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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
by Pirsig, Robert M
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good- in Very Good dust jacket
- ISBN 10
- 0370103386
- ISBN 13
- 9780370103389
- Seller
-
London, Greater London, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
The Bodley Head Ltd. Very Good- in Very Good dust jacket. 1974. First Edition. Hardback. 0370103386 . [First UK Edition, first impression] Dust jacket unmarked, printing remains bright, slight creasing at top-edge; Boards firm, gilt titling bright, ends of spine rubbed; Pages lightly age-toned at edges, light offsetting on endpapers, no ownership marks or annotation; Binding tight. Overall a nice copy which slightly shows its age. ; 5.5 x 8.75"; 412 pages .
Synopsis
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values was written in 1974 by Robert M. Pirsig, a commentary on the Metaphysics of Quality within a growing commercialized society. The work is a fictionalized autobiography narrating a 17-day motorcycle journey across the U.S. with his son, Chris, and his friends John and Sylvia Sutherland. The trip is punctuated by numerous philosophical discussions, referred to as Chautauquas by the author, on topics including epistemology, the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of science. The interactions of these romantic philosophically driven discussions are tied by the author, who refers to his past self as Phaedrus. Author Robert M. Pirsig, a teacher of creative and technical writing at a small college, became engrossed in the question of what defines good writing, and what in general defines good, or "Quality", which he understood similar to Tao. His philosophical inventions and investigations later left him mentally ill, forcing him to reconcile with his past during his trip. "Quality . . . you know what it is, yet you don't know what it is. But that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There's nothing to talk about. But if you can't say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn't exist at all. But for all practical purposes, it really does exist."
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Details
- Bookseller
- Walden Books
(GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 42790
- Title
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
- Author
- Pirsig, Robert M
- Format/Binding
- Hardback
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good- in Very Good dust jacket
- Edition
- First Edition
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10
- 0370103386
- ISBN 13
- 9780370103389
- Publisher
- The Bodley Head Ltd
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1974
- Keywords
- 0370103386
Terms of Sale
Walden Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Walden Books
Biblio member since 2010
London, Greater London
About Walden Books
Second-hand and antiquarian booksellers since 1977, in present shop since 1979, open Thurs-Sunday, with an emphasis on History of Art and Architecture, Photography, Literature and Poetry, Literary Biography and Criticism and the the History of London.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
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