| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
books tagged “San Francisco”
books tagged “San Francisco”
›› Find signed collectible books by ''
English
-
All Tomorrow's Partiesby William GibsonISBN 0425190447 (0-425-19044-7)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'All Tomorrow's Parties'Book summary:Although Colin Laney (from Gibson's earlier novel Idoru) lives in a cardboard box, he has the power to change the world. Thanks to an experimental drug that he received during his youth, Colin can see "nodal points" in the vast streams of data that make up the worldwide computer network. Nodal points are rare but significant events in history that forever change society, even though they might not be recognizable as such when they occur. Colin isn't quite sure what's going to happen when society reaches this latest nodal point, but he knows it's going to be big. And he knows it's going to occur on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, which has been home to a sort of SoHo-esque shantytown since an earthquake rendered it structurally unsound to carry traffic.
Colin sends Barry Rydell (last seen in Gibson's novel Virtual Light) to the bridge to find a mysterious killer who reveals himself only by his lack of presence on the Net. Barry is also entrusted with a strange package that seems to be the home of Rei Toi, the computer-generated "idol singer" who once tried to "marry" a human rock star (she's also from Idoru). Barry and Rei Toi are eventually joined by Barry's old girlfriend Chevette (from Virtual Light) and a young boy named Silencio who has an unnatural fascination with watches. Together this motley assortment of characters holds the key to stopping billionaire Cody Harwood from doing whatever it is that will make sure he still holds the reigns of power after the nodal point takes place.
Although All Tomorrow's Parties includes characters from two of Gibson's earlier novels, it's not a direct sequel to either. It's a stand-alone book that is possibly Gibson's best solo work since Neuromancer. In the past, Gibson has let his brilliant prose overwhelm what were often lackluster (or nonexistent) story lines, but this book has it all: a good story, electric writing, and a group of likable and believable characters who are out to save the world ... kind of. The ending is not quite as supercharged as the rest of the novel and so comes off a bit flat, but overall this is definitely a winner. --Craig E. Engler [via]
-
The Art of Detectionby Laurie R. KingISBN 1585478164 (1-58547-816-4)
Hardcover, Center Point Pub
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Art of Detection'Book summary:In this thrilling new crime novel that ingeniously bridges Laurie R. Kings Edgar and Creasey Awardswinning Kate Martinelli series and her bestselling series starring Mary Russell, San Francisco homicide detective Kate Martinelli crosses paths with Sherlock Holmesin a spellbinding dual mystery that could come only from the intelligent, witty, and complex mind of New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King&.
Kate Martinelli has seen her share of peculiar things as a San Francisco cop, but never anything quite like this: an ornate Victorian sitting room straight out of a Sherlock Holmes storycomplete with violin, tobacco-filled Persian slipper, and gunshots in the wallpaper that spell out the initials of the late queen.
Philip Gilbert was a true Holmes fanatic, from his antiquated décor to his vintage wardrobe. And no mere fan of fictions great detective, but a leading expert with a collection of priceless memorabiliaa collection some would kill for.
And perhaps someone did: In his collection is a century-old manuscript purportedly written by Holmes himselfa manuscript that eerily echoes details of Gilberts own murder.
Now, with the help of her partner, Al Hawkin, Kate must follow the convoluted trail of a killerone who may have trained at the feet of the greatest mind of all times. [via] -
Babycakesby Armistead MaupinISBN 0060924837 (0-06-092483-7)
Softcover, Perennial
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Babycakes'Book summary:"An extended love letter to a magical San Francisco."
--New York Times Book ReviewWhen an ordinary househusband and his ambitious wife decide to start a family, they discover there's more to making a baby then meets the eye. Help arrives in the form of a grieving gay neighbor, a visiting monarch, and the dashing young lieutenant who defects from her yacht. Bittersweet and profoundly affecting, Babycakes was the first work of fiction to acknowledge the arrival of AIDS.
[via]"Armistead is a true original. His tales are bang up-to-date. They will surprise and maybe even shock you, but, I promise, they will make you laugh."
--Ian McKellen"Maupin has a genius for observation. His characters have the timing of vaudeville comics, flawed by human frailty and fueled by blind hop."
--Denver Post"Armistead Maupin's San Francisco saga careens beautifully on."
-- New York Times Book Review -
Back to Barbary Lane: The Final Tales of the City Omnibusby Armistead MaupinISBN 0060166495 (0-06-016649-5)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Back to Barbary Lane: The Final Tales of the City Omnibus'Book summary:"An old fashioned pleasure... there's been nothing like it since the heyday of the serial novel 100 years ago... Tearing through [the tales] one after the other, as I did, allows instant gratification; it also lets you appreciate how masterfully they're constructed. No matter what Maupin writes next, he can look back on the rare achievement of having built a little world and made it run."
--Walter Kendrick, Village Voice Literary SupplementBy turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Armistead Maupin's bestselling Tales of the City series stands as an incomparable blend of great storytelling and incisive social commentary. These six classic comedies, some of which originally appeared as serials in San Francisco newspapers, have won Maupin critical acclaim around the world and enthralled legions of devoted fans.
Back to Barbary Lane comprises the second trilogy of the series--Babycakes (1984), Significant Others (1987), and Sure of You (1989) -- concluding the saga of the tenants, past and present, of Mrs. Madrigal's beloved apartment house on Russian Hill. While the first trilogy celebrated the carefree excesses of the seventies, this volume tracks its hapless, all-to-human cast across a decade troubled by plague, deceit and overweening ambition.
Like its companion volume, 28 Barbary Lane, Back to Barbary Lane is distinguished by what The Guardian of London has called "some of the sharpest and most speakable dialogue you are ever likely to read." It promises hours of literate entertainment for readers old and new.
With a foreword by the author. [via]
More editions of Back to Barbary Lane: The Final Tales of the City Omnibus:
-
The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworldby Herbert AsburyISBN 1560254084 (1-56025-408-4)
Softcover, Thunder's Mouth Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld'Book summary:The history of the Barbary Coast properly begins with the gold rush to California in 1849. If the precious yellow metal hadn't been discovered ... the development of San Francisco's underworld in all likelihood would have been indistinguishable from that of any other large American city. Instead, owing almost entirely to the influx of gold-seekers and the horde of gamblers, thieves, harlots, politicians, and other felonious parasites who battened upon them, there arose a unique criminal district that for almost seventy years was the scene of more viciousness and depravity, but which at the same time possessed more glamour, than any other area of vice and iniquity on the American continent. The Barbary Coast is Herbert Asbury's classic chronicle of the birth of San Franciscoa violent explosion from which the infant city emerged full-grown and raging wild. From all over the world practitioners of every vice stampeded for the blood and money of the gold fields. Gambling dens ran all day including Sundays. From noon to noon houses of prostitution offered girls of every age and race. (In the 1850s, San Francisco was home to only one woman for every thirty men. It was not until 1910 that the sexes achieved anything close to parity in their populations.) This is the story of the banditry, opium bouts, tong wars, and corruption, from the eureka at Sutter's Mill until the last bagnio closed its doors seventy years later.[via]More editions of The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld:
-
The Best American Short Stories, 1999by Amy Tan, Katrina KenisonISBN 039592684X (0-395-92684-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Best American Short Stories, 1999'Book summary:A great story gets its hooks into you right from the start; you know you're in the hands of a good writer when the very first sentence transports you wholly into another world. "Mother preferred Zulu servants." "It must be, Ruth thought, that she was going to die in the spring." "Who would have thought that a war of such proportions would bother to turn in its fury against the fools of Chelm?"
The 21 fictions featured in The Best American Short Stories 1999 have very little in common--but whether they're about ranchers or commuters, romantic seekers or New Age pilgrims, what they do share is a sense of urgency. In each of them, there's a kind of voice that announces its need to be heard. "I'm not a bad guy," pleads the narrator of "The Sun, the Moon, the Stars," and even though he cheats on his girlfriend, by the end of Junot Díaz's story you might be tempted to agree anyway. (Especially considering the charming way he turns Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener into a verb--as in, "A lot of the time she Bartlebys me, says, 'No, I'd rather not.'") "Real Estate," by that master of bittersweet comedy Lorrie Moore, starts by repeating "Ha! Ha! Ha!" for two solid pages but becomes a rueful take on marriage, house-hunting, and even death: "The body, hauling sadnesses, pursued the soul, hobbled after. The body was like a sweet dim dog trotting lamely toward the gate as you tried slowly to drive off, out the long driveway. Take me, take me too, barked the dog."
Other standouts in this collection include Alice Munro's "Save the Reaper," a kind of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" where no one is killed or saved; Rick Bass's haunting evocation of winter in the north country, "The Hermit's Story"; and Tim Gautreax's "The Piano Tuner," about a manic-depressive Creole princess playing cocktail piano in a motel lounge. (This is one tale that truly does end with a bang, not a whimper.) Taken together, they are ample evidence that the American short story is alive, well, and eminently able to--in the words of guest editor Amy Tan--"help us live interesting lives." --Chloe Byrne [via]
More editions of The Best American Short Stories, 1999:
-
Bloodsucking Fiendsby Christopher MooreISBN 0060735414 (0-06-073541-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Bloodsucking Fiends'Book summary:Here's something different: a vampire novel that's light, funny, and not at all hackneyed. Between scenes of punks bowling frozen turkeys on the graveyard shift in a supermarket, or snapping turtles loose in a loft and gnawing on designer shoes, this novel has comic charm to spare. But it also packs an appealingly downbeat message about the consumer culture: Becoming a vampire has given the twentysomething heroine "a crampless case of rattlesnake PMS"--a grumpy mood in which she realizes that she can dress to the nines as a "Donner Party Barbie" and still end up disillusioned and unhappy, just another slacker doing her own laundry and watching sucky TV 'til the sun rises. [via]
Bloodsucking Fiends : A Love Storyby Christopher MooreISBN 0380728133 (0-380-72813-3)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Bloodsucking Fiends : A Love Story'More editions of Bloodsucking Fiends : A Love Story:
-
The Butterfingers Angel; Mary & Joseph; Herod the Nut; the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Treeby William GibsonISBN 0822201682 (0-8222-0168-2)
Softcover, Dramatist's Play Service
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Butterfingers Angel; Mary & Joseph; Herod the Nut; the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree'Book summary:THE STORY: Dealing with the story of Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus from a fresh and richly creative point of view, the author combines a series of deftly constructed short scenes, traditional Christmas music, and often antic characterizations into a wholly original theatre piece. The flow of the action follows the Biblical recounting, but is enhanced by a tree, a sheep and a donkey who talk (and most amusingly); a beguiling Mary who had heretofore decided that men and marriage were not for her; a suddenly cautious Joseph who now contends that he is too old for his intended (having earlier scoffed at Mary for expressing the same thought); and a flustered boy-angel who directs the action from a promptbook and manages to get only the most strangled, bleating sounds from his trumpet. But, through all the lively and resourceful happenings, the true significance of the occasion is never lost, and the underlying mood and spirit of reverence is, if anything, enhanced and made new by the distinctive approach of this joyful and unique retelling. [via]
More editions of The Butterfingers Angel; Mary & Joseph; Herod the Nut; the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree:
The City, Not Long Afterby Pat MurphyISBN 0142404055 (0-14-240405-5)
Softcover, Puffin
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The City, Not Long After'Book summary:Set in a city devastated by plague, this book tells of a young woman who arrives in the city to join a charismatic group of artists, journalists and writers. The group must join together to defeat the invading forces of megalomaniac General Fourstar. From the author of "The Shadow Hunter". [via]
-
A Crack In The Edge Of The World: America And The Great California Earthquake Of 1906by Simon WinchesterISBN 0060572000 (0-06-057200-0)
Softcover, Perennial
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Crack in the Edge of the World: America And the Great California Earthquake of 1906'Book summary:Geologically speaking, 1906 was a violent year: powerful, destructive earthquakes shook the ground from Taiwan to South America, while in Italy, Mount Vesuvius erupted. And in San Francisco, a large earthquake occurred just after five in the morning on April 18--and that was just the beginning. The quake caused a conflagration that raged for the next three days, destroying much of the American West's greatest city. The fire, along with water damage and other indirect acts, proved more destructive than the earthquake itself, but insurance companies tried hard to dispute this fact since few people carried earthquake insurance. It was also the world's first major natural disaster to have been extensively photographed and covered by the media, and as a result, it left "an indelible imprint on the mind of the entire nation."
Though the epicenter of this marvelously constructed book is San Francisco, Winchester covers much more than just the disaster. He discusses how this particular quake led to greater scientific study of quakes in an attempt to understand the movements of the earth. Trained at Oxford University as a geologist, Winchester is well qualified to discuss the subject, and he clearly explains plate tectonics theory (first introduced in 1968) and the creation of the San Andreas Fault, along with the geologic exploration of the American West in the late 19th century and the evolution of technology used to measure and predict earthquakes. He also covers the social and political shifts caused by the disaster, such as the way that Pentecostalists viewed the quake as "a message of divine approval" and used it to recruit new members into the church, and the rise in the local Chinese population. With many records destroyed in the fire, there was no way to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants, and thus many more Chinese were granted citizenship than would have otherwise been. Filled with eyewitness accounts, vivid descriptions, crisp prose, and many delightful meanderings, A Crack in the Edge of the World is a thoroughly absorbing tale. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
More editions of A Crack In The Edge Of The World: America And The Great California Earthquake Of 1906:
-
A Dirty Jobby Christopher MooreISBN 1597223166 (1-59722-316-6)
Hardcover, Wheeler Pub Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Dirty Job'Book summary:Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy with a normal life, married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. They're even about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie's doing okayuntil people start dropping dead around him, and everywhere he goes a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Charlie Asher, it seems, has been recruited for a new position: as Death.
It's a dirty job. But, hey! Somebody's gotta do it.
[via] -
DK Eyewitness Travel Guides San Franciscoby Dk Travel WritersISBN 0789494205 (0-7894-9420-5)
Softcover, Dk Pub
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'DK Eyewitness Travel Guides San Francisco'Book summary:Eyewitness Travel Guides are the original illustrated travel guidebooks-and they're still the best. Since 1993, the Eyewitness brand has established itself as one of the industry leaders, with sales of more than 6.5 million copies in the U.S. alone. Featuring more than 70 worldwide destinations, new titles are being added to the best-selling Eyewitness Travel Guides series each year. In 2003, to mark the 10th anniversary of the publication of Eyewitness Travel Guides, DK is re-launching the entire series, fully updated, and with a brand-new look. [via]
More editions of DK Eyewitness Travel Guides San Francisco:
-
El Club De LA Buena Estrellaby Amy TanISBN 8472231631 (84-7223-163-1)
Softcover, Ediciones Urano
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'El Club De LA Buena Estrella'Book summary:En 1949, cuatro mujeres chinas emigradas a San Francisco se reunen regularmente para comer dim sum,jugar al mah-jong y hablar. Unidas por sentimientos de perdida y esperanza, se hacen llamar El Club de laBuena Estrella. Amy Tan explora la conexion entre las protagonistas y sus hijas, ya nacidas en Estados Unidos, un mundo totalmente distinto al suyo. [via]
More editions of El Club De LA Buena Estrella:
-
El Halcon Maltesby Dashiell HammettISBN 8420666890 (84-206-6689-0)
Hardcover, Alianza Editorial Sa
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'El Halcon Maltes'More editions of El Halcon Maltes:
-
The Fire Roseby Mercedes LackeyISBN 067187750X (0-671-87750-X)
Softcover, Baen Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fire Rose'Book summary:San Francisco, 1905: Rosalind, a medieval scholar, is hired by Jason, a powerful sorcerer. Jason's enemy offers to restore Rosalind's family fortune if she will betray Jason. And then the earthquake strikes. . . . [via]
-
Further Tales of the Cityby Armistead MaupinISBN 0060924926 (0-06-092492-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Further Tales of the City'Book summary:The calamity-prone residents of 28 barbary lane are at it again in this deliciously dark novel of romance and betrayal. While anna madrigal imprisons an anchorwoman in her basement, michael tolliver looks for love at the national gay rodeo, dede halcyon day and mary ann singleton track a charismatic psychopath across alaska, and society columnist prue giroux loses her heart to a derelict living in san francisco park [via]
-
The Golden Gateby Vikram SethISBN 0679734570 (0-679-73457-0)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Golden Gate'Book summary:Can 690 sonnets, rhyming a-b-a-b-c-c-d-d-e-f-f-e-g-g, be a novel? Definitely! First published in 1986 and still fresh (the sole sign of its publication date being the frequent use of the word yuppie), Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate will turn the verse-fearing into admiring acolytes. Janet Hayakawa, a yet-to-be-discovered sculptor and drummer in the Liquid Sheep, secretly places a personal ad for her friend John, even though she too is single. "Only her cats provide distraction,/Twin paradigms of lazy action." The seventh letter does the trick. Lawyer Liz Donati's submission is two sonnets in toto and disarms John into meeting her. Soon they fall into brief bliss, as do her brother, Ed, and John's old college roommate, Phil. Unfortunately, the first couple's love is too soon destroyed, partly by a pet, partly by politics; and the second is rent by religion. Ed pulls away thanks to the Bible: "I have to trust my faith's decisions, / Not batten on my own volitions."
The rest of the novel leads less to the traditional comic ending--rapprochement and marriage all around--than to surprising sadness. But in between there is wit, wordplay, abounding allusion, and some marvelous animals, among them the iguana Schwarzenegger. The author even steps onto the stage on occasion: at a frou-frou publishing party a powerful editor accosts him, curious to hear about his new novel. When Seth tells him it's in verse, the temperature plummets. "'How marvelously quaint,' he said, / And subsequently cut me dead." Luckily, Seth's real editor did anything but. [via]
More editions of The Golden Gate:
- The Golden Gate: ISBN 0394750632 (0-394-75063-2)
Softcover, Vintage Books - The Golden Gate: ISBN 0394549740 (0-394-54974-0)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - The Golden Gate: ISBN 0571139671 (0-571-13967-1)
Hardcover, Faber - The Golden Gate: ISBN 0679734570 (0-679-73457-0)
Softcover, Vintage Books
- The Golden Gate: ISBN 0394750632 (0-394-75063-2)
-
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Geniusby Dave EggersISBN 1568959095 (1-56895-909-5)
Hardcover, Wheeler Pub Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'Book summary: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]
More editions of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius:
-
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius : A Memoir Based on a True Storyby Dave EggersISBN 0684863472 (0-684-86347-2)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius : A Memoir Based on a True Story'Book summary: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]
More editions of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius : A Memoir Based on a True Story:
Historic San Francisco: A Concise History and Guideby Rand RichardsISBN 1879367009 (1-879367-00-9)
Softcover, Great West Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Historic San Francisco: A Concise History and Guide'More editions of Historic San Francisco: A Concise History and Guide:
Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruinby Gray A. BrechinISBN 0520229029 (0-520-22902-9)
Softcover, Univ of California Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin'More editions of Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin:
- Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin: ISBN 0520250087 (0-520-25008-7)
Softcover, Univ of California Pr - Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin: ISBN 0520215680 (0-520-21568-0)
Hardcover, Univ of California Pr - Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin: ISBN 0520229029 (0-520-22902-9)
Softcover, Univ of California Pr
- Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin: ISBN 0520250087 (0-520-25008-7)
-
The Joy Luck Clubby Amy TanISBN 1587248832 (1-58724-883-2)
Softcover, Wheeler Pub Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Joy Luck Club'Book summary:Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue.
With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery. [via]
More editions of The Joy Luck Club:
- The Joy Luck Club: ISBN 0143038095 (0-14-303809-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA - The Joy Luck Club: ISBN 0399134204 (0-399-13420-4)
Hardcover, Putnam Pub Group - The Joy Luck Club: ISBN 0072435097 (0-07-243509-7)
Softcover, McGraw-Hill College - The Joy Luck Club: ISBN 067972768X (0-679-72768-X)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group - The Joy Luck Club: ISBN 0804106304 (0-8041-0630-4)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group - The Joy Luck Club: ISBN 0896219410 (0-89621-941-0)
Softcover, Thorndike Pr - The Joy Luck Club: ISBN 0833552929 (0-8335-5292-9)
Hardcover, Bt Bound - The Joy Luck Club: ISBN 0896218805 (0-89621-880-5)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr - The Joy Luck Club: ISBN 1587248832 (1-58724-883-2)
Softcover, Wheeler Pub Inc
- The Joy Luck Club: ISBN 0143038095 (0-14-303809-5)
Locked Roomsby Laurie R. KingISBN 0553583417 (0-553-58341-7)
Softcover, Bantam Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Locked Rooms'Book summary:A New York Times Bestselling Author
Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes are back in Laurie R. King's highly acclaimed New York Times bestselling mystery series. This time the first couple of detection travel to San Francisco to unlock the buried memory of a shocking crime with the power to kill again - lost somewhere in Russell's past. [via]
-
Maltese Falconby Dashiell HammettISBN 1883402158 (1-883402-15-8)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Maltese Falcon'Book summary:Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammett's archetypally tough San Francisco detective, is more noir than L.A. Confidential and more vulnerable than Raymond Chandler's Marlowe. In The Maltese Falcon, the best known of Hammett's Sam Spade novels (including The Dain Curse and The Glass Key), Spade is tough enough to bluff the toughest thugs and hold off the police, risking his reputation when a beautiful woman begs for his help, while knowing that betrayal may deal him a new hand in the next moment.
Spade's partner is murdered on a stakeout; the cops blame him for the killing; a beautiful redhead with a heartbreaking story appears and disappears; grotesque villains demand a payoff he can't provide; and everyone wants a fabulously valuable gold statuette of a falcon, created as tribute for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. Who has it? And what will it take to get it back? Spade's solution is as complicated as the motives of the seekers assembled in his hotel room, but the truth can be a cold comfort indeed.
Spade is bigger (and blonder) in the book than in the movie, and his Mephistophelean countenance is by turns seductive and volcanic. Sam knows how to fight, whom to call, how to rifle drawers and secrets without leaving a trace, and just the right way to call a woman "Angel" and convince her that she is. He is the quintessence of intelligent cool, with a wise guy's perfect pitch. If you only know the movie, read the book. If you're riveted by Chinatown or wonder where Robert B. Parker's Spenser gets his comebacks, read the master. --Barbara Schlieper [via]
More editions of Maltese Falcon:
- Maltese Falcon: ISBN 0679722645 (0-679-72264-5)
Softcover, Vintage Books - Maltese Falcon: ISBN 0848824369 (0-8488-2436-9)
Hardcover, Amereon Ltd - Maltese Falcon: ISBN 0553065092 (0-553-06509-2)
Softcover, Bantam Books - Maltese Falcon: ISBN 0679740945 (0-679-74094-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc - Maltese Falcon: ISBN 089340330X (0-89340-330-X)
Softcover, J. Curley - Maltese Falcon: ISBN 0865471568 (0-86547-156-8)
Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux - Maltese Falcon: ISBN 0910457018 (0-910457-01-8)
Hardcover, Arion Press - Maltese Falcon: ISBN 1883402158 (1-883402-15-8)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
- Maltese Falcon: ISBN 0679722645 (0-679-72264-5)
-
The Maltese Falcon, the Thin Man, Red Harvestby Dashiell Hammett, Robert PolitoISBN 0375411259 (0-375-41125-9)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Maltese Falcon, the Thin Man, Red Harvest'Book summary:(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
The three classic novels published here in one volume are rich with the crisp prose, subtle characters, and intricate plots that made Dashiell Hammett one of the most admired writers of the twentieth century.
A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Hammett virtually invented the hard-boiled crime novel. In The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade, a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics, tangles with a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. The Thin Man introduces Hammett's wittiest creations, Nick and Nora Charles, who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. And in Red Harvest, Hammett's anonymous tough-guy detective, the Continental Op, takes on the entire town of Poisonville in a deadly war against corruption.
"Dashiell Hammett is a master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer."Boston Globe
Hammett was spare, hard-boiled, but he did over and over what only the best writers can ever do. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before. Raymond Chandler
Hammetts prose was clean and entirely unique. His characters were as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction. The New York Times
As a novelist of realistic intrigue, Hammett was unsurpassed in his own or any time. Ross Macdonald
Dashiell Hammetts dialogues can be compared only with the best in Hemingway. André Gide
Hammett is one of the best contemporary American writers. Gertrude Stein [via]More editions of The Maltese Falcon, the Thin Man, Red Harvest:
McTeagueby Frank NorrisISBN 1414220138 (1-4142-2013-8)
Softcover, IndyPublish.com
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'McTeague: A Story of San Francisco'Book summary:The novelist Frank Norris is almost forgotten today, but in books like "McTeague," published in 1899, he paved the way for a whole generation of American writers--a generation that included Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis and, less directly, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. McTeague is a dentist saddled with a grasping wife, and the book chronicles his rise and fall in awkward but powerful prose. This type of social realism, so contrary to the uplifting entertainment of the day (and to Mark Twain's more fanciful, comic novels), provided turn-of-the-century America a disturbing mirror in which to view itself. [via]
-
More Tales of the Cityby Armistead MaupinISBN 0060929383 (0-06-092938-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'More Tales of the City'Book summary:The tenants of 28 Barbary Lane have fled their cozy nest for adventures for afield. Mary Ann Singleton finds love at sea with a forgetful stranger, Mona Ramsey discovers her doppleganger in a desert whore-house, and Michael Tolliver bumps into a certain gynecologist in a seedy Mexican Bar. Meanwhile, their venerable landlady takes the biggest journey of all'without ever leaving home. A new, full color 16-page insert makes this seamless work complete.
"Maupin has always been a humane storyteller, and an accessible one. His life-is-good-but-sloppy soap operas are marked by solid craft, superb dialogue, and what used to be called heart."
--Entertainment Weekly"Maupin writes with warmth, acuity and tremendous wit about ordinary people learning to live with themselves and one another. Read him."
--Harpers & Queen"Sparkling entertainments...lit by a glowing humanity that brings each character to vivid, poignant life."
--Publishers WeeklyDon't miss the much anticipated continuation of the classic miniseries "Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City" premiering June 1998 and airing all summer on SHOWTIME. Check your local listings for times.
Visit the Tales of the City website at www.talesofthecity.com [via]
Oh The Glory Of It Allby Sean WilseyISBN 1594200513 (1-59420-051-3)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Oh The Glory Of It All'Book summary:[via]"In the beginning we were happy. And we were always excessive. So in the beginning we were happy to excess." With these opening lines Sean Wilsey takes us on an exhilarating tour of life in the strangest, wealthiest, and most grandiose of families.
Sean's blond-bombshell mother (one of the thinly veiled characters in Armistead Maupin's bestselling Tales of the City) is a 1980s society-page staple, regularly entertaining Black Panthers and movie stars in her marble and glass penthouse, "eight hundred feet in the air above San Francisco; an apartment at the top of a building at the top of a hill: full of light, full of voices, full of windows full of water and bridges and hills." His enigmatic father uses a jet helicopter to drop Sean off at the video arcade and lectures his son on proper hygiene in public restrooms, "You should wash your hands first, before you use the urinal. Not after. Your penis isn't dirty. But your hands are."
When Sean, "the kind of child who sings songs to sick flowers," turns nine years old, his father divorces his mother and marries her best friend. Sean's life blows apart. His mother first invites him to commit suicide with her, then has a "vision" of salvation that requires packing her Louis Vuitton luggage and traveling the globe, a retinue of multiracial children in tow. Her goal: peace on earth (and a Nobel Prize). Sean meets Indira Gandhi, Helmut Kohl, Menachem Begin, and the pope, hoping each one might come back to San Francisco and persuade his father to rejoin the family. Instead, Sean is pushed out of San Francisco and sent spiraling through five high schools, till he finally lands at an unorthodox reform school cum "therapeutic community," in Italy.
With its multiplicity of settings and kaleidoscopic mix of preoccupations-sex, Russia, jet helicopters, seismic upheaval, boarding schools, Middle Earth, skinheads, home improvement, suicide, skateboarding, Sovietology, public transportation, massage, Christian fundamentalism, dogs, Texas, global thermonuclear war, truth, evil, masturbation, hope, Bethlehem, CT, eventual salvation (abridged list)Oh the Glory of It All is memoir as bildungsroman as explosion.
More editions of Oh The Glory Of It All:
-
San Franciscoby Santi VisalliISBN 0789300044 (0-7893-0004-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'San Francisco'Book summary:In this richly illustrated hardcover book, award-winning photojournalist Santi Visalli has beautifully captured the warmth and spirit of San Francisco. Spectacular views of the city's most notable landmarks-the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, and Lombard Hill-are joined by images of the city's newest sites, including San Francisco MoMA, the stylish new Clift Hotel, and PacBell Stadium. The book brings together the historical and topical, creating a lasting tribute to this pearl of the Pacific Rim
The first title in a new series from Universe, San Francisco is a great package at an affordable price, offering tourists the perfect memento of an unforgettable trip. A gorgeous celebration of what is arguable he most beautiful city in the United States, the book will also be a favorite for native San Franciscans and armchair travelers alike.
From the Hardcover edition. [via] 
San Franciscoby National Geographic Society StaffISBN 0792275659 (0-7922-7565-9)
Softcover, National Geographic Society
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'San Francisco'More editions of San Francisco:
The San Francisco Earthquakeby Gordon Thomas, Max Morgan WittsISBN 081281360X (0-8128-1360-X)
Hardcover, Stein and Day
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The San Francisco Earthquake'More editions of The San Francisco Earthquake:
San Francisco is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Firesby Dennis SmithISBN 0670034428 (0-670-03442-8)
Hardcover, Viking Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'San Francisco is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires'More editions of San Francisco is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires:
-
Significant Othersby Armistead MaupinISBN 0060924810 (0-06-092481-0)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Significant Others'Book summary:Tranquillity reigns in the ancient redwood forest until a women-only music festival sets up camp downriver from an all-male retreat for the ruling class. Among those entangled in the ensuing mayhem are a lovesick nurseryman, a panic-stricken philanderer, and the worlds most beautiful fat woman. Significant Others is Armistead Maupins cunningly observed meditation on marriage, friendship, and sexual nostalgia.
[via]More editions of Significant Others:
- Significant Others: ISBN 0060964081 (0-06-096408-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins - Significant Others: ISBN 0060961260 (0-06-096126-0)
Softcover, Perennial Library - Significant Others: ISBN 0060550864 (0-06-055086-4)
Hardcover, Harpercollins - Significant Others: ISBN 0060924810 (0-06-092481-0)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
- Significant Others: ISBN 0060964081 (0-06-096408-1)
Stairway Walks in San Franciscoby Adah BakalinskyISBN 0938530100 (0-938530-10-0)
Softcover, Lexikos Pub
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Stairway Walks in San Francisco'More editions of Stairway Walks in San Francisco:
- Stairway Walks in San Francisco: ISBN 0899971849 (0-89997-184-9)
Softcover, Wilderness Pr - Stairway Walks in San Francisco: ISBN 0899972756 (0-89997-275-6)
Softcover, Wilderness Pr - Stairway Walks in San Francisco: ISBN 0899973566 (0-89997-356-6)
Softcover, Wilderness Pr - Stairway Walks in San Francisco: ISBN 0938530100 (0-938530-10-0)
Softcover, Lexikos Pub
- Stairway Walks in San Francisco: ISBN 0899971849 (0-89997-184-9)
-
Sure of Youby Armistead MaupinISBN 0060924845 (0-06-092484-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Sure of You'Book summary:A fiercely ambitious TV talk show host finds she must choose between national stardom in New York and a husband and child in San Francisco. Caught in the middle is their longtime friend, a gay man whose own future is even more uncertain. Wistful and compassionate, yet subversively funny, Sure of You could only come from Armistead Maupin.
[via] -
Tales of the Cityby Armistead MaupinISBN 0060964049 (0-06-096404-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Tales of the City'Book summary:Since 1976, Maupin's Tales of the City has etched itself upon the hearts and minds of its readers, both straight and gay. From a groundbreaking newspaper serial in the San Francisco Chronicle to a bestselling novel to a critically acclaimed PBS series, Tales (all six of them) contains the universe--if not in a grain of sand, then in one apartment house. [via]
More editions of Tales of the City:
- Tales of the City: ISBN 0345351908 (0-345-35190-8)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group - Tales of the City: ISBN 0060186690 (0-06-018669-0)
Hardcover, Harpercollins - Tales of the City: ISBN 0060906545 (0-06-090654-5)
Hardcover, Harper & Row - Tales of the City: ISBN 0060924802 (0-06-092480-2)
Hardcover, HarperPerennial - Tales of the City: ISBN 0060964049 (0-06-096404-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
- Tales of the City: ISBN 0345351908 (0-345-35190-8)
-
Valenciaby Michelle TeaISBN 1580050352 (1-58005-035-2)
Softcover, Seal Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Valencia'Book summary:You don't have to be part of the emerging postpunk subculture of queer urban girls to relish this smooth ride of a novel, like Kathy Acker on Prozac on a sunny day, in which many exciting things happen without affecting much of anything, and one of the most profound moments is a mild, drug-induced insight into the meaninglessness of life. Michelle, the main character, is a person for whom blue hair is as big a style change as blue pants. She lurches between women, more in love with the idea of love than with Iris or Willa or Gwynne or Petra. Her work experiences are equally brief, although she can't bring herself to actually quit jobs. She just stops showing up. "Are you going to work?" her current lover asks one morning.
No, I was not going to work. I was an artist, a lover, a lover of women, of the oppressed and downtrodden, a warrior really. I should have been somewhere leading an armed revolution in the name of love and no, I was not going to work. Willa didn't work. I mean, she did, but it's a stretch to call it work. She bartended at a dyke bar a few nights a week, drank free beer, and bummed all her cigarettes.... All week she was free, writing angsty brilliant poems, drawing comic books, painting gigantic painful pictures, you know, living. I wanted to live.
Michelle Tea's characters are a peculiar fin-de-siècle blend of jaded idealists and thoughtful egotists: sex workers, poets, and mad hatters who end up making breakfast for roomfuls of stoned strangers. The occasional flash of clarity doesn't alter the basically anarchic nature of Tea's meandering narrative, so much like the tales of an incidental figure from Valencia, a loud redhead named Iggy who told stories "so incredible you wondered if they were true but ultimately didn't care because you were so enraptured by her grand gestures and re-enactments." --Regina Marler [via]More editions of Valencia:
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story ... With Wingsby Mark BittnerISBN 140008170X (1-4000-8170-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story ... With Wings'More editions of The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story ... With Wings:
With Childby Laurie R. KingISBN 070893904X (0-7089-3904-X)
Hardcover, Ulverscroft Large Print Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'With Child'More editions of With Child:
Spanish
-
El Club de la Buena Estrellaby Amy TanISBN 1400002370 (1-4000-0237-0)
Softcover, Plaza & Janes Editories, S.A.
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'El Club de la Buena Estrella'Book summary:En 1949, cuatro mujeres chinas emigradas a San Francisco se reunen regularmente para comer dim sum,jugar al mah-jong y hablar. Unidas por sentimientos de perdida y esperanza, se hacen llamar El Club de laBuena Estrella. Amy Tan explora la conexion entre las protagonistas y sus hijas, ya nacidas en Estados Unidos, un mundo totalmente distinto al suyo. [via]
More editions of El Club de la Buena Estrella:
![[powered by Muze Inc.]](http://i.bookfinder.com/images/site/muze/powered_by_muze.gif){kind=small}