The House Where I Grew Up, 2010 by Liu Xiaodong (b. 1963)
The Disappointed Souls, 1892 by Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918)
Pagan, 2014 by Tilo Baumgärtel (b. 1972)
Interior with Artist’s Daughter, c. 1936 by Vanessa Bell (1879–1961)
The Devil’s Dress, 2011 by Michaël Borremans (b. 1963)
Young Woman with Book, 1934 by Alexander Deineka (1899-1969)
Die Irrsinnige (The Madwoman), 1925 by Otto Dix (1891-1969)
Please Wait, Sir, 2022 by Eric Fischl (b. 1948)
A panel from “Poe? Yuck!”, 1983 by Alberto Breccia (1919-93)
A page from Approaching Centauri by Moebius (Jean Giraud, 1938–2012)
Whilst The Master Weeps, 2022 by Dennis Tyfus (b. 1979)
An illustration by Marshall Arisman (1937-1922) that accompanied a March 1992 excerpt of Cormac McCarthy’s novel All the Pretty Horses that appeared in Esquire.
Girl on a Red Carpet, c. 1912 by Felice Casorati (1883-1963)
Untitled (Kaba (Hippo)), c. 1989 by Katsuhiro Otomo (b. 1954)
Memory of Places, 2009 by Sliman Mansour (b. 1947)
Sementi (Seeds), 2023 by Agostino Arrivabene (b. 1967)
I couldn’t pass on a used copy of the second edition of Steven Weisenburger’s A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion even though it ate up most of my trade credit. I used the first edition of the Companion when I reread Gravity’s Rainbow about eight years ago and then gave it to a friend I had been encouraging to read GR. He still hasn’t read it.
I also picked up a hardcover first edition of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and a pristine 1946 hardback edition of Joyce’s Ulysses. I’ll probably trade in the Gabler edition of Ulysses I have, but I think I’m too sentimental to let go of the copy of The Road I read in the hospital over a few days when my daughter was born.
I’m a big fan of Vintage Contemporaries, but I’d never seen Terry McDonell’s California Bloodstock. I pulled it out because of its spine, and found the cover intriguing–it reminded me of these weird paintings that hang in a decrepit hotel in St. Augustine Beach that we stay at for a few nights every year. The blurb from H.S. Thompson didn’t hurt either.
I opened it to find that the novel is inscribed:
Anyone know Lou Schultz? Or what SMART might be?
