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› Find signed collectible books: 'Against the Fall of Night'
The 10-billion-year-old metropolis of Diaspar is humanity's last home. Alone among immortals, the only man born in 10 million years desperately wants to find what lies beyond the City. His quest will uncover the destiny of a peopleand a galaxy. This book also includes the classic short story Jupiter V. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Animal Farm'
Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Animal Farm'
Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Beowulf'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Black Beauty'
"A horse is a horse of course unless of course the horse is Black Beauty. Animal-loving children have been devoted to Black Beauty throughout this century, and no doubt will continue through the next. Although Anna Sewell's classic paints a clear picture of turn-of-the-century London, its message is universal and timeless: animals will serve humans well if they are treated with consideration and kindness.
Black Beauty tells the story of the horse's own long and varied life, from a well-born colt in a pleasant meadow to an elegant carriage horse for a gentleman to a painfully overworked cab horse. Throughout, Sewell rails--in a gentle, 19th-century way--against animal maltreatment. Young readers will follow Black Beauty's fortunes, good and bad, with gentle masters as well as cruel. Children can easily make the leap from horse-human relationships to human-human relationships, and begin to understand how their own consideration of others may be a benefit to all. (Ages 9 to 12)" [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bloodchild and Other Stories'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bold As Love'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Clash of Kings'
How does he do it? George R.R. Martin's high fantasy weaves a spell sufficient to seduce even those who vowed never to start a doorstopper fantasy series again (the first book--A Game of Thrones--runs over 700 pages). A Clash of Kings is longer and even more grim, but Martin continues to provide compelling characters in a vividly real world.
The Seven Kingdoms have come apart. Joffrey, Queen Cersei's sadistic son, ascends the Iron Throne following the death of Robert Baratheon, the Usurper, who won it in battle. Queen Cersei's family, the Lannisters, fight to hold it for him. Both the dour Stannis and the charismatic Renly Baratheon, Robert's brothers, also seek the throne. Robb Stark, declared King in the North, battles to avenge his father's execution and retrieve his sister from Joffrey's court. Daenerys, the exiled last heir of the former ruling family, nurtures three dragons and seeks a way home. Meanwhile the Night's Watch, sworn to protect the realm from dangers north of the Wall, dwindle in numbers, even as barbarian forces gather and beings out of legend stalk the Haunted Forest.
Sound complicated? It is, but fine writing makes this a thoroughly satisfying stew of dark magic, complex political intrigue, and horrific bloodshed. --Nona Vero [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cobralingus'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'
This novel of Mark Twain's -- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court -- gives us an odd view of the American literary genius: it shows his bent toward science fiction. Twain developed a close and lasting friendship with scientific wunderkind Nikola Tesla, and the two spent quite a bit of time together (in Tesla's laboratory, among other places). Twain's fascination appears in his time traveler (from contemporary America, yet!), using his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology to Arthurian England. As with all works of a master like Twain, we highly recommend this novel -- but just between us, this book is a lot of fun, too. Go ahead, read it now. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dracula'
Introduction and Notes by Dr David Rogers, Kingston University 'There he lay looking as if youth had been half-renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey, the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst the swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood; he lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion.' [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Drawing of the Three'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Hobbit / the Hobbit'
Poor Bilbo Baggins! An unassuming and rather plump hobbit (as most of these small, furry- footed people tend to be ), Baggins finds himself unwittingly drawn into adventure by a wizard named Gandalf and 13 dwarves bound for the Lonely Mountain, where a dragon named Smaug hordes a stolen treasure. Before he knows what is happening, Baggins finds himself on the road to danger. Wizards, dwarves and dragons may seem the stuff of children's fairy tales, but The Hobbit is in a class of its own--light-hearted enough for younger readers, yet with a dark edge guaranteed to intrigue an older audience. In the best tradition of the archetypal hero's quest, Bilbo Baggins sets out on his fateful journey a callow, untested soul and returns--tempered by hardship, danger and loss--a better man--er, hobbit.
This book is the predecessor to Tolkien's masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, and though that trilogy can be thoroughly enjoyed without first reading The Hobbit, much that happens in the later novels is foreshadowed here. A word of caution, however: as Bilbo discovers early on, travel and adventure are addictive things; embark on this journey to the Lonely Mountain with Tolkien's reluctant hero, and you might not be able to stop there. And the road taken to the distant mountains of Mordor in the ensuing trilogy is an even more perilous one. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Erewhon'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Essential Ellison'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Essential Ellison : A 50 Year Retrospective'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ethan of Athos'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Falling Free'
When humanoids are genetically produced for capital gain, what are their human rights?
Leo Graf was just your average highly efficient engineer: mind your own business, fix what's wrong, and move on to the next job. Everything neat and according to spec, just the way he liked it. But all that changed on his assignment to the Cay Habitat. Leo was to teach welding to a secretly produced batch of humanoid workers genetically engineered with two additional arms instead of legs to be ideally suited to working in free fall. Could he just stand there and allow the exploitation of hundreds of helpless children merely to enhance the bottom line of a heartless megacorporation? Leo hadn't anticipated a situation where the right thing to do was neither safe nor in the rules.
Leo adopted a thousand quaddies. Now all he had to do was teach them to be free.
Falling Free is the 1988 Nebula Award Winner for Best Novel [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fellowship of the Ring'
› Find signed collectible books: 'Flatland'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Flatland : A Romance of Many Dimensions'
Flatland is one of the very few novels about math and philosophy that can appeal to almost any layperson. Published in 1880, this short fantasy takes us to a completely flat world of two physical dimensions where all the inhabitants are geometric shapes, and who think the planar world of length and width that they know is all there is. But one inhabitant discovers the existence of a third physical dimension, enabling him to finally grasp the concept of a fourth dimension. Watching our Flatland narrator, we begin to get an idea of the limitations of our own assumptions about reality, and we start to learn how to think about the confusing problem of higher dimensions. The book is also quite a funny satire on society and class distinctions of Victorian England. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Forgotten Realms: The Legend of Drizzt Omnibus'
Adapted by the famous books by R.A. Salvatore, Forgotten Realms Trilogy: Omnibus combines all three books - Homeland, Exile and Sojourn - into one great book! This story takes you from the moments before the birth of Drizzt to the point where he leaves his home world and ventures to the unknown. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Guide to the Cthulhu Cult'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gulliver's Travels'
With an Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury Jonathan Swift's classic satirical narrative was first published in 1726, seven years after Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (one of its few rivals in fame and breadth of appeal). As a parody travel-memoir it reports on extraordinary lands and societies, whose names have entered the English language: notably the minute inhabitants of Lilliput, the giants of Brobdingnag, and the Yahoos in Houyhnhnmland, where talking horses are the dominant species. It spares no vested interest from its irreverent wit, and its attack on political and financial corruption, as well as abuses in science, continue to resonate in our own times. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'
What makes the Harry Potter series so successful? Maybe it's the fact that J.K. Rowling doesn't write children's books, she writes children's stories, more in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm than Dr. Seuss. The exploits of Harry and his friends captivate even the shortest attention spans by engaging the imagination with vivid characters and fast-moving action, instead of trying to merely catch the eye with colorful pictures or pop-up effects. Not surprisingly, the Potter tales sound wonderful read aloud, and adapt to the audiobook format extremely well. Broadway actor Jim Dale's impressive vocal range gives each character in the book its own distinctive voice--a considerable task, given the pantheon of witches, warlocks, ghosts, ghouls, dwarves, and elves that Harry encounters in his second outing. And thankfully, since the book is read unabridged, no one's favorite character is omitted. Engaging for children without being childish, the audio version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is worthy addition to the deservedly popular series. (Running time: 9 hours, 7 CDs) --Andrew Nieland [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire CD Set tells the story of Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 18 CDs. The audio book is also available in two volumes, Part 1 and Part 2, each containing 9 CDs.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the long-awaited, heavily hyped fourth instalment of a phenomenally successful series that has captured the imagination of millions of readers, young and old, across the globe. For J K Rowling the pressure is certainly on to continue to come up with thrilling, pacey storylines that allow her hero to mature into a young man without detracting from the magical secret that has made Harry into a superstar. In this book, the teenage Harry has a certain gawky charm that fits well with his advancing adolescence. As the story moves on, Harry too moves on to a new level of maturity that leaves the reader wondering how he will learn from his experiences, and liking him all the more as a character.
Once returned to Hogwarts after his summer holiday with the dreadful Dursleys and an extraordinary outing to the Quidditch World Cup, the 14-year-old Harry and his fellow pupils are enraptured by the promise of the Triwizard Tournament: an ancient, ritualistic tournament that brings Hogwarts together with two other schools of wizardry--Durmstrang and Beauxbatons--in heated competition. But when Harry's name is pulled from the Goblet of Fire, and he is chosen to champion Hogwarts in the tournament, the trouble really begins. Still reeling from the effects of a terrifying nightmare that has left him shaken, and with the lightning-shaped scar on his head throbbing with pain (a sure sign that the evil Voldemort, Harry's sworn enemy, is close), Harry becomes at once the most popular boy in school. Yet, despite his fame, he is totally unprepared for the furore that follows.
This is a hefty volume: 636 pages, of which probably at least 200 could have been cut without detracting from the story. The weight and complexity of the book is perhaps a hint that Rowling now has her eye sharply focused on her adult audience, and the average child-reader (particularly one who is coming to Harry Potter for the first time) may well find its girth daunting. Rowling's ironic and pointed observations on tabloid journalism and the nature of media hype is just one of the references littered through the book that will tickle the grown-ups but may well fly over the heads of her young fans.
However, after a slow start, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire really starts to sparkle halfway through with Rowling's familiar magic (and yes, there is a death--sudden and tragic--and yes, Harry does start to notice girls). The crux of this story, however, is Harry's gradual coming-of-age and his handling of the increasingly determined threats to his own life.
This book is pivotal, not just for the author for whom the heat is well and truly on, but for Harry and his readers who, by the last chapter, are left in little doubt that there is much more to come. (Ages 10 to adult) --Susan Harrison [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter And the Order of the Phoenix'
Book Description--Special Features of the Deluxe Edition
This cloth-covered deluxe edition features full-color printed endpapers and a foil-stamped title on the spine, and comes complete with a full-color slipcase with matte lamination and foil-stamping. Best of all, the removable, suitable-for-framing book jacket is emblazoned with exclusive, original artwork (that's different than the regular edition) by illustrator Mary GrandPré--a one-of-a-kind keepsake that you won't find anywhere else.
Award-winning artist, conceptual illustrator, animated film scenery developer, ad designer, and, oh yes, illustrator for a worldwide children's book phenomenon, Mary GrandPré somehow manages to juggle all her hats quite well, to mix a metaphor. It seems appropriate to mix metaphors when you're talking about someone who has mixed her media--and her genres--so gracefully ever since she was a child.
As a 5-year-old, GrandPré began drawing. Five or six years later she was experimenting with Salvador Dali-style oil painting. Next she moved on to copying black-and-white photos out of the encyclopedia. Later still she decided to go to art school (Minneapolis College of Art and Design), where she learned that being an artist and being an illustrator were not mutually exclusive.
A couple of decades later, after working in corporate advertising, film (GrandPré created the environment and scenery art for the animated film Antz), and book publishing, this multitalented artist received a call asking if she might like to work on a book cover and some black-and-white illustrations for a book about a young wizard named Harry Potter. The rest--dare we say it?--is history.
You've read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix--what do you think? Mary GrandPré: I think it's wonderful. It's unique, it's different from the rest. I think it's a really exciting part of the Harry Potter series. Amazon.com: Which Harry Potter book have you liked the best? GrandPré: I think they all stand alone, so I appreciate them separately, but when you tie them all together into the story you can't really have one without the other. I don't have a favorite. They're all great. Amazon.com: What was your original artistic inspiration for the first Harry Potter book? How did Harry end up looking like Harry? GrandPré:
When I illustrate a cover or a book, I draw upon what the author tells me; that's how I see my responsibility as an illustrator. J.K. Rowling is very descriptive in her writing--she gives an illustrator a lot to work with. Each story is packed full of rich visual descriptions of the atmosphere, the mood, the setting, and all the different creatures and people. She makes it easy for me. The images just develop as I sketch and retrace until it feels right and matches her vision. Amazon.com: How closely do you work with J.K. Rowling? GrandPré: I've only met her once, a couple years ago. The publisher shows her sketches and gets feedback, but she and I don't communicate. This is pretty typical for illustrator/author relationships: they keep our visions and voices separate. Amazon.com: How are you handling Harry growing up? GrandPré:
It's exciting. I kind of feel like his mom--or maybe his step-mom. J.K. Rowling is his mom. But I feel like it's a tricky thing to create a character and then age him. You have to take careful note of how that happens because any little tiny difference in a face can make the whole person look very different. Over the years Harry has become pretty solid in my mind. I just do a lot of experimenting on the drawing board, playing with how I would technically change this or that part of his face. What's really exciting is how Harry's personality changes from book to book, his level of confidence, things you see in normal kids. It's really fun to bring that into the drawings.
I'd say Maurice Sendak is one of them. As a kid I was really, really inspired by early Walt Disney. That sense of magic is something I want to bring into my work in my own way. It's hard to say who's my favorite--it changes. It's more about favorite pieces of art. I do like a variety of artwork. I don't feel fresh doing the same thing over and over, so I like to view a lot of art and be inspired by it according to subject or story, more so than just by illustrators or authors. Amazon.com: What do you think of the artwork in the international editions? GrandPré: I've only seen a couple of these editions. Everybody has their own vision of the story and what it should look like. To be honest, I really just focus on what I need to do with the books. That's even true for the movie and Harry Potter as a product, I try to stay focused on what's happening in my studio with Harry. Amazon.com: It must have been amazing to see the characters you worked with come to life in the movies. GrandPré:
It was pretty cool. I thought they were really good. It was so much fun to see the magic on the screen. Once in a while I would catch a glimpse of something that might have been inspired by something they saw in one of the books that I had drawn and that was great. I don't know if it was in there or not, but I'd like to think so! Amazon.com: Do you have a favorite character in all the books? GrandPré: Besides Harry, who's my favorite, obviously, I would say Hagrid because he's like my favorite people in my life. He's a lot like my dad: protective and loyal and big and sweet; and he's a lot like my dog, who's part St. Bernard and has the same qualities. I kind of have a personal connection with Hagrid. Amazon.com: Any advice for a budding illustrator? GrandPré:
Yes, I would just say keep working hard and don't give up. Illustration, like any form of art, is up for criticism, but it has to come from the heart or it's not good. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, keep trying new things because your best work will come from work you enjoy. Constantly try to listen to your inner voice about who you are as an artist and what you do and what you know. I don't know about magic but I know that I'm moved by it--I have been since I was a little kid--and it tends to come into my work even when I'm not illustrating things of magic. Just continue to try and be relaxed and natural about how you draw. Try to bring yourself out in your work. Amazon.com: If you could choose to live your life exactly the way you wanted to, no holds barred, what would change? GrandPré: I'd have a lot more time to do personal work. No holds barred, I would probably paint for myself, just go nuts, experiment, be my own art director, be my own critic, experience total freedom in my artwork. I try to do that in my work now, but it's hard to do when you are problem solving and illustrating other people's visions. I'm starting to write my own picture books now, so part of that dream is coming into view for me. More editions of Harry Potter And the Order of the Phoenix:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'
For most children, summer vacation is something to look forward to. But not for our 13-year-old hero, who's forced to spend his summers with an aunt, uncle, and cousin who detest him. The third book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series catapults into action when the young wizard "accidentally" causes the Dursleys' dreadful visitor Aunt Marge to inflate like a monstrous balloon and drift up to the ceiling. Fearing punishment from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon (and from officials at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who strictly forbid students to cast spells in the nonmagic world of Muggles), Harry lunges out into the darkness with his heavy trunk and his owl Hedwig.
As it turns out, Harry isn't punished at all for his errant wizardry. Instead he is mysteriously rescued from his Muggle neighborhood and whisked off in a triple-decker, violently purple bus to spend the remaining weeks of summer in a friendly inn called the Leaky Cauldron. What Harry has to face as he begins his third year at Hogwarts explains why the officials let him off easily. It seems that Sirius Black--an escaped convict from the prison of Azkaban--is on the loose. Not only that, but he's after Harry Potter. But why? And why do the Dementors, the guards hired to protect him, chill Harry's very heart when others are unaffected? Once again, Rowling has created a mystery that will have children and adults cheering, not to mention standing in line for her next book. Fortunately, there are four more in the works. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Cassette Travel Bag is a complete and unabridged reading by Stephen Fry on six cassettes, contained in a travel box. A CD travel bag is also available.
Just when it seems that there cannot possibly be another twist to the Harry Potter tale, Stephen Fry dons his haughtiest and naughtiest tones to bring Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to vibrant life on audio. Harry Potter has spent the first 10 years of his life at the mercy of the dreadful Dursleys--the aunt, uncle and fat, spoilt brat of a cousin who reluctantly gave him a home after the death of his mother and father. But on his 11th birthday Harry discovers that he is no ordinary boy, and despite the best efforts of his hideous relatives he escapes to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin his new life as a trainee wizard. And the rest, as they say, is history...
As Harry battles against the evils thrown in his path, Stephen Fry injects the proceedings with a wry, dry and extremely contagious humour that perfectly suits the tale, wringing out the best in Harry and his cohorts as they get to grips with their new lives at the sharp end of Hogwarts. Fry's innate upper-class drone is perfectly suited to the telling of this most magical tale, cracking into the high-pitched squawking of Hermione the swat, or the gentle tones of the firm but fair Dumbledore, or the evil sniping of slimey Snape at precisely the right moments.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fine story and much has been written about its success, but until you have heard Fry's cracking reading of this most magical of stories then you simply haven't lived. As with any audio book, this one is perfect for car journeys and an ideal way of introducing reluctant readers to the magic that is Harry Potter. (Ages 9 and over) --Susan Harrison
Running time: 8 hrs 25 mins [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Haunter of the Dark: And Other Grotesque Visions'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus'
What if...there were actually two Jesus Christs, feuding brothers who fell out! What if...the Christian Church is actually a political invention that has little connection to the man we call Christ! What if...the true teachings of Jesus have survived and are awaiting excavation!
When the authors, both Masons, set out to find the origins of the Freemasonry they had no idea they would find themselves unraveling the true story of Jesus Christ and the original Jerusalem Church. Their startling and unexpected conclusions are presented here-backed by rigorous analyses of ancient Egyptian records, the Old and New Testaments, early Christian and Rabbinical texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the rituals of Freemasonry.
The findings of this controversial book make the Dead Sea Scrolls look as exciting as a shopping list, and may forever change the way we perceive the origins of Christianity! [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Imperial Earth'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In the Palace of Repose'
In the Palace of Repose is a collection of nine such stories, ranging from the delightfully fantastic "In the Palace of Repose," to the delicately horrific "One of the Hungry Ones," to the hauntingly literary "The Other Grace." Here indeed are young women, and young men, who have seen too much, and who have been abandoned to wrestle alone with the strange, the wonderful, the terrifying. Some triumph, some tragically fail. Most struggle on beyond the boundaries of their stories, carrying their wonders and horrors into their lives, into their worlds -- worlds, and lives, startlingly like our own. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Island of Doctor Moreau: Library Edition'
A shipwreck in the South Seas, a palm-tree paradise where a mad doctor conducts vile experiments, animals that become human and then "beastly" in ways they never were before--it's the stuff of high adventure. It's also a parable about Darwinian theory, a social satire in the vein of Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels), and a bloody tale of horror. Or, as H. G. Wells himself wrote about this story, "The Island of Dr. Moreau is an exercise in youthful blasphemy. Now and then, though I rarely admit it, the universe projects itself towards me in a hideous grimace. It grimaced that time, and I did my best to express my vision of the aimless torture in creation." This colorful tale by the author of The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds lit a firestorm of controversy at the time of its publication in 1896. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Jesus and the Essenes'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Journey to the Center of the Earth'
Jules Verne's third science fiction novel describes the discovery and exploration of a secret tunnel which leads through a volcano to the centre of the Earth. The leader of the expedition, together with his ward and joined by his nephew and an Icelandic guide commence the journey. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kalpa Imperial'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kalpa Imperial'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lankhmar: Swords Against Death'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Little Prince'
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published The Little Prince in 1943, only a year before his Lockheed P-38 vanished over the Mediterranean during a reconnaissance mission. More than a half century later, this fable of love and loneliness has lost none of its power. The narrator is a downed pilot in the Sahara Desert, frantically trying to repair his wrecked plane. His efforts are interrupted one day by the apparition of a little, well, prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. "In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don't dare disobey," the narrator recalls. "Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket." And so begins their dialogue, which stretches the narrator's imagination in all sorts of surprising, childlike directions.
The Little Prince describes his journey from planet to planet, each tiny world populated by a single adult. It's a wonderfully inventive sequence, which evokes not only the great fairy tales but also such monuments of postmodern whimsy as Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. And despite his tone of gentle bemusement, Saint-Exupéry pulls off some fine satiric touches, too. There's the king, for example, who commands the Little Prince to function as a one-man (or one-boy) judiciary:
I have good reason to believe that there is an old rat living somewhere on my planet. I hear him at night. You could judge that old rat. From time to time you will condemn him to death. That way his life will depend on your justice. But you'll pardon him each time for economy's sake. There's only one rat.The author pokes similar fun at a businessman, a geographer, and a lamplighter, all of whom signify some futile aspect of adult existence. Yet his tale is ultimately a tender one--a heartfelt exposition of sadness and solitude, which never turns into Peter Pan-style treacle. Such delicacy of tone can present real headaches for a translator, and in her 1943 translation, Katherine Woods sometimes wandered off the mark, giving the text a slightly wooden or didactic accent. Happily, Richard Howard (who did a fine nip-and-tuck job on Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma in 1999) has streamlined and simplified to wonderful effect. The result is a new and improved version of an indestructible classic, which also restores the original artwork to full color. "Trying to be witty," we're told at one point, "leads to lying, more or less." But Saint-Exupéry's drawings offer a handy rebuttal: they're fresh, funny, and like the book itself, rigorously truthful. --James Marcus [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Looking Backward'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Looking Backward, 2000-1887'
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lovely Bones: A Novel'
On her way home from school on a snowy December day, 14-year-old Susie Salmon is lured into a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case.
As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams", where "there were no teachers... We never had to go inside except for art class... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue".
The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the lost world of the living, following her family's dramas over the years. Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow".
Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings. --Brad Thomas Parsons, Amazon.com [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Luminous'
LUMINOUS collects together one original story plus nine previously unpublished in book form. Greg Egan's short fiction is at the cutting edge of the genre. His stories range from near future predictions to far future, far space improvisations. His grasp of the latest scientific breakthroughs is unparalleled in science fiction. The stories include 'Transition Dreams', 'Cocoon', 'Our Lady of Chernobyl', the title story 'Luminous' and 'The Planck Drive'. Egan's particular interests range from the farther shores of chaos theory and black hole science to bio-technology and cloning. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Manchurian Candidate'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Meet Me in the Moon Room'
* Philip K. Dick Award finalist
* Locus Recommended Reading
Here are 33 weird, wonderful stories concerning men, women, teleportation, wind-up cats, and brown paper bags. By turns whimsical and unsettlingfrequently managing to be boththese short fictions describe family relationships, bad breakups, and travel to outer space.
Vukcevich's loopy, fun-house mirror take on everyday life belongs to the same absurdist school of work as that of George Saunders, David Sedaris, Ken Kalfus, and Victor Pelevin, although there is no one quite like him. Try one of these stories, it won't take you long, but it will turn your head inside out.
"What other writer could make you start laughing halfway down the first page of a story about a man putting on a sweater? Thurber maybe, a long time ago. Buy this book."
Damon Knight
"These stories cannot be compared to anyone else's. There is no one in the same class as Ray Vukcevich. The stories are uniquely, splendidly, brilliantly original, a surprise in each and every one, and brimming with wit and laugh-out-loud humor. A stunning collection."
Kate Wilhelm
"The absurd and the profound are seamlessly joined through fine writing. Meet Me in the Moon Room is a first-rate collection.
Jeffrey Ford
"The 33 brief stories in Meet Me in the Moon Room defy categorization genre. A few toy with the conventions of science fiction; others branch off from trails blazed by Donald Barthelme. Moon Room will delight those who appreciated the risks Don DeLillo took in Ratner's Star."
Hartford Courant
"Eccentric short stories, which frequently give everyday life a loopy twist."
Book Magazine
"Ray Vukcevich is a master of the last line. Almost every one of his stories has a zinger at the end, but not the kind of zinger that chocks the reader or causes annoyance. Often it's a perfect line of dialogue that opens up the whole story.... Vukcevich is ingenious with the short-story form. Although the stories read as playful vignettes, Vukcevich covertly works in ideas of self, identity, destiny, and obsession. And occasionally, the dangers of outer space."
Review of Contemporary Fiction
"Vukcevich is a master of radical recombinations, drawing from (amongst others) the Brothers Grimm, Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Kafka, O. Henry, Dali, Asimov, pulpish space opera, and the latest in nanotech to produce works that are all his own. Sometimes in as little as four or five pages, he deftly juggles so many ideas, emotions, and perspectives, it produces a curiously refreshing sense of vertigoa high with no hangover to follow.... It would be...a great mistake to ignore the extraordinary talent of Ray Vukcevich."
Locus
"Vukcevich is a very slick writer, an authentic sprinter in an era of milers and all-out stayers.... Vukcevich can do punchlines, but he does not rely on them. Indeed, his extraordinarily light touch when it comes to narrative closure is his most distinctive feature. Anyone who considers bizarre surrealism and casual absurditythe main stocks-in-trade of the fantastic ultrashort story writereasy clay to mold into narrative form has not given serious consideration to the matter of finishing."
New York Review of Science Fiction
"These stories niftily propel their characters down the blurred line between fantasy and psychosis, with effects spanning the gamut from melancholy to goofy, from plaintive to outraged.... This is Vukcevich's gloriously mad world, and we are lucky to share it."
Asimov's
"The same antic spirit that imbued Vukcevich's mystery novel The Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces moves playfully through this first collection of fantastic fiction, whose 33 helium-filled stories achieve just the right absurdist life to escape the gravity of their themes. "By the Time We Get to Uranus" offers a peculiarly affecting take on terminal illness: the afflicted grow buoyant spacesuits that force them to leave loved ones behind. The mysteries of parenthood manifest amusingly in "Poop," about a couple who discover that their newborn's diaper fills variously with birds, mice, and symphonic music. Though deceptively simple in their pared-down style, the vignettes show meticulous care in the crafting of oddball metaphors to express the moods of their estranged spouses, exasperated lovers, competitive children, and disgruntled employees. The willingness with which the author's characters accept the incongruity of their situations often yields profoundly moving insights into the human condition. In the poignant title tale, for example, a man does not find it at all strange that a lover from decades past has summoned him to a simulated moon landscape at a theme park, reflecting that the meaning of life really is "nothing more than a couple of people huddling close for comfort in a cold universe." Inventive and entertaining, these stories yield more emotional truth than much more comparatively realistic fiction.
Forecast: With blurbs from Damon Knight, Kate Wilhelm and Jeffrey Ford, this collection is a quality item that should benefit from good word of mouth."
Publishers Weekly
"A man pulls the sweater his girlfriend made him over his head and nearly gets lost inside it. Rescued from the arctic ice, the dying Victor (Frankenstein) tells a story that leaves little doubt that the monster is James Joyce or Stephen Dedalus or Finn (again). Tim saves the world from a comet by having his family put paper bags over their heads. What? What?! What?!! Calm down. This is just the world according to Ray Vukcevich, sf-ish enough to get him into The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Asimov's, but also resembling the fantastic milieus of Gogol, Kafka, and Looney Toons. Whether you cotton to it depends on how you feel about cartoons made of words and prisons made of logic: are you afraid of amused? Actually, either reaction works for appreciating Vukcevich's outlandish virtuosity. Sf fans with long memories will note Vukcevich's deadpan delivery and jokey-creepy aura, recall the wonder-workings of Fredric Brown (see From These Ashes [BKL Ap 15 01] and smile."
Booklist
"Ray Vukcevich should be as revered as Donald Barthelme or Salvador Dali in the pantheon of modern surrealists. Unjustly deprived of such honors, he should at least be allowed a few weeks in a time-share vacation condo with Don Webb, Rick DeMarinis, Mark Leyner and James Blaylock, literary peers whose absurdist take on existence Vukcevich shares. Did I mention that the condo would occupy an abandoned ICBM silo, as in Ray's creepily twisted ghost story, "Pretending"? Or perhaps the luxury beach house would perch on a few square inches of the scalp of the barbershop patron who boasts a monkey-filled jungle in his hair, in "The Barber's Theme". The writers' relaxathon could also take place in the outer reaches of our Solar System, once the lucky vacationers grow their organic spacesuits, as average folks do in "By the Time We Get to Uranus." Or as a last choice, the writers might congregate in the mysterious highway median of "Fancy Pants", where metamorphoses that would baffle Ovid occur.
Wherever the greats hold their Beach Blanket Oulipo, Vukcevich will doubtlessly be the life of the party. Alternately melancholy and boisterous, plaintive and assertive, sensitive and outrageous, serious and goofy, Vukcevich's stories portray a universe not only stranger than the average person imagines, but stranger than he or she can imagine! It's an uncommon, even scary intellect and vision and talent that can make us believe in wisdom out of a baby's butt ("Poop") o
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mind Games'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mockingbird'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Morals And Dogma: Of The Ancient And Accepted Scottish Rite Of Freemasonry'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Other Side'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Otherness'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Parable of the Talents'
Octavia Butler tackles the creation of a new religion, the making of a god, and the ultimate fate of humanity in her Earthseed series, which began with Parable of the Sower, and now continues with Parable of the Talents. The saga began with the near-future dystopian tale of Sower, in which young Lauren Olamina began to realize her destiny as a leader of people dispossessed and destroyed by the crumbling of society. The basic principles of Lauren's faith, Earthseed, were contained in a collection of deceptively simple proverbs that Lauren used to recruit followers. She teaches that "God is change" and that humanity's ultimate destiny is among the stars.
In Parable of the Talents, the seeds of change that Lauren planted begin to bear fruit, but in unpredictable and brutal ways. Her small community is destroyed, her child is kidnapped, and she is imprisoned by sadistic zealots. She must find a way to escape and begin again, without family or friends. Her single-mindedness in teaching Earthseed may be her only chance to survive, but paradoxically, may cause the ultimate estrangement of her beloved daughter. Parable of the Talents is told from both mother's and daughter's perspectives, but it is the narrative of Lauren's grown daughter, who has seen her mother made into a deity of sorts, that is the most compelling. Butler's writing is simple and elegant, and her storytelling skills are superb, as usual. Fans will be eagerly awaiting the next installment in what promises to be a moving and adventurous saga. --Therese Littleton [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Perfect Circle'
William ""Dead"" Kennedy has problems. Hes haunted by family, by dead people with unfinished business, and by those perfect pop songs that you cant get out of your head. Hes a 32-year-old Texan still in love with his ex-wife. He just lost his job at Pet-Co for eating cat food. His air-conditioning is broken, theres no good music on the radio, and hes been dreaming about ghost roads. When Wills cousin (""My dad married your Aunt Dots half-sister"") calls in the middle of the night about a dead girl haunting his garage, it seems like an easy way to make a thousand dollars. But nothing is ever that simple, especially when family is involved. Wills mother is planning a family reunion of epic proportions. Wills ex-wife is married to a former Marine. His twelve-year-old daughter Megan thinks Will needs someone to look after him. And recently his dead relatives seem to want something from him. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Privilege of the Sword'
Unholy fun, and wholly fun . . . an elegant riposte, dazzlingly executed.Gregory Maguire
Spiced with humor and spot-on period detail.Library Journal (starred review)
Sent to live with her uncle, Katherine imagines a rich and luxurious life. Her dreams evaporate when she discovers her uncle wants her to be something never before seen: a swordswoman.
Ellen Kushner is the author of Swordspoint.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Remember When'
A New York Times Bestselling Author
As proprietor of Remember When, an antique treasures and gift shop, Laine Tavish is an ordinary woman living an ordinary life in the small town of Angel's Gap, Maryland. At least, that's what Laine would like the residents of Angel's Gap to believe. She would not like them to know that she is really Elaine O'Hara, daughter of the notorious con man Big Jack O'Hara. Her past catches up to her in the form of her long-lost uncle who is run down by a car, leaving only a cryptic warning behind. Soon afterward, her home is ransacked. Now it's up to Laine, and a sexy stranger named Max Gannon, to find out who's chasing her, and why. Present-day romance and futuristic suspense are blended together to create a thrill-ride of a novel. Remember When is a tale of deceit and secrets, an outstanding combination of the two sides of Nora Roberts. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Report to the Men's Club'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Return of the King'
Part three of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure The Lord of the Rings, now featuring film art on the cover.
"An extraordinary work -- pure excitement." -- New York Times Book Review
"A triumphant close...a grand piece of work, grand in both conception and execution. An astonishing imaginative tour de force." -- Daily Telegraph
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
As the Shadow of Mordor grows across the land, the Companions of the Ring have become involved in separate adventures. Aragorn, revealed as the hidden heir of the ancient Kings of the West, has joined with the Riders of Rohan against the forces of Isengard, and took part in the desperate victory of the Hornburg. Merry and Pippin, captured by Orcs, escaped into Fangorn Forest and there encountered the Ents.
Gandalf has miraculously returned and defeated the evil wizard, Saruman. Sam has left his master for dead after a battle with the giant spider, Shelob; but Frodo is still alive -- now in the foul hands of the Orcs.
And all the while the armies of the Dark Lord are massing as the One Ring draws ever nearer to the Cracks of Doom. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Richard Matheson's I Am Legend'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Strange Wine'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sword And the Grail'
Based on stunning new archaeological evidence, both in the UK and the USA, The Sword and the Grail details the part played by the Order of the Knights of the Templarhere proved to be the true antecedents of the Freemansonsin the discovery of America. As they fled the authorities who wished to destroyed them, some of the outlawed Templars carried their treasure to St Clair Castle, where the knights' relics are still buried. The tomb of their St Clair Grand Master, with the Grail carved on his stone, lies in Rosslyn, the core chapel of the Masonic movement. With the help of the sea skills and wealth of the Templars, the St Clair Grand Master, tried to found a new Jerusalem in the New World, landing with 300 colonists, first in what is now Nova Scotia and then in New England, more than 90 years before Columbus. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sword and the Grail: Of the Grail and the Templars and the True Discovery of America'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tales of Mystery and Imagination'
Award-winning fantasy illustrator Gary Kelley writes, "I have selected three of Edgar Allan Poe's best short stories.... I chose 'The Fall of the House of Usher' for its classic Gothic images and its dark, melancholic central characters, including the house itself. 'The Black Cat' is ... appealing to me for its use of mystery and foreboding that takes us to a horrifying climax. 'The Cask of Amontillado' ... my personal favorite, [is] a simple narrative of revenge set in the contrasting worlds of carnival and catacomb." Click on the book's cover for a closer look, but the reproduction doesn't really do justice to the richness of color in Kelley's shadowy, atmospheric paintings. (The cat's eye is green, and its tongue is pink.) This gorgeous edition has 20 full- and double-page paintings, including a melancholy portrait of Poe; each page of text is surrounded by subtle decorative frames. The images of Roderick and Madeleine Usher are especially effective. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases'
From Delusions of Universal Grandeur to Twentieth Century Chronoshock, this amusing pocket guide to concocted diseases - designed and illustrated by John Coulthart - features an anthology of slightly morbid, darkly humorous ailments and prognosis srved up by such renowned luminaries as Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Michael Moorcock, Gahan Wilson, Brian Stableford, and Michael Bishop. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Trampoline'
Fabulous tales.The Washington Post
No unblinkered, gloveless reader can resist the stream of associations unleashed by Fords story and the rest of Trampoline: influences as disparate as science fiction, magic realism, pulp, and Twilight Zone morality plays.The Village Voice
Twenty astounding stories by Karen Joy Fowler, Glen Hirshberg, Samantha Hunt, Shelley Jackson, Rosalind Palermo Stevenson, Greer Gilman, and more.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Trash Sex Magic'
This just absolutely rocks.Audrey Niffenegger
Raunchy, funny, and disturbing.Chicago Reader
Deeply charming.The Washington Post
A tender, joyful, raunchy, radiant novel. Imagine The Metamorphoses or A Midsummer Nights Dream transported to the woods of Illinois. When a development company cuts down a beloved tree, and tries to drive out Raedawn Summers family, strange things start to happen.

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tutankhamun Prophecies: The Sacred Secret of the Maya, Egyptians, and Freemasons'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Two Towers'
Frodo and his Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest. They have lost the wizard Gandalf in a battle in the Mines of Moria. And Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. Now Frodo and Sam continue the journey alone down the great river Anduin -- alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Unintended Consequences'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The War of the Worlds'
This is the granddaddy of all alien invasion stories, first published by H.G. Wells in 1898. The novel begins ominously, as the lone voice of a narrator tells readers that "No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's..."
Things then progress from a series of seemingly mundane reports about odd atmospheric disturbances taking place on Mars to the arrival of Martians just outside of London. At first the Martians seem laughable, hardly able to move in Earth's comparatively heavy gravity even enough to raise themselves out of the pit created when their spaceship landed. But soon the Martians reveal their true nature as death machines 100-feet tall rise up from the pit and begin laying waste to the surrounding land. Wells quickly moves the story from the countryside to the evacuation of London itself and the loss of all hope as England's military suffers defeat after defeat. With horror his narrator describes how the Martians suck the blood from living humans for sustenance, and how it's clear that man is not being conquered so much a corralled. --Craig E. Engler [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle'
Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada. He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.
Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.
If it were possible to isolate one theme in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. --Simon Leake [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Buenos Presagios: Las Buenas Y Ajustadas Profecfas De Agnes La Chalada/Good Omens The Nice & Accurate Prophecies Of Agnes Nutter, Witch'
Nota: En los titulos y nombres de autores, los marcos ortograficos han sido omitidos para facilitar las busquedas de Internet. Las Buenas y Ajustadas Profecias de Agnes la Chalada anuncian que el mundo se acabara un sabado. El proximo sabado, de hecho. Justo despues de la hora del te. . .
English: According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter--the world's only totally reliable guide to the future--the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just after tea... From two delightful imaginations comes an unforgettable story in which the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride motorcycles, the hound of the devil chases sticks, and the end of the world is subject to Murphy's Law... From Amazon.com. . . Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time... [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Hobbit'
DESCRIPTION: Nota: En los titulos y nombres de autores, los marcos ortograficos han sido omitidos para facilitar las busquedas de Internet.
Description del libro en espanol: El dia en que Bilbo Bolson recibe la visita inesperada del mago Gandalf y de un grupo de enanos, su placida existencia de hobbit cambia radicalmente. Elfos, dragones y un anillo magico se cruzaran en la aventura mas fantastica de toda su vida. . .Charles Dixon y David Wenzel adaptan al comic preludio de El Senor de los Anillos, la obra maestro de J.R.R. Tolkien.
Book Description in English: First published in the United States more than sixty years ago, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit has become one of the best-loved books of all time. Tolkien's fantasy was then adapted into a fully painted graphic novel, which became a classic in its own right...
The enchanting prelude to The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit is the story of Bilbo Baggins, a quiet and contented hobbit whose life is turned upside down when he joins the wizard Gandalf and thirteen dwarves on their quest to reclaim the dwarves' stolen treasure. It is a journey fraught with danger - and in the end it is Bilbo alone who must face the guardian of this treasure, the most dreaded dragon in all of Middle-earth. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Les Voyages De Gulliver'
Gulliver est une figure légendaire. Le mot "Lilliputiens" est devenu un nom commun. Classique parmi les classiques, ce livre est un roman de genre : un héros embarqué sur un navire qui fait naufrage échoue sur une île... Dès lors, tout est possible, surtout les choses les plus extraordinaires. C'est une fabuleuse occasion pour un écrivain de déployer tous les trésors de son imagination, et Jonathan Swift n'en manque pas. Dans la première partie, son héros se retrouve prisonnier d'un peuple minuscule. Après avoir vécu moult péripéties, il rentre chez lui, mais le démon de l'aventure le pousse à repartir. Comme les naufrages étaient nombreux à l'époque (on est à l'aube du XVIIIe siècle), le voilà derechef poussé par les flots vers un autre pays surprenant. Mais, cette fois, c'est lui qui est nain parmi des géants. Ces deux histoires fabuleuses, qui ont fait le tour du monde dans bien des versions et adaptations, sont à découvrir absolument dans le texte intégral, plein de saveur, même si les archaïsmes abondent et peuvent déconcerter le jeune lecteur : tournures de langage, évocation des moeurs de l'époque, mots inusités aujourd'hui réclament un petit effort de lecture. Qui sera largement récompensé par le plaisir de suivre ces passionnantes aventures. --Pascale Wester [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harrius Potter et Camera Secretorum / Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'
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