and Frances, identical twins nearing forty, have hardly marked a parallel progress together through life. Lizzie is confident and effusive, the mother of a large, vibrant brood, a successful gallery owner, and a consummate homemaker. Frances, on the other hand, is as elusive as Lizzie is accessible: She lives alone, operates a modestly successful travel agency, and has never had a serious attachment to a man. It seems, to her loving family, as if Frances is destined to move through life anchorless. But all that changes one Christmas when Frances makes an impulsive trip to Spain. There she falls in love—and not with just any man but with a wealthy, handsome Spaniard who is both Catholic and married. As Frances blossoms with newfound independence and relishes her engrossing affair, Lizzie becomes detached from her home life, which ultimately threatens her marriage. Though Lizzie’s was once the enviable life, now Frances has come into her own, and the twins must reexamine their roles—in their individual lives and in the special, shared world of sisterhood. .

A Spanish Lover

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Kaira Jewel Lingo

Mint! Between “excellent” and “like new” condition. 

Ten Lessons for Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption

In ten concise chapters, you'll learn powerful ways to meet life's challenges with wisdom, resilience, and ease. We all go through times when it feels like the ground is being pulled out from under us. What we relied on as steady and solid may change or even appear to vanish. In this era of global disruption, threats to our individual, social, and planetary safety abound, and at times life can feel overwhelming. Not only are loss and separation painful, but even positive changes can cause great stress. Yet life is full of change: birth, death, marriage, divorce; a new relationship; losing or starting a job; beginning a new phase in life or ending one. Change is stressful, even when it is much desired or anticipated—the unknown can feel scary and threatening. In We Were Made for These Times, the extraordinary mindfulness teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo imparts accessible advice on navigating difficult times of transition, drawing on Buddhist teachings on impermanence to help you establish equanimity and resilience. Each chapter in We Were Made for These Times holds an essential teaching and meditation, unfolding a step-by-step process to nurture deeper freedom and stability in daily life. Time-honored teachings will help you develop ease, presence, and self-compassion, supporting you to release the fear and doubt that hold you back.

We Were Made for These Times

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Kathryn Schulz

Just slightly yellowed from sun. 
Such a profound book. 

Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE * A "profound and beautiful" (Marilynne Robinson) account of joy and sorrow from one of the great writers of our time, The New Yorker's Kathryn Schulz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

"I will stake my reputation on you being blown away by Lost & Found."--Anne Lamott, author of Dusk, Night, Dawn and Bird by Bird

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL * ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR, Publishers Weekly

One spring morning, Kathryn Schulz went to lunch with a stranger and fell in love. Having spent years looking for the right relationship, she was dazzled by how swiftly everything changed when she finally met her future wife. But as the two of them began building a life together, Schulz's beloved father--a charming, brilliant, absentminded Jewish refugee--went into the hospital with a minor heart condition and never came out. Newly in love yet also newly bereft, Schulz was left contending simultaneously with wild joy and terrible grief.

Those twin experiences form the heart of Lost & Found, a profound meditation on the families that make us and the families we make. But Schulz's book also explores how disappearance and discovery shape us all. On average, we each lose two hundred thousand objects over our lifetime, and Schulz brilliantly illuminates the relationship between those everyday losses and our most devastating ones. Likewise, she explores the importance of seeking, whether for ancient ruins or new ideas, friends, faith, meaning, or love. The resulting book is part memoir, part guidebook to sustaining wonder and gratitude even in the face of loss and grief. A staff writer at The New Yorker and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Schulz writes with curiosity, tenderness, and humor about the connections between joy and sorrow--and between us all.

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