Maggie O'Farrell

Tiny bend on upper right cover. Bend on lower front cover. Fold on back cover. Spine in perfect shape. Never left the house 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

New York

Seventeen Brushes with Death

On seventeen occasions, award-winning novelist Maggie O'Farrell has stared death in the face--and lived to tell the tale. In this astonishing memoir, the New York Times bestselling author of Hamnet shares the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life.

The childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. An encounter with a disturbed man on a remote path. And, most terrifying of all, an ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable to life's myriad dangers.

Here, O'Farrell stiches together these discrete encounters to tell the story of her entire life. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, she captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself.

Don't miss Maggie O'Farrell's new novel, The Marriage Portrait, coming in September!

I Am, I Am, I Am

3b5ef727-e065-4667-9b67-7b2724090043-1

William Sloane

Stephen King

Remaindered markings on bottom pages. Very small bend on upper left back cover. Never left the house. 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Two Tales of Cosmic Horror

In the 1930s, William Sloane wrote two brilliant novels that gave a whole new meaning to cosmic horror. In To Walk the Night, Bark Jones and his college buddy Jerry Lister, a science whiz, head back to their alma mater to visit a cherished professor of astronomy. They discover his body, consumed by fire, in his laboratory, and an uncannily beautiful young widow in his house--but nothing compares to the revelation that Jerry and Bark encounter in the deserts of Arizona at the end of the book. In The Edge of Running Water, Julian Blair, a brilliant electrophysicist, has retired to a small town in remotest Maine after the death of his wife. His latest experiments threaten to shake up the town, not to mention the universe itself.

The Rim of Morning

79fadb3f-6654-4693-91d5-e38c560c21a4-1

Sarah Gerard

Upper right cover a little bent. Back upper left cover a little bent. Scuffs along pages but spine in perfect shape. 

Essays

Rising literary star and Los Angeles Times First Fiction Award finalist Sarah Gerard uses her experiences growing up along Florida’s gulf coast to illuminate the struggles of modern human survival—physical, emotional, environmental—through a collection of essays exploring intimacy, addiction, obsession, religion, homelessness, and incarceration. With the personal insight of The Empathy Exams, the societal exposal of Nickel and Dimed, and the stylistic innovation and intensity of her own break-out debut novel Binary Star, Sarah Gerard’s Sunshine State uses the intimately personal to unearth the deep reservoirs of humanity buried in the corners of our world often hardest to face. In the collection’s title essay, Gerard volunteers at the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, a world renowned bird refuge. There she meets its founder, who once modeled with a pelican on his arm for a Dewar’s Scotch campaign but has since declined into a pit of fraud and madness. He becomes our embezzling protagonist whose tales about the birds he “rescues” never quite add up. Gerard’s personal stories are no less eerie or poignant: An essay that begins as a look at Gerard’s first relationship becomes a heart-wrenching exploration of acquaintance rape and consent. An account of intimate female friendship pivots midway through, morphing into a meditation on jealousy and class. Sunshine State offers a unique look at Florida, a state whose economically and environmentally imperiled culture serves as a lens through which we can examine some of the most pressing issues haunting our nation.

Sunshine State

5b8d231b-b9b7-4db7-9ec2-0dac69a5ee44-1

Teddy Wayne

Hardcover. Book without dust jacket is in great shape. Some bending and fraying on dust jacket corner. Wear along the back lower left edge. 

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Novel

"A new novel about a troubled young college freshman who becomes dangerously sexually obsessed with a classmate"--

Loner

ac8b82a1-75e7-43a0-b39a-b447e5aec69c-1

Stephen Chbosky

Instant New York Times Bestseller One of Fall 2019's Best Books (People, EW, Lithub, Vox, Washington Post, and more) A young boy is haunted by a voice in his head in this acclaimed epic of literary horror from the author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Christopher is seven years old. Christopher is the new kid in town. Christopher has an imaginary friend. We can swallow our fear or let our fear swallow us. Single mother Kate Reese is on the run. Determined to improve life for her and her son, Christopher, she flees an abusive relationship in the middle of the night with her child. Together, they find themselves drawn to the tight-knit community of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania. It's as far off the beaten track as they can get. Just one highway in, one highway out. At first, it seems like the perfect place to finally settle down. Then Christopher vanishes. For six long days, no one can find him. Until Christopher emerges from the woods at the edge of town, unharmed but not unchanged. He returns with a voice in his head only he can hear, with a mission only he can complete: Build a treehouse in the woods by Christmas, or his mother and everyone in the town will never be the same again. Twenty years ago, Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower made readers everywhere feel infinite. Now, Chbosky has returned with an epic work of literary horror, years in the making, whose grand scale and rich emotion redefine the genre. Read it with the lights on.

Imaginary Friend  Jim

96b18031-56aa-4e3b-bcd4-de625f576d33-1

Pauline Réage

ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS EROTIC NOVELS OF ALL TIME'A rare thing, a pornographic book well written and without a trace of obscenity' Graham Greene'A highly literary and imaginative work, the brilliance of whose style leaves one in no doubt whatever of th

Story of O

eb81cda1-b1af-4478-a90b-81f39aed24a1-1

Ludwig Bemelmans

Minor scuffing on corners. Small dent on front where book flaps are. 


'The adventures of the original bad boy of the New York restaurant/hotel underbelly continue. Whether writing about the backstairs misadventures of cooks and waiters or travel to faraway lands, Bemelmans is always funny, insightful and dead on target. No one has ever surpassed the master' - Anthony Bourdain

Hotel Splendide no

fddb632b-1c8d-4cbd-877e-4d22832c0216-1

Daniel Barban Levin

Hardcover. Great condition. Slight wrinkle on top dust jacket cover. 


A Memoir

"A stunning firsthand account of the creation of a modern cult under conman Larry Ray and the horrifying costs paid by his young victims: his daughter's college roommates. In September 2010, at the beginning of the academic year at Sarah Lawrence College, a sophomore named Talia Ray asked her roommates if her father could stay with them for a while. No one objected. Her father, Larry Ray, was just released from prison, having spent three years behind bars after a conviction during a bitter custody dispute. Larry Ray arrived at the dorm, a communal house called Slonim Woods 9, and stayed for the whole year. Over the course of innumerable counseling sessions and "family meetings," the intense and forceful Ray convinced his daughter's friends that he alone could help them "achieve clarity." Eventually, Ray and the students moved into a small Manhattan apartment, beginning years of manipulation and abuse, as Ray tightened his control over his young charges through blackmail, extortion, and ritualized humiliation. Daniel Barban Levin was one of the original residents of Slonim Woods 9. Ray coached Daniel through a difficult break-up, slowly drawing him into his web. After two years of escalating psychological, physical, and sexual abuse, Daniel found the strength to escape from Ray's influence and take control of his own life. In April 2019, a New York magazine cover story, "The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence," exposed Ray's crimes to the world. In February 2020, he was finally indicted on charges of extortion, sex trafficking, forced labor, and money laundering. Beginning the moment Daniel set foot on Sarah Lawrence's idyllic campus and spanning the two years he spent in the grip of a megalomaniac, this brave, lyrical, and redemptive memoir reveals how a group of friends were led from campus to a cult without the world even noticing"--

Slonim Woods 9

47db1a6a-d955-407e-8d36-370b2e5e6b32-1

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Kind of beat up. Old printing so kind of nostalgic. 

A memoir of sex, drugs, and depression indicts an overmedicated America as it chronicles the fortunes of a Harvard educated child of divorce who lived in the fast lane as a music critic, always fighting her chronic depression

Prozac Nation

1f1e9e0c-15f0-4004-88eb-fe182ade9edb-1

Douglas Coupland

Back cover is bent. Remaindered mark on top edge. Spine in perfect condition. Minimal wear on cover corners. 

60 Stories to Make Your Brain Feel Different

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The first new work of fiction since 2013 from one of Canada's most successful, idiosyncratic and world-defining writers, Douglas Coupland. He's called it Binge because it's impossible to read just one. Imagine feeling 100% alive every moment of every minute of the day! Maybe that's how animals live. Or trees, even. I sometimes stare at the plastic bag tree visible from my apartment window and marvel that both it and I are equally alive and that there's no sliding scale of life. You're either alive, or you're not. Or you're dead or you're not. Thirty years after Douglas Coupland broke the fiction mould and defined a generation with Generation X, he is back with Binge, 60 stories laced with his observational profundity about the way we live and his existential worry about how we should be living: the very things that have made him such an influential and bestselling writer. Not to mention that he can also be really funny. Here the narrators vary from story to story as Doug catches what he calls "the voice of the people," inspired by the way we write about ourselves and our experiences in online forums. The characters, of course, are Doug's own: crackpots, cranks and sweetie-pies, dad dancers and perpetrators of carbecues. People in the grip of unconscionable urges; lonely people; dying people; silly people. If you love Doug's fiction, this collection is like rain on the desert.

Binge

9f248cc3-a381-4c79-a77c-9cd71b20c66d-1

Joyce Carol Oates

Minor yellowing on edge of pages. Spine jn perfect condition. 

From a master "mind reader who writes psychological horror stories about seriously disturbed minds" (New York Times Book Review), this gorgeously eerie story collection explores the deepest entwinings of lust and repulsion, creation and dissolution, Eros and Thanatos

Night-Gaunts and Other Tales of Suspense

1a7ed206-1a82-468d-8e8e-95624e83ae9d-0

Don DeLillo

Wear on the edges of front on back cover minor scuffing. Spine in great shape. 

A brilliant billionaire asset manager, en route via white stretch limo to the local haircutter, finds his trip interrupted by a presidential motorcade, music idol's funeral, movie set, and violent political demonstration, and receives a number of important visitors in the fields of security, technology, currency, finance, and theory. Reprint. 75,000 first printing.

Cosmopolis

6dbf9f05-c2cb-479e-b2a2-be3171583d75-1

Brian Catling

Bought it as a remaindered copy. Missing a chunk of lower right front cover. Otherwise good shape. 

In a novel that combines history and fantasy, the author explores the Vorrh, a vast forest at the edge of Essenwald, a colonial city in a parallel Africa. Original.

The Vorrh

4c015c58-130b-4971-9158-f52b61d82789-1

Georges Simenon

Daphne Woodward

Robert Eglesfield

Some folding on lower corner covers. Price stickers on back. Spine in perfect shape. 

Maigret's Failure; Maigret in Society; and Maigret and the Lazy Burglar

In this trio of novels, Inspector Jules Maigret is faced with three very different deaths and, correspondingly, three very different milieus, each depicted with Simenon's characteristic sureness of touch. In "Maigret's Failure," the vulgarly rich owner of a chain of butcher shops, "The King of the Meat Trade, " is murdered for motives both understandable and obvious. In "Maigret in Society," on the other hand, the inspector confronts a cast of characters so subtle and overbred as to seem unreal. Most remarkable, perhaps, is Simenon's widely praised creation of the thief in "Maigret and the Lazy Burglar," in which a risky profession exercised by an eminently cautious man. The common thread to all three novellas is Simenon's astounding virtuosity and, of course, the inimitable Maigret.

A Maigret Trio

370948b6-8702-4079-a570-56c01de5691c-1

Roxane Gay

Minor scuff on bottom of spine. Small dent on upper pages. Otherwise perfect shape. 

Her perfect life is shattered when Mireille is kidnapped by armed men in front of her father's estate in Haiti and she must endure the horrors and torments of her captors while her father inexplicably resists paying for her ransom.

An Untamed State

3522673e-3c2d-4c63-944d-cbb4ef88f948-1

Lauren Groff

Minor scuffing on bottom left cover. Small fold on lower right. 

New York Times Bestseller "Timeless and vast... The raw beauty of Ms. Groff’s prose is one of the best things about Arcadia. But it is by no means this book’s only kind of splendor." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times "Even the most incidental details vibrate with life ï¿1⁄2 Arcadia wends a harrowing path back to a fragile, lovely place you can believe in." --Ron Charles, The Washington Post In the fields of western New York State in the 1970s, a few dozen idealists set out to live off the land, founding a commune centered on the grounds of a decaying mansion called Arcadia House. Arcadia follows this romantic utopian dream from its hopeful start through its heyday. Arcadia’s inhabitants include Handy, the charismatic leader; his wife, Astrid, a midwife; Abe, a master carpenter; Hannah, a baker and historian; and Abe and Hannah’s only child, Bit. While Arcadia rises and falls, Bit, too, ages and changes. He falls in love with Helle, Handy’s lovely, troubled daughter. And eventually he must face the world beyond Arcadia. In Arcadia, Groff displays her literary gifts to stunning effect. "Fascinating." --People (****) "It’s not possible to write any better without showing off." --Richard Russo, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Empire Falls "Dazzling." --Vogue

Arcadia

92019947-fd70-4e84-83b0-09a47d08ed19-1

Small dents in corners. Fold in lower left back cover. Spine intact. 

Shanghai Girls

Small fold in upper right corner. Mild scuffing on back lower cover. Great shape otherwise. 

Lightning Strikes

Marie Vieux-Chauvet

Rose-Myriam Rejouis

Val Vinokur

Edwidge Danticat

Red overstock mark on bottom. Soft bend in upper right and lower right cover. Spine intact. 

A Haitian Triptych

The only English translation of “a masterpiece” (The Nation)—a stunning trilogy of novellas about the soul-crushing cost of life under a violent Haitian dictatorship, featuring an introduction by Edwidge Danticat Originally published in 1968, Love, Anger, Madness virtually disappeared from circulation until its republication in France in 2005. Set in the barely fictionalized Haiti of “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s repressive rule, Marie Vieux-Chauvet’s writing was so powerful and so incendiary that she was forced to flee to the United States. Yet Love, Anger, Madness endures. Claire, the narrator of Love, is the eldest of three daughters who surrenders her dreams of marriage to run the household after her parents die. Insecure about her dark skin, she fantasizes about her middle sister’s French husband, while he has an affair with the youngest sister, setting in motion a complicated family dynamic that echoes the growing chaos outside their home. In Anger, the police terrorize a middle-class family by threatening to seize their land. The father insinuates that their only hope of salvation lies with an unspeakable act—his daughter Rose must prostitute herself—which leads to all-consuming guilt, shame, and rage. And finally, Madness paints a terrifying portrait of a Haitian village that has been ravaged by militants. René, a young poet, is trapped in his family’s house for days with no food and becomes obsessed with the souls of the dead that surround him.

Love, Anger, Madness

6984a9e4-0d1b-4561-be56-1da9b7d0d701-1

Super small scuff mark on bottom of spine. Otherwise perfect condition.

Midnight Whispers

Small fold on lower right corner. Mild scuffing along the cover. Otherwise great shape. Spine in perfect condition. 

Rain

Adam Selzer

Water damage to dust jacket inside. Tear on upper right back dust jacket corner. Some yellowing on top page edges. Spine and book without dust jacket in good shape

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

The True History of the White City Devil

Shares with readers America’s first and most infamous serial killer and his diabolical killing spree during the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago The first comprehensive book following the life and career of H. H. Holmes A fascinating true story about a dark moment in Chicago’s history H. H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil uncovers not only the true story of Holmes but also how the legend evolved. It uses hundreds of primary sources that have never been studied before. This includes letters, articles, legal documents, and records that have been tucked away in archives for more than 100 years. While H. H. Holmes is now as famous as he was in 1895, a thorough analysis of modern materials clarifies how much of the story as we know it came from reports who were far from the action, an incredibly unqualified new police chief, and lies from Holmes himself. This book is a tale of an outlaw. It covers Holmes’s own story with new insights. The author, Adam Selzer, has uncovered stunning new data about Holmes. He combines turn-of-the-century America, the crazy group of characters who were in and around the famous “castle” building, and the killer’s own background. This book is the first fully accurate account of what truly happened in Holmes’s horror castle. H. H. Holmes, with its exhaustive research and careful detail, is an irreplaceable partner to the upcoming Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese movie about Holmes’s murder spree based on Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City.

H. H. Holmes

74eb4ef5-6db3-40e6-875a-3123d6f17970-1

John Waters

Discoloration on cover (came from a smoker's apartment). Spine and edge of pages are in good shape. Some scuffing on edges of cover. 

Howie's Book Loft

Role Models is a personal invitation into one of the most unique, perverse, and hilarious artistic minds of our time.

From the incomparable John Waters, a paean to the power of subversive inspiration that will delight, amuse, enrich--and happily horrify readers everywhere.

Role Models is, in fact, a self-portrait told through intimate profiles of favorite personalities--some famous, some unknown, some criminal, some surprisingly middle-of-the-road. From Esther Martin, owner of the scariest bar in Baltimore, to the playwright Tennessee Williams; from the atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair to the insane martyr Saint Catherine of Siena; from the English novelist Denton Welch to the timelessly appealing singer Johnny Mathis--these are the extreme figures who helped the author form his own brand of neurotic happiness.

Role Models

5c799ec0-b464-4a9f-b98e-cafa670d3373-1

J. T. LeRoy

Minor dents on corners. Scuffing on edges of cover. Writing on the very back page. Cover is clean. 

Browse by categories

Maggie O'Farrell

I Am, I Am, I Am

William Sloane; Stephen King

The Rim of Morning

Sarah Gerard

Sunshine State

Teddy Wayne

Loner

Stephen Chbosky

Imaginary Friend Jim

Pauline Réage; Pauline Réage

Story of O

Ludwig Bemelmans

Hotel Splendide no

Daniel Barban Levin

Slonim Woods 9

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Prozac Nation

Douglas Coupland

Binge

Joyce Carol Oates

Night-Gaunts and Other Tales of Suspense

Don DeLillo

Cosmopolis

Brian Catling

The Vorrh

Georges Simenon; Daphne Woodward; Robert Eglesfield

A Maigret Trio

Roxane Gay

An Untamed State

Lauren Groff

Arcadia

Lisa See

Shanghai Girls

V. C. Andrews

Lightning Strikes

Marie Vieux-Chauvet; Rose-Myriam Rejouis; Val Vinokur; Edwidge Danticat

Love, Anger, Madness

V. C. Andrews

Midnight Whispers

V. C. Andrews

Rain

Adam Selzer

H. H. Holmes

John Waters

Role Models

J. T. LeRoy

The Heart Is Deceitful above All Things

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