Even the Dogs Jon McGregor Bloomsbury, London, 2010 This is the back cover blurb for Even the Dogs: “On a still and frozen day between Christmas and New Year, a man’s body is found lying in his ruined flat. Found, and then taken away, examined, investigated and cremated. As the state begins its detailed, dispassionate [...]
The Museum of Innocence Orhan Pamuk Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2009 This beautiful novel by Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk uses the story of a rich Turkish man’s selfish love of a shop girl as a metaphor for the struggles of a Westernizing society that clings to its traditional view of women as chattel. In [...]
Ocean of Words Ha Jin Vintage International, New York, 1998 Ocean of Words was originally published in 1996 by the American company Zoland Press. The true first edition is the Zoland paperback original. They did put out a hardcover edition, but only after the collection of short stories won the 1997 Pen/Hemingway Award. Many people [...]
Postcards Annie Proulx Fourth Estate, London, 1996 This is the first edition/first printing of the Fourth Estate Compact Classic edition of Postcards. It is in fine/fine condition and is signed in Proulx’s typical tiny autograph on the title page. At only 6″ x 4″, and with its wood grain patterned dust jacket, it is attractive and [...]
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon Random House, New York, 2000 The New York Review of Books called The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Chabon’s magnum opus. It won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize and was nominated for several other major awards, including the Pen/Faulkner Award and The National Book Critics Circle [...]
On Chesil Beach — Limited Edition Ian McEwan Jonathan Cape, London, 2007 As I promised in an earlier post, here is one of the slipcased limited editions of McEwan’s excellent On Chesil Beach. This one is the cloth and paper bound edition limited to 1200 signed copies. There was also a full leather edition limited [...]
Diary of a Bad Year – Advance Readers Copy J.M. Coetzee Text, Australia, 2007 This brilliant book combines essays on a wide range of topics for a fictional publication entitled Strong Opinions, and diary entries about the relationship the aging essayist develops with his young typist. The essays run at the top of each page, while [...]
The Swimming Pool Library Alan Hollinghurst Chatto and Windus, London, 1988 This novel, with its many references to the early twentieth century gay English writer Ronald Firbank, won the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award and was nominated for the Booker Prize. Edmund White called it ‘…surely the best book about gay life yet written by an [...]
Out Stealing Horses Per Petterson Graywolf Press, U.S.A. 2007 Out Stealing Horses won two major Norwegian Prizes before Anne Born’s English translation won the 2006 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It was named by the New York Times as one of the top ten books of 2007. Although [...]
The Frost Fairs John McCullough Salt Publishing, Cromer, England, 2010 The Frost Fairs, a remarkably diverse collection from the Salt Modern Poets collection, won the 2012 Polari Prize. Taken from the Polari Prize website: “The Polari Prize is awarded to a first book which explores the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender experience and is open [...]