I picked up first edition hardbacks of The Box Man by Kobo Abe and Fantômas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre today at the used bookstore I like to wander around every other Friday afternoon (or, if I’ve had a bad week, maybe every Friday afternoon, or even a Monday, or Thursday). I wasn’t really looking for… Continue reading Last Friday (Books acquired, 30 Dec. 2022)
If you follow this blog even semi-regularly, you may know that I frequently frequent Chamblin Bookmine. This sprawling bookstore, with an inventory of close to three million books (mostly used, and often very weird), is about a mile from my house, and in some small ways might constitute a mute coauthor of this blog. I… Continue reading Four Books (Barthelme, Burroughs, and Barry [Hannah])
Between the first Sunday of September 2015 and the first Sunday of September 2016 I ran a series of posts—every Sunday that year—I called “Three Books.” I would scan the covers of the books, and I generally tried to find books with interesting design elements to them; I would also try to find a thread… Continue reading Blog about Three Books
Earlier this summer I visited Alias East Books East in Los Angeles, where the clerk kindly let me handle a signed first edition of Barry Hannah’s novel Ray. It was like sixty bucks, so I didn’t handle it too fondly. But somehow the image of the signature rattled around in my silly skull all summer—probably because I spent a big… Continue reading Two or three Barry Hannahs, depending on how you look at it (Books acquired, 14 and 18 Aug. 2017)
The Dick Gibson Show by Stanley Elkin. 1983 trade paperback by E.P. Dutton/Obelisk. Cover design by Janet Halverson. I finished Elkin’s The Franchiser this week and started this one this week. The Names by Don DeLillo. 1989 trade paperback by Vintage Contemporaries (God I love Vintage Contemporaries wonderful awful covers)God I love Vintage Contemporaries wonderful awful… Continue reading Three Books
Last week on Three Books, I featured three books I kinda sorta maybe plan to read in 2016. Here are three more: Slow Learner by Thomas Pynchon. First edition hardback by Little, Brown (1984). Jacket design by Fred Marcellino. I’ve only read “Entropy” from this collection so far. (I actually tried to use it in… Continue reading Three Books
Kleinzeit by Russell Hoban. 1983 Summit Books trade paperback edition. Cover design by Fred Marcellino. A stark and funny retelling of the Orpheus myth, Hoban’s second novel obsesses over illness and art. Fans of Tom McCarthy might dig this one. The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz by Russell Hoban. 1983 Summit Books trade paperback edition. Cover design… Continue reading Three Books
Biblioklept 