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› Find signed collectible books: '84, Charing Cross Road'
84, Charing Cross Road is a charming record of bibliophilia, cultural difference, and imaginative sympathy. For 20 years, an outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an increasingly touching correspondence. In her first letter to Marks & Co., Helene Hanff encloses a wish list, but warns, "The phrase 'antiquarian booksellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with expensive." Twenty days later, on October 25, 1949, a correspondent identified only as FPD let Hanff know that works by Hazlitt and Robert Louis Stevenson would be coming under separate cover. When they arrive, Hanff is ecstatic--but unsure she'll ever conquer "bilingual arithmetic." By early December 1949, Hanff is suddenly worried that the six-pound ham she's sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a kosher office. But only when FPD turns out to have an actual name, Frank Doel, does the real fun begin.
Two years later, Hanff is outraged that Marks & Co. has dared to send an abridged Pepys diary. "i enclose two limp singles, i will make do with this thing till you find me a real Pepys. THEN i will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP THINGS IN IT." Nonetheless, her postscript asks whether they want fresh or powdered eggs for Christmas. Soon they're sharing news of Frank's family and Hanff's career. No doubt their letters would have continued, but in 1969, the firm's secretary informed her that Frank Doel had died. In the collection's penultimate entry, Helene Hanff urges a tourist friend, "If you happen to pass by 84, Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me. I owe it so much." [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'All Creatures Great and Small'
"This book shines with humor, pathos, superb tale-telling and a rarity above all these, what seems a richly justified love of life. whether on his back in a much-filled stable with his arm inside a cow, trying to turn a calf into the proper position to be born, or calming a wealty dowager with an overfed Peckingses, or comforting a lonely old man companion -a dog -has died, James Herriot needed all the bedside manner, stamina, skill, and gift of humanity of the best of family doctors. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'All Creatures Great and Small'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'All Things Bright And Beautiful'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Angela's Ashes'
"When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. People everywhere brag or whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying shcoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years. Above all we were wet!" So begins Frank McCourt's stunning memoir of his childhood in Ireland and America, a recollection of unvarnished truth and no self pity, of grinding poverty and indomitable spirit that will live in the memory long after the tape has ended. Now a major film directed by Alan Parker and starring Robert Carlyle and Emily Watson. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anne Frank'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl'
Anne Frank's diaries have always been among the most moving and eloquent documents of the Holocaust. This new edition restores diary entries omitted from the original edition, revealing a new depth to Anne's dreams, irritations, hardships, and passions. Anne emerges as more real, more human, and more vital than ever. If you've never read this remarkable autobiography, do so. If you have read it, you owe it to yourself to read it again. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anne FrankTagebuch'
Dieses lebendige, Einblick gewährende Tagebuch ist seit seiner ersten Veröffentlichung 1947 ein geliebter Klassiker und ein passendes Denkmal für den begabten jüdischen Teenager, der 1945 im Konzentrationslager Bergen-Belsen ums Leben kam. 1929 geboren, bekam Anne Frank zu ihrem 13. Geburtstag ein neues, unbeschriebenes Tagebuch geschenkt, nur wenige Wochen bevor sie und ihre Familie im von den Nazis besetzten Amsterdam untertauchen mußten. Ihre wunderbar detaillierten persönlichen Eintragungen zeichnen 25 anstrengende Monate klaustrophobischer, streitgeladener Intimität mit ihren Eltern, ihrer Schwester, einer zweiten Familie und einem älteren Zahnarzt nach, der wenig Toleranz für Annes Lebhaftigkeit zeigt. Der universelle Reiz des Tagebuchs beruht auf seiner fesselnden Mischung aus den schmuddeligen Besonderheiten des Lebens im Krieg (karge, schlechte Mahlzeiten; schäbige Kleider, aus denen man längst herausgewachsen ist, die aber nicht ersetzt werden können; die ständige Angst, entdeckt zu werden) und der offenherzigen Auseinandersetzung über Gefühle, die jedem Heranwachsenden bekannt sind: "Jeder kritisiert mich, niemand erkennt meine wahre Natur, wann werde ich endlich geliebt?" Aber Anne Frank war kein gewöhnlicher Teenager: Die späteren Eintragungen verraten einen für eine kaum 15jährige bemerkenswerten Sinn für Mitgefühl und spirituelle Tiefe. Ihr Tod verkörpert den Wahnsinn des Holocaust, aber für die Millionen, die Anne durch ihr Tagebuch kennengelernt haben, ist er auch ein sehr persönlicher Verlust. --Wendy Smith [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Diario'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diary of a Young Girl'
Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl is among the most enduring documents of the twentieth century. Since its publication in 1947, it has been read by tens of millions of people all over the world. It remains a beloved and deeply admired testament to the indestructible nature of the human spirit. Restored in this Definitive Edition are diary entries that were omitted from the original edition. These passages, which constitute 30 percent more material, reinforce the fact that Anne was first and foremost a teenage girl, not a remote and flawless symbol. She fretted about and tried to cope with her own sexuality. Like many young girls, she often found herself in disagreements with her mother. And like any teenager, she veered between the carefree nature of a child and the full-fledged sorrow of an adult. Anne emerges more human, more vulnerable and more vital than ever. Anne Frank and her family, fleeing the horrors of Nazi occupation, hid in the back of an Amsterdam warehouse for two years. She was thirteen when she went into the Secret Annex with her family. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Editon'
The basis for and official tie-in edition to the PBS Masterpiece Classic movie titled The Diary of Anne Frank , directed by Jon Jones from a screenplay by Deborah Moggach. First airing April 11, 2010. More than fifty years after its first publication, Doubleday's definitive edition of Anne Frank's famous diary generated an extraordinary amount of excitement when it was published in early 1995. Enthusiastically received by critics and readers alike, it reigned for nine weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and will remain for all time the version that millions of readers will cherish.In a handsome package with flaps, rough front, and printed endpapers, this Anchor trade paperback will be the perfect gift for anyone who seeks insight into the indestructible nature of the human spirit. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diary of Anne Frank: The Revised Critical Edition'
A comparison of the three versions of Anne Frank's diary; Anne's original entries, including never-before-published material; the diary as she herself edited it while in hiding; and the best-known version, edited by her father.
B & W photographs throughout [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diary of Anne Frank'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dress Your Family In Corduroy And Denim'
It just isnt fair: most of us would be lucky to be able to express ourselves in writing half as well as David Sedaris does in his new book, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. But on top of his skills with the written word, the author also has substantial gifts as a performer, and he proves this on the audio version of the book. In his essay The Change in Me,Sedaris remembers that his mother was good at imitating people, and its clear that he takes after her. Whether hes doing impressions of high-voiced brother Paul, or recalling times when he and his sisters tried to win good karma by speaking and acting like well-behaved, fairytale children, Sedariss nuanced performance hits the right note on both the opening, comedic stories, and the more poignant essays that tend to come later in the reading. In fact, for those who have already read some of the best stories in other publications including The New Yorker, the CD or cassette version of this collection is probably the best bet for furthering your appreciation of the material.
Sedariss career is closely linked with two things: audio (he was discovered by NPRs Ira Glass), and the personal lives of himself and his family. In Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, he describes fights with his boyfriend, and his sister-in-laws difficult pregnancy. When sister Lisa complains about the stories involving the family, he writes about that, too. Sedaris's latest provides more evidence that he is a great humorist, memoirist and raconteur, and readers are lucky to have the opportunity to know him so well. Perhaps they are luckier still not to know him personally. --Leah Weathersby [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'
National Bestseller The literary sensation of the year, a book that redefines both family and narrative for the twenty-first century. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read in paperback for decades to come. The Vintage edition includes a new appendix by the author. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius : A Memoir Based on a True Story'
Dave Eggers is a terrifically talented writer; don't hold his cleverness against him. What to make of a book called A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Based on a True Story? For starters, there's a good bit of staggering genius before you even get to the true story, including a preface, a list of "Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of This Book," and a 20-page acknowledgements section complete with special mail-in offer, flow chart of the book's themes, and a lovely pen-and-ink drawing of a stapler (helpfully labeled "Here is a drawing of a stapler:").
But on to the true story. At the age of 22, Eggers became both an orphan and a "single mother" when his parents died within five months of one another of unrelated cancers. In the ensuing sibling division of labor, Dave is appointed unofficial guardian of his 8-year-old brother, Christopher. The two live together in semi-squalor, decaying food and sports equipment scattered about, while Eggers worries obsessively about child-welfare authorities, molesting babysitters, and his own health. His child-rearing strategy swings between making his brother's upbringing manically fun and performing bizarre developmental experiments on him. (Case in point: his idea of suitable bedtime reading is John Hersey's Hiroshima.)
The book is also, perhaps less successfully, about being young and hip and out to conquer the world (in an ironic, media-savvy, Gen-X way, naturally). In the early '90s, Eggers was one of the founders of the very funny Might Magazine, and he spends a fair amount of time here on Might, the hipster culture of San Francisco's South Park, and his own efforts to get on to MTV's Real World. This sort of thing doesn't age very well--but then, Eggers knows that. There's no criticism you can come up with that he hasn't put into A.H.W.O.S.G. already. "The book thereafter is kind of uneven," he tells us regarding the contents after page 109, and while that's true, it's still uneven in a way that is funny and heartfelt and interesting.
All this self-consciousness could have become unbearably arch. It's a testament to Eggers's skill as a writer--and to the heartbreaking particulars of his story--that it doesn't. Currently the editor of the footnote-and-marginalia-intensive journal McSweeney's (the last issue featured an entire story by David Foster Wallace printed tinily on its spine), Eggers comes from the most media-saturated generation in history--so much so that he can't feel an emotion without the sense that it's already been felt for him. What may seem like postmodern noodling is really just Eggers writing about pain in the only honest way available to him. Oddly enough, the effect is one of complete sincerity, and--especially in its concluding pages--this memoir as metafiction is affecting beyond all rational explanation. --Mary Park [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kitchen Confidential'
Most diners believe that their sublime sliver of seared foie gras, topped with an ethereal buckwheat blini and a drizzle of piquant huckleberry sauce, was created by a culinary artist of the highest order, a sensitive, highly refined executive chef. The truth is more brutal. More likely, writes Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential, that elegant three-star concoction is the collaborative effort of a team of "wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths," in all likelihood pierced or tattooed and incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive or a foreign phrase. Such is the muscular view of the culinary trenches from one who's been groveling in them, with obvious sadomasochistic pleasure, for more than 20 years. CIA-trained Bourdain, currently the executive chef of the celebrated Les Halles, wrote two culinary mysteries before his first (and infamous) New Yorker essay launched this frank confessional about the lusty and larcenous real lives of cooks and restaurateurs. He is obscenely eloquent, unapologetically opinionated, and a damn fine storyteller--a Jack Kerouac of the kitchen. Those without the stomach for this kind of joyride should note his opening caveat: "There will be horror stories. Heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area, unappetizing industry-wide practices. Talking about why you probably shouldn't order fish on a Monday, why those who favor well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, and why seafood frittata is not a wise brunch selection.... But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it." --Sumi Hahn [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly'
Most diners believe that their sublime sliver of seared foie gras, topped with an ethereal buckwheat blini and a drizzle of piquant huckleberry sauce, was created by a culinary artist of the highest order, a sensitive, highly refined executive chef. The truth is more brutal. More likely, writes Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential, that elegant three-star concoction is the collaborative effort of a team of "wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths," in all likelihood pierced or tattooed and incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive or a foreign phrase. Such is the muscular view of the culinary trenches from one who's been groveling in them, with obvious sadomasochistic pleasure, for more than 20 years. CIA-trained Bourdain, currently the executive chef of the celebrated Les Halles, wrote two culinary mysteries before his first (and infamous) New Yorker essay launched this frank confessional about the lusty and larcenous real lives of cooks and restaurateurs. He is obscenely eloquent, unapologetically opinionated, and a damn fine storyteller--a Jack Kerouac of the kitchen. Those without the stomach for this kind of joyride should note his opening caveat: "There will be horror stories. Heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area, unappetizing industry-wide practices. Talking about why you probably shouldn't order fish on a Monday, why those who favor well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, and why seafood frittata is not a wise brunch selection.... But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it." --Sumi Hahn [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Las Cenizas De Angela: Una Memoria/Angela's Ashes a Memoir'
More editions of Las Cenizas De Angela: Una Memoria/Angela's Ashes a Memoir:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Lo Es: Una Memoria'
The Spanish edition of the #1 New York Times bestseller, TIS is the story of Frank's American journey from impoverished immigrant with rotten teeth, infected eyes, and no formal education to brilliant raconteur and schoolteacher. Saved first by a straying priest, then by the Democratic party, then by the United States Army, then by New York University-- which admitted him on a trial basis, though he had no high school diploma-- Frank had the same vulnerable but invincible spirit at nineteen that he had at eight, and still has today. And TIS is a tale of survival as vivid, harrowing, and often hilarious as ANGELA'S ASHES. Yet again, it is through the power of storytelling that Frank finds a life for himself. TIS blesses readers with another chapter of McCourt's story, but as it closes, they will want still more. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lucky: A Memoir'
In a memoir hailed for its searing candor and wit, Alice Sebold reveals how her life was utterly transformed when, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, she was brutally raped and beaten in a park near campus. What propels this chronicle of her recovery is Sebold's indomitable spirit-as she struggles for understanding "After telling the hard facts to anyone, from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes" ; as her dazed family and friends sometimes bungle their efforts to provide comfort and support; and as, ultimately, she triumphs, managing through grit and coincidence to help secure her attacker's arrest and conviction. In a narrative by turns disturbing, thrilling, and inspiring, Alice Sebold illuminates the experience of trauma victims even as she imparts wisdom profoundly hard-won: "You save yourself or you remain unsaved." [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Night'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Writing'
Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You're right there with the young author as he's tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. "I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash." But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of "I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber." As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). "There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing."
King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's "tool kit": a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote.
King isn't just a writer, he's a true teacher. --Tim Appelo [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books'
An inspired blend of memoir and literary criticism, Reading Lolita in Tehran is a moving testament to the power of art and its ability to change and improve people's lives. In 1995, after resigning from her job as a professor at a university in Tehran due to repressive policies, Azar Nafisi invited seven of her best female students to attend a weekly study of great Western literature in her home. Since the books they read were officially banned by the government, the women were forced to meet in secret, often sharing photocopied pages of the illegal novels. For two years they met to talk, share, and "shed their mandatory veils and robes and burst into color." Though most of the women were shy and intimidated at first, they soon became emboldened by the forum and used the meetings as a springboard for debating the social, cultural, and political realities of living under strict Islamic rule. They discussed their harassment at the hands of "morality guards," the daily indignities of living under the Ayatollah Khomeini's regime, the effects of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, love, marriage, and life in general, giving readers a rare inside look at revolutionary Iran. The books were always the primary focus, however, and they became "essential to our lives: they were not a luxury but a necessity," she writes.
Threaded into the memoir are trenchant discussions of the work of Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, and other authors who provided the women with examples of those who successfully asserted their autonomy despite great odds. The great works encouraged them to strike out against authoritarianism and repression in their own ways, both large and small: "There, in that living room, we rediscovered that we were also living, breathing human beings; and no matter how repressive the state became, no matter how intimidated and frightened we were, like Lolita we tried to escape and to create our own little pockets of freedom," she writes. In short, the art helped them to survive. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Running With Scissors'
There is a passage early in Augusten Burroughs's harrowing and highly entertaining memoir, Running with Scissors, that speaks volumes about the author. While going to the garbage dump with his father, young Augusten spots a chipped, glass-top coffee table that he longs to bring home. "I knew I could hide the chip by fanning a display of magazines on the surface, like in a doctor's office," he writes, "And it certainly wouldn't be dirty after I polished it with Windex for three hours." There were certainly numerous chips in the childhood Burroughs describes: an alcoholic father, an unstable mother who gives him up for adoption to her therapist, and an adolescence spent as part of the therapist's eccentric extended family, gobbling prescription meds and fooling around with both an old electroshock machine and a pedophile who lives in a shed out back. But just as he dreamed of doing with that old table, Burroughs employs a vigorous program of decoration and fervent polishing to a life that many would have simply thrown in a landfill. Despite her abandonment, he never gives up on his increasingly unbalanced mother. And rather than despair about his lot, he glamorizes it: planning a "beauty empire" and performing an a capella version of "You Light Up My Life" at a local mental ward. Burroughs's perspective achieves a crucial balance for a memoir: emotional but not self-involved, observant but not clinical, funny but not deliberately comic. And it's ultimately a feel-good story: as he steers through a challenging childhood, there's always a sense that Burroughs's survivor mentality will guide him through and that the coffee table will be salvaged after all. --John Moe [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!'
A series of anecdotes, such as are included in Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman, shouldn't by rights add up to an autobiography, but that's just one of the many pieces of received wisdom that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88) cheerfully ignores in this engagingly eccentric book. Fiercely independent (read the chapter entitled "Judging Books by Their Covers"), intolerant of stupidity even when it comes packaged as high intellectualism (check out "Is Electricity Fire?"), unafraid to offend (see "You Just Ask Them?"), Feynman informs by entertaining. It's possible to enjoy Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman, a bestseller ever since its initial publication in 1985, simply as a bunch of hilarious yarns with the author as know-it-all hero. At some point, however, attentive readers realise that underneath all the merriment simmers a running commentary on what constitutes authentic knowledge: learning by understanding, not by rote; refusal to give up on seemingly insoluble problems, and total disrespect for fancy ideas that have no grounding in the real world. Feynman himself had all these qualities in spades, and they come through with vigour and verve in his no-bull prose. No wonder his students--and readers around the world--adored him. --Wendy Smith [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character'
A series of anecdotes, such as are included in Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman, shouldn't by rights add up to an autobiography, but that's just one of the many pieces of received wisdom that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88) cheerfully ignores in this engagingly eccentric book. Fiercely independent (read the chapter entitled "Judging Books by Their Covers"), intolerant of stupidity even when it comes packaged as high intellectualism (check out "Is Electricity Fire?"), unafraid to offend (see "You Just Ask Them?"), Feynman informs by entertaining. It's possible to enjoy Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman, a bestseller ever since its initial publication in 1985, simply as a bunch of hilarious yarns with the author as know-it-all hero. At some point, however, attentive readers realise that underneath all the merriment simmers a running commentary on what constitutes authentic knowledge: learning by understanding, not by rote; refusal to give up on seemingly insoluble problems, and total disrespect for fancy ideas that have no grounding in the real world. Feynman himself had all these qualities in spades, and they come through with vigour and verve in his no-bull prose. No wonder his students--and readers around the world--adored him. --Wendy Smith [via]
More editions of Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character'
A series of anecdotes shouldn't by rights add up to an autobiography, but that's just one of the many pieces of received wisdom that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88) cheerfully ignores in his engagingly eccentric book, a bestseller ever since its initial publication in 1985. Fiercely independent (read the chapter entitled "Judging Books by Their Covers"), intolerant of stupidity even when it comes packaged as high intellectualism (check out "Is Electricity Fire?"), unafraid to offend (see "You Just Ask Them?"), Feynman informs by entertaining. It's possible to enjoy Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman simply as a bunch of hilarious yarns with the smart-alecky author as know-it-all hero. At some point, however, attentive readers realize that underneath all the merriment simmers a running commentary on what constitutes authentic knowledge: learning by understanding, not by rote; refusal to give up on seemingly insoluble problems; and total disrespect for fancy ideas that have no grounding in the real world. Feynman himself had all these qualities in spades, and they come through with vigor and verve in his no-bull prose. No wonder his students--and readers around the world--adored him. --Wendy Smith [via]
More editions of Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character'
A series of anecdotes, such as are included in Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman, shouldn't by rights add up to an autobiography, but that's just one of the many pieces of received wisdom that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88) cheerfully ignores in this engagingly eccentric book. Fiercely independent (read the chapter entitled "Judging Books by Their Covers"), intolerant of stupidity even when it comes packaged as high intellectualism (check out "Is Electricity Fire?"), unafraid to offend (see "You Just Ask Them?"), Feynman informs by entertaining. It's possible to enjoy Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman, a bestseller ever since its initial publication in 1985, simply as a bunch of hilarious yarns with the author as know-it-all hero. At some point, however, attentive readers realise that underneath all the merriment simmers a running commentary on what constitutes authentic knowledge: learning by understanding, not by rote; refusal to give up on seemingly insoluble problems, and total disrespect for fancy ideas that have no grounding in the real world. Feynman himself had all these qualities in spades, and they come through with vigour and verve in his no-bull prose. No wonder his students--and readers around the world--adored him. --Wendy Smith [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: ''Tis: A Memoir'
'Tis a blessing that the author narrates his own work. McCourt follows up his Audie Award-winning performance in Angela's Ashes with another brilliant reading as he chronicles his return to post-World War II New York. Like all good storytellers, McCourt has good stories to tell; 'Tis pulses with grim adversity and quiet triumphs--character-shaping moments that gain the listener's empathy. What makes McCourt a great storyteller is his ability to give these moments just the right amount of humor and perspective. His lyrical tones are wise but not weary; he's survived life's challenges to tell his tale. And while it may be trite to credit McCourt's verbal skills to his Irish heritage, these war stories were undoubtedly polished amongst friends in the pubs. 'Tis is Grammy material, and a perfect example of how an author's voice can enhance the written word. (Running time: 6 hours, 4 cassettes) --Rob McDonald [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ana Frank: Diario de una Adolescente'
Tras la invasion de Holanda, los Frank, comerciantes judios alemanes emigrados a Amsterdam en 1933, se ocultaron de la Gestapo en una buhardilla anexa al edificio donde el padre de Ana tenia sus oficinas. Estas ocho personas permanecieron recluidas desde junio de 1942 hasta agosto de 1944, fecha en que fueron detenidos y enviados a diversos campos de concentracion. En esta buhardilla y en las mas precarias condiciones, Ana, a la sazon una nina de trece anos, escribio un estremecedor Diario: un testimonio unico en su genero sobre el horror y la barbarie nazi, y sobre los sentimientos y experiencias de la propia Ana y de sus acompanantes. Ana murio en el campo de Bergen-Belsen en marzo de 1945. Su Diario nunca morira. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cenizas de Angela /Angela's Ashes'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Las Cenizas De Angela: Una Memoria/Angela's Ashes a Memoir'
En cada pagina abunda el incomparable sentido del humor y la compasion de Frank McCourt. Con todas las cualidades de una obra clasica, "Las cenizas de Angela" esta ahora disponible en edicion rustica en espanol. Esta autobiografia ganadora del Premio Pulitzer y de gran exito de ventas internatcional trasciende las fronteras culturales y linguisticas con su narracion sobre la infancia, la pobreza y las relaciones familiares. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Diario / Diary'
Anne Frank's diary is a modern classic, the living testimony of a Jewish girl caught in the nightmare horror of Hitler's Final Solution. Her extraordinary story can be read in over 50 languages, and millions of copies are in print in various editions throughout the world. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Diario De Ana Frank/Diary of Anne Frank'
Tras la invasion de Holanda, los Frank, comerciantes judios alemanes emigrados a Amsterdam en 1933, se ocultaron de la Gestapo en una buhardilla anexa al edificio donde el padre de Ana tenia sus oficinas. Estas ocho personas permanecieron recluidas desde junio de 1942 hasta agosto de 1944, fecha en que fueron detenidos y enviados a diversos campos de concentracion. En esta buhardilla y en las mas precarias condiciones, Ana, a la sazon una nina de trece anos, escribio un estremecedor Diario: un testimonio unico en su genero sobre el horror y la barbarie nazi, y sobre los sentimientos y experiencias de la propia Ana y de sus acompanantes. Ana murio en el campo de Bergen-Belsen en marzo de 1945. Su Diario nunca morira. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Leer 'Lolita' En Teheran / Reading Lolita In Teheran'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lo Es: Una Memoria'
The Spanish edition of the #1 New York Times bestseller, TIS is the story of Frank's American journey from impoverished immigrant with rotten teeth, infected eyes, and no formal education to brilliant raconteur and schoolteacher. Saved first by a straying priest, then by the Democratic party, then by the United States Army, then by New York University-- which admitted him on a trial basis, though he had no high school diploma-- Frank had the same vulnerable but invincible spirit at nineteen that he had at eight, and still has today. And TIS is a tale of survival as vivid, harrowing, and often hilarious as ANGELA'S ASHES. Yet again, it is through the power of storytelling that Frank finds a life for himself. TIS blesses readers with another chapter of McCourt's story, but as it closes, they will want still more. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Todas Las Cosas Brillantes Y Hermosas/All Things Bright and Beautiful'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Journal'
De juillet 1942 à août 1944, une petite fille juive partage le sort précaire de sept personnes contraintes de se cacher pour échapper à la gestapo. Tandis que les nazis ajoutent un chapitre capital et sanglant au "Bréviaire de la haine", elle note dans son journalier les menus faits et gestes de la communauté. Anne Frank tient la chronique d'une microsociété clandestine, sans rien abandonner de sa propre subjectivité. Malgré la réclusion, la peur, le monde extérieur en feu, elle reproduit fidèlement la gamme des sentiments que lui inspirent son âge et son coeur : tour à tour irritée, tendre, injuste, amoureuse. Comme si, se sentant menacée par l'imminence d'un destin tragique, elle voulait vivre en accéléré l'histoire de sa sensibilité. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anne FrankTagebuch'
Dieses lebendige, Einblick gewährende Tagebuch ist seit seiner ersten Veröffentlichung 1947 ein geliebter Klassiker und ein passendes Denkmal für den begabten jüdischen Teenager, der 1945 im Konzentrationslager Bergen-Belsen ums Leben kam. 1929 geboren, bekam Anne Frank zu ihrem 13. Geburtstag ein neues, unbeschriebenes Tagebuch geschenkt, nur wenige Wochen bevor sie und ihre Familie im von den Nazis besetzten Amsterdam untertauchen mußten. Ihre wunderbar detaillierten persönlichen Eintragungen zeichnen 25 anstrengende Monate klaustrophobischer, streitgeladener Intimität mit ihren Eltern, ihrer Schwester, einer zweiten Familie und einem älteren Zahnarzt nach, der wenig Toleranz für Annes Lebhaftigkeit zeigt. Der universelle Reiz des Tagebuchs beruht auf seiner fesselnden Mischung aus den schmuddeligen Besonderheiten des Lebens im Krieg (karge, schlechte Mahlzeiten; schäbige Kleider, aus denen man längst herausgewachsen ist, die aber nicht ersetzt werden können; die ständige Angst, entdeckt zu werden) und der offenherzigen Auseinandersetzung über Gefühle, die jedem Heranwachsenden bekannt sind: "Jeder kritisiert mich, niemand erkennt meine wahre Natur, wann werde ich endlich geliebt?" Aber Anne Frank war kein gewöhnlicher Teenager: Die späteren Eintragungen verraten einen für eine kaum 15jährige bemerkenswerten Sinn für Mitgefühl und spirituelle Tiefe. Ihr Tod verkörpert den Wahnsinn des Holocaust, aber für die Millionen, die Anne durch ihr Tagebuch kennengelernt haben, ist er auch ein sehr persönlicher Verlust. --Wendy Smith [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Het Achterhuis: Dagboekbrieven 12 Juni 1942-1 Augustus 1944'
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