Ludwig Bemelmans


If there is such a thing as a comfort food book, Bemelmans stories are it. His evocative tales of a grand hotel life have a reporter's eye for sensory detail, yet he always manages to bathe his world and it's lovable characters in the mood for a fairytale. Meet the girl-hungry hotel Magician, Kalakobe the African cook, Mr Sigsag, Monsieur Victor, Mespoulet, and an unforgettable cast of down but not yet out hotel employees. This book offers a feast of food writing. And once you've read one Bemelmans tale, you fall in love and want to read the lot.

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Recountings of behind-the-scenes kitchen life in the grand hotels of New York City during the 1920s and 1930s.

Hotel Bemelmans

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Bodhi Oser

Juvenile, profane, and timeless, Fuck This Book collects images of real public signs that have been mischieveously altered by stickers bearing the most expressive of all four-letter words. Addictively hilarious, the results show a world persuasively transformed. Please Don't Fuck the Pigeons, indeed. What happens if one triggers the Automatic Sprinkler Fuck Off Valve? And is it any wonder The Fuck Depot is so popular? All photographs are unretouchedthe result of countless hours on the hunt for the almost perfect sign, in need of just the slightest improvement. This is not social commentary. There is no message. It's not meant to offend, exploit, or embarrass anyone. All real stickers. All real signs. All in fun.

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Fuck This Book

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Ellen Cooney

It is is 1900 in a small, prosperous Massachusetts town. Charlotte Heath, a lively, independent redhead of humble beginnings, is married to the scion of the powerful Heath family. When, on her first outing after a long illness, she spies her husband, Hays, bending to kiss another woman in the village square, impulsive Charlotte heads her horses straight out of town. Unsure where to go but certain that she wants to leave both Hays and the stifling, if luxurious, life of the Heath household behind, Charlotte makes her way to Boston and checks in at “The Beechmont: A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies,” where she makes another startling discovery: the classy Beechmont is a rather unique institution, where handsome porters make discreet, late-night visits to its all-female clientele. Charlotte finds herself surrounded by a cast of characters that will delight the reader as she settles into life at this reverse brothel: Harry Alcorn, the hotel’s dashing and prescient proprietor; Miss Berenice Singleton, the bohemian painter who holds a kind of salon in her rooms; the scowling cook, Mrs. Petty, who once worked for the Heaths and is determined that Charlotte not stay on at the Beechmont; the charming and handsome “porter” Arthur, who both gives pleasure and makes trouble; and the venerable lady doctor Lily Heath, her husband’s aunt, whom Charlotte is amazed to find among the hotel’s regulars.

In the midst of a dizzying sexual enlightenment, Charlotte must puzzle out why she really left Hays and why he seems to have left her first. Her task is to determine whether she can forgive him and to discover where, if anywhere, she truly belongs–an adventure that takes her farther afield than she could ever have imagined.

Ellen Cooney has given us a remarkable portrait of a historical moment and an irresistible protagonist. Fresh, high-spirited, and wonderfully seductive in the telling, A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies carries the reader along on a woman’s unforgettable journey to self-enlightenment

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Charlotte Heath, a lively, independent redhead of humble beginnings, is married to the scion of the powerful Heath family. When, on her first outing after a long illness, she spies her husband, Hays, bending to kiss another woman in the village square, impulsive Charlotte heads her horses straight out of town. Upon arriving at The Beechmont Hotel, Charlotte makes a shocking discovery: The classy Beechmont is a rather unique institution where a different kind of hospitality awaits the all-female clientele. Seductive and high-spirited, A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies is an unforgettable novel of one woman’s journey to self-enlightenment.

A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies

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Upton Sinclair

Steve Meyer

The Flivver King stands among the finest of modern American historical novels. It is history as it ought to be written - from the bottom up and the top down, with monumental sensitivity to the compromise and conflict between the two extremes. Its two stories - those of Henry Ford and Ford-worker Abner Shutt, unfold side by side, indeed dialectically. They are, in the end, one story: the saga of class and culture in 'Ford-America'. Workers and bosses, flappers and Klansmen, war and depression, Prohibition outlaws and high-society parties, unions and anti-union gun thugs - few aspects of American life in the first four decades of the last century are missing from this small masterpiece. The Flivver King sustains the same sure grasp of working class life which characterized Sinclair's earlier classic, The Jungle, but much less sentimentally and with a steadier focus on how alienated work breeds not only degradation but also resistance and revolt. Originally written in 1937 to aid the United Automobile Workers' organizing drive, The Flivver King answers the question "Why do we need a union?" with quiet eloquence. The Charles H. Kerr Company has reissued it as a great American novel and an important historical document, because that question has never gone away and is now more vital than ever. With an introduction from Steve Meyer.

A Story of Ford-America

The Flivver King stands among the finest of modern American historical novels. It is history as it ought to be written - from the bottom up and the top down, with monumental sensitivity to the compromise and conflict between the two extremes. Its two stories - those of Henry Ford and Ford-worker Abner Shutt, unfold side by side, indeed dialectically. They are, in the end, one story: the saga of class and culture in 'Ford-America'. Workers and bosses, flappers and Klansmen, war and depression, Prohibition outlaws and high-society parties, unions and anti-union gun thugs - few aspects of American life in the first four decades of the last century are missing from this small masterpiece. The Flivver King sustains the same sure grasp of working class life which characterized Sinclair's earlier classic, The Jungle, but much less sentimentally and with a steadier focus on how alienated work breeds not only degradation but also resistance and revolt. Originally written in 1937 to aid the United Automobile Workers' organizing drive, The Flivver King answers the question "Why do we need a union?" with quiet eloquence. Kerr have reissued it as a great American novel and an important historical document, but most of all because that question has never gone away and is now more vital than ever. With an introduction from Steve Meyer.

The Flivver King

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Virginia Woolf

Rachel Wetzsteon

Night and Day is a classic novel written by Virginia Woolf, published in 1919. Set in Edwardian London, the story follows two contrasting characters - Katharine Hilbery and Mary Datchet - as they navigate the complexities of life, love and relationships. Through their experiences, Woolf explores themes of class, gender and the changing nature of society. Richly detailed and thought-provoking, Night and Day is a timeless masterpiece that will stay with readers long after they turn the last page.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist authors of the twentieth century. She was a major figure in the Bloomsbury Group of writers and intellectuals, and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf's novels, essays, and short stories are widely acclaimed for their originality and insight into the complexity of human experience. Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London to Julia and Leslie Stephen, an eminent literary figure and editor of the Dictionary of National Biography.

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Night and Day

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The Summing Up is a literary memoir by W. Somerset Maugham, written when he was 64 years old, first published in 1938.[1] It covered his life from 1890 to 1938. The subject matter includes his childhood, his initial success in theater, his transition from theater to fiction writing, and other miscellaneous topics such as travel, and philosophy. It is a small book filled with memorable quotes.

The Summing Up

Mark Twain

Portugese fisherman teaches human values to a spoiled young millionaire's son who was saved from drowning.

A Tale of Two Cities 

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Kristin Kimball

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

On Farming, Food, and Love

"This book is the story of the two love affairs that interrupted the trajectory of my life: one with farming—that dirty, concupiscent art—and the other with a complicated and exasperating farmer." Single, thirtysomething, working as a writer in New York City, Kristin Kimball was living life as an adventure. But she was beginning to feel a sense of longing for a family and for home. When she interviewed a dynamic young farmer, her world changed. Kristin knew nothing about growing vegetables, let alone raising pigs and cattle and driving horses. But on an impulse, smitten, if not yet in love, she shed her city self and moved to five hundred acres near Lake Champlain to start a new farm with him. The Dirty Life is the captivating chronicle of their first year on Essex Farm, from the cold North Country winter through the following harvest season—complete with their wedding in the loft of the barn. Kimball and her husband had a plan: to grow everything needed to feed a community. It was an ambitious idea, a bit romantic, and it worked. Every Friday evening, all year round, a hundred people travel to Essex Farm to pick up their weekly share of the "whole diet"—beef, pork, chicken, milk, eggs, maple syrup, grains, flours, dried beans, herbs, fruits, and forty different vegetables—produced by the farm. The work is done by draft horses instead of tractors, and the fertility comes from compost. Kimball’s vivid descriptions of landscape, food, cooking—and marriage—are irresistible. "As much as you transform the land by farming," she writes, "farming transforms you." In her old life, Kimball would stay out until four a.m., wear heels, and carry a handbag. Now she wakes up at four, wears Carhartts, and carries a pocket knife. At Essex Farm, she discovers the wrenching pleasures of physical work, learns that good food is at the center of a good life, falls deeply in love, and finally finds the engagement and commitment she craved in the form of a man, a small town, and a beautiful piece of land

The Dirty Life

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Bill Bryson

Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

Traces the author's adventurous trek along the Appalachian Trail past its natural pleasures, human eccentrics, and offbeat comforts

A Walk in the Woods

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Jeffrey Toobin

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst

"The saga of Patty Hearst highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secret documents, [this book] ... recounts the craziness of the times (there were an average of 1,500 terrorist bombings a year in the early 1970s). Toobin portrays the lunacy of the ... radicals of the SLA and the ... mix of sex, politics, and violence that swept up Patty Hearst, and re-creates her melodramatic trial"--Dust jacket flap.

American Heiress

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Adam Minter

Travels in the New Global Garage Sale

"Revelatory, terrifying, but, ultimately, hopeful."--Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE SIXTH EXTINCTION

From the author ofJunkyard Planet, a journey into the surprising afterlives of our former possessions.

Downsizing. Decluttering. Discarding. Sooner or later, all of us are faced with things we no longer need or want. But when we drop our old clothes and other items off at a local donation center, where do they go? Sometimes across the country--or even halfway across the world--to people and places who find value in what we leave behind.

InSecondhand, journalist Adam Minter takes us on an unexpected adventure into the often-hidden, multibillion-dollar industry of reuse: thrift stores in the American Southwest to vintage shops in Tokyo, flea markets in Southeast Asia to used-goods enterprises in Ghana, and more. Along the way, Minter meets the fascinating people who handle--and profit from--our rising tide of discarded stuff, and asks a pressing question: In a world that craves shiny and new, is there room for it all?

Secondhand offers hopeful answers and hard truths. A history of the stuff we've used and a contemplation of why we keep buying more, it also reveals the marketing practices, design failures, and racial prejudices that push used items into landfills instead of new homes.Secondhand shows us that it doesn't have to be this way, and what really needs to change to build a sustainable future free of excess stuff.

Secondhand

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Juliet B. Schor

A Groundbreaking Exposé of a Marketing Culture That Makes Children "Believe They Are What They Own. " (USA Today)

Marketing targeted at kids is virtually everywhere -- in classrooms and textbooks, on the Internet, even at Girl Scout meetings, slumber parties, and the playground. Product placement and other innovations have introduced more subtle advertising to movies and television. Drawing on her own survey research and unprecedented access to the advertising industry, Juliet B. Schor, New York Times bestselling author of The Overworked American, examines how marketing efforts of vast size, scope, and effectiveness have created "commercialized children." Ads and their messages about sex, drugs, and food affect not just what children want to buy, but who they think they are. In this groundbreaking and crucial book, Schor looks at the consequences of the commercialization of childhood and provides guidelines for parents and teachers. What is at stake is the emotional and social well-being of our children. Like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, and Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, Born to Buy is a major contribution to our understanding of a contemporary trend and its effects on the culture.

Born to Buy

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John Hodgman

An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order

The Areas of My Expertise is a lavish compendium of handy reference tables, fascinating trivia, and sage wisdom-all of it completely unresearched, completely undocumented and (presumably) completely untrue, fabricated by the illuminating, prodigious imagination of John Hodgman, certifiable genius. In an age when fake facts are all the rage, John Hodgman proves he is a man ahead of his time.

Look out for John Hodgman's latest book,Vacationland, available from Viking in Fall 2017.

The Areas of My Expertise

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Celia Rivenbark

Confessions of a Tarnished Southern Belle

Why couldn't the Sopranos survive living down South? Simple. You can't shoot a guy full of holes after eating chicken and pastry, spoon bread, okra, and tomatoes.

What does a Southern woman consider grounds for divorce? When daddy takes the kids out in public dressed in their pajama tops and Tweety Bird swim socks. Again.

What is the Southern woman's opinion of a new "fat virus" theory? Bring it on! We've got a lot of skinny friends we need to sneeze on.

In this wickedly funny follow-up to her bestselling novel Bless Your Heart, Tramp, Celia Rivenbark welcomes you, once again, to the South she loves, the land of "Mama and them," "precious and dahlin'," and mommies who mow. Y'all come back now, you hear?

We're Just Like You, Only Prettier

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Sarah Vowell

From the bestselling author of Assassination Vacation and Unfamiliar Fishes, a humorous and insightful account of the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette - the one Frenchman America could all agree on - and an insightful portrait of a nation's idealism and its reality. A fascinating alternative US civil war story, from a writer who specialises in obscure political history.

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

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A comprehensive, A-Z guide to the world’s most horrifying criminal personalities.  Includes 2 indexes for identifying hundreds of killers throughout history, making this a complete and thorough reference. 

The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers 

Lauren Sandler

Illuminating, often troubling, and unapologetically frank, Righteous is dynamic young journalist Lauren Sandler's report from the nexus of religious fundamentalism and youth culture. As a secular guide through the passion and politics of the teenage evangelical "Disciple Generation," Sandler offers the first front line exploration of the Christian youth counterculture and what its influence could mean for the future of America. She intimately connects with skateboarding missionaries, tattooed members of a self-sufficient postpunk mega- church, rock- 'n'-rolling antiabortion protestors, and rap preachers who merge hip-hop's love of money with old- fashioned Bible-beating fundamentalism-true believers who reveal themselves with openness and truly astonishing candor, but what they reveal about our nation is most astonishing of all.

Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement

An evaluation of the intersection among music, prayer, and politics in today's alternate youth culture examines the ways in which young Christians challenge the previous generation's beliefs about feminism, liberalism, and pacifism while engaging their peers.

Righteous

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Anthony Bourdain called this "absolutely sensational!"

Browse by categories

Ludwig Bemelmans

Hotel Bemelmans

Bodhi Oser

Fuck This Book

Ellen Cooney

A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies

Upton Sinclair; Steve Meyer

The Flivver King

Virginia Woolf; Rachel Wetzsteon

Night and Day

W. Somerset Maugham

The Summing Up

Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities

Kristin Kimball

The Dirty Life

Bill Bryson

A Walk in the Woods

Jeffrey Toobin

American Heiress

Adam Minter

Secondhand

Juliet B. Schor

Born to Buy

John Hodgman

The Areas of My Expertise

Celia Rivenbark

We're Just Like You, Only Prettier

Sarah Vowell

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

Brian Lane and Wilfred Gregg

The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers

Lauren Sandler

Righteous

Bill Bryson

A Walk in the Woods

Kristin Kimball

The Dirty Life

Ellen Cooney

A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies

Ludwig Bemelmans

Hotel Bemelmans

Bodhi Oser

Fuck This Book

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