Search Results: Authors starting with N from Downtown Brown Books, ABAA

London: Phaidon, 1999. First edition. Hardcover. Near fine. A large format photobook reproducing Nachtwey's grim black-and-white images of famine, war, and human suffering. Introduction by Luc Sante. 11 by 15 inches. 480 pages. First edition (states "First published..." on colophon). A near fine copy in the publisher's black cloth binding; no dust jacket, as issued.

London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co, 1887. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. An English translation from the German of the first seven (of ten) chapters of the 1877 edition of Das Mikroskop. The preface explains why this translation lacks the final three chapters: the manuscript and all but one copy of the printed edition were burned in a fire at the printers. The translation, by Frank Crisp and John Mayall Jr. had already consumed ten years, and the idea of starting all over on the last three chapters was too much. So the Royal Microscopical Society, which had arranged for the publication of this book, decided instead to reprint the book using the one surviving partial copy. Technically, this is the second printing, but since the first printing was entirely lost (even the one surviving copy would have been disassembled to make the stereo plates for this edition), I'm calling this the first edition. xi, 382 pages. First edition (see above). A solid, very good copy.

Tokyo: Nihon Rikkokai, 1940. First Edition. Trade paperback. Good. This book combines the author's philosophical views on Japanese immigration with excerpts from interviews of Japanese American immigrants. Nagata lived for many years in the United States, and returned to Japan when anti-Asian laws in California began to make life difficult for him and his compatriots. In Japan, he became the leader of the Nihon (or Nippon) Rikkokai, a Christian organization that promoted immigration to the poor in Japan. One of Nagata's main ideas ideas about the role of Japanese immigrants is as a counter to white Western society's belief in its racial superiority. Nagata argues that Japanese people by nature do not discriminate. (He notably ignores the atrocities being committed by the Japanese military in both China and Korea at the time he was writing this book.) According to Noriaki Hoshino, seemingly the only scholar to have explored Nagata's immigration views immediately before the outbreak of the Second… Read More

Los Angeles: Hakubundo Shoten, 1932. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Part history, part literary anthology, this large volume by an Issei historian devotes chapters to the Japanese exclusion laws, the history of Japanese American farming, particularly in California, and Japanese language schools. The bulk of the book is an anthology of Japanese American poetry (in Japanese) and first-person accounts by Japanese immigrants of life in the United States, mostly in California but with some contributions from the Pacific Northwest. The book begins with 36 leaves of halftone photographs, mostly two per page, and a foldout with two small panoramic photographs, one of Japanese American baseball teams and the other of a large Japanese-owned farm. One of the photographs depicts a sign at the entrance to a neighborhood in Los Angeles: "Japs don't let the sun set on you here. Keep moving. This is Rose Hill." While "sundown" towns where African Americans were not permitted to spend the night are well… Read More

New York: Harper and Brothers, 1927. First Edition. Hardcover. Good. Perhaps the first book for children written by a Japanese-American writer, a collection of adaptations of Japanese legends and fairytales. Illustrated after line drawings by S. Mizuno. Nakazawa obtained a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Oregon, and he was the first professor of Japanese descent at a major US institution, teaching at the University of Southern California for sixteen years. He was also a vice-consul with the Japanese Consulate in Los Angeles and gave speeches and wrote articles promoting Japanese culture and politics, particularly the Japanese invasion of China in the late 1930s. For this reason he was on the FBI's list of potential threats and was arrested hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Nakazawa's 1943 book Amerika gokuchu yori doho ni tsugu [Report to My Compatriots from an American Prison] is arguably the first memoir of the Japanese internment. Nakazawa was repatriated to Japan at… Read More

London: Methuen & Co, 1955. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Narayan was the first professional novelists in India (and he was one of the only writers to stay in India), and this is one of his better novels, a comic and moving tale about a hapless lad who falls for a follower of Gandhi. First edition (states "first published..." on the copyright page). Light yellow-orange cloth stamped in red at the spine. A very good or better copy in a price-clipped dust jacket missing a few small chips from the top edge and some foxing to the back panel. With a previous owner's name inside, dated 1958.

London: Tor in Association with Goldsboro Books, 2019. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. The first book in the Dragons of Terra series. This is one of 150 numbered copies. First edition (first printing). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Signed by the author on the title page. Copy 19. With a "signed copy" sticker on the front of the jacket.

London: Michael Joseph in Association with Goldsboro Books, 2021. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. An SF novel set in Nazi Germany with a visitor from another place. This is one of 500 copies with dyed edges. Published as Take Them to the Stars, Book 1. First edition (first printing). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. This is one of 500 numbered copies signed by Neuvel.

London: Michael Joseph in Association with Goldsboro Books, 2018. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. A SF trilogy about robot visitors. These books are each one of 500 copies signed by Neuvel and numbered on the limitation page; the books have dyed edges. First editions of each volume. All three books are fine in fine dust jackets. This set is one of 500 matching number sets, signed by Neuvel.

New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Very good. The paleontologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History explains evolutionary theory for a non-scientific audience. 199 pages. First edition (first printing). A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket with a couple of tears to the top edge. This is a scientific association copy of the first rank. Newell inscribed this book to his most famous graduate student, Stephen Jay Gould: "To Steve Gould my very best wishes and gratitude for showing the way! Norman D. Newell 1/25/83." Newell was Gould's dissertation advisor at Columbia University and was closely affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History, for whose magazine Steven Jay Gould wrote most of the essays that were collected in his books. The inscription likely refers to Gould's decades-long efforts to explain evolution and its concepts to a general audience, through his books and lectures. In one of Gould's best books for a… Read More

[Washington, DC]: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942. Ephemera. Near fine. The smallest of three sizes of this homefront poster promoting the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD). The artist was one of the few women to design government posters during the Second World War. According to the Long Branch, New Jersey, Daily Record (12 October 1942), Emily Newman was an advertising art student at the Pratt Institute and won a contest to design the OCD poster. The large sizes were placed on the sides of trucks; this smaller size was destined for department stores. Newman's design incorporates photo montage into her graphic design 21 by 19-1/2 inches. Poster O-473121. A near fine example, folded, as issued. This is an original World War II poster, not a reproduction.

London: Harper Voyager, 2017. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. A post-apocalyptic dark fantasy series. First editions (first printings of all three volumes, with a 1 on the copyright page). All three books are fine in fine dust jackets. All three volumes are also signed by the author. Vagrant is signed and dated with a quote from the book (signed and lined); Malice is copy 21 of 150 copies issued by Goldsboro Books with a blindstamped limitation on the title page; The Seven is copy 93 of 150 copies issued by Goldsboro Books with a blindstamped limitation on the title page.

London: Harper Voyager, 2020. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. A matching set of signed and numbered copies of this sequel to the Vagrant Trilogy. These copies were issued by Goldsboro Books with a blindstamped limitation statement on the title page. First editions (first printings of all three volumes). Fine copies in fine dust jackets. All three copies are numbered 21 of 150 and signed by the author.

Los Angeles: Shin Nichibei Shinbunsha, 1959. Hardcover. Very good. A massive (nearly 1500 pages) national directory of Japanese Americans, primarily in California but with entries from around the United States. The directory is organized by state and then city, followed by the name, address, and phone number of the head of each household and of Japanese owned businesses. The directory was supported by more than 100 pages of ads from Japanese, Japanese-American, and Japanese-friendly businesses. The city of Hiroshima, quickly rebuilding after the US dropped the atomic bomb on it, has a two page spread extolling its natural beauty and newly rebuilt facilities. Many Japanese in the US originally came from Hiroshima Prefecture and the Hiroshima Kenjinkai (Hiroshima Prefecture Association) chapters were important community organizations, particularly on the West Coast. This directory was published by the Los Angeles Japanese newspaper Shin Nichibei and printed in Japan, like most books destined for… Read More

Los Angeles: Shin Nichibei Shinbunsha, 1966. Hardcover. Near fine. A massive (nearly 1200 pages) national directory of Japanese Americans, primarily in California but with entries from 35 states and the District of Columbia. The directory is organized by state and then city, followed by the name in Roman letters, address, and phone number of the head of each household and of Japanese owned businesses. The directory was supported by more than 100 pages of ads from Japanese, Japanese-American, and Japanese-friendly businesses, some in color. This directory was published by the Los Angeles Japanese newspaper Shin Nichibei and printed in Japan, like most books destined for the Japanese community in the United States. The directory's size and geographical reach shows both it's widespread influence and close-knit nature of the Japanese American community which stayed connected in part by supplying their information to the directory and by subscribing to them. 100, 982, [3], 57 pages. OCLC: 45718230… Read More

New York: The Century Co, 1918. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Fair. Written while the author was in prison, "The Biology of Waropens with a scathing refutation of [the Manifesto of Ninety-Three German Intellectuals], dealing at length with Germany's responsibility for the war, and then proceeds to discuss and analyse every aspect of the war itself, regarded as a factor in biology and civilization."-the dust jacket. Translated from the German by Constance A. Grande and Julian Grande. xxv, 553 pages. First English-language edition. A very good copy in a fair-to-good dust jacket, missing a 2-inch triangle on the front panel, with short tears. The spine is tanned and cracking.

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960. Hardcover. Near fine/Very good. 491 pages. Niggli's classic novel of Mexican village life. Niggli (1910-1983) was born to Anglo parents in Mexico, and for much of her childhood she went back and forth between Mexico and San Antonio. Her close connection to the land of her birth inspired most of her writing. The novel was adapted into film as Sombrero, starring Ricardo Montalban. A ca. 1960s reprint that is very similar to the first edition. The easiest way to distinguish them is the title page, which in this reprint is surrounded by a frame measuring 5-1/4 inches from top to bottom. A near fine copy in the re-issue dust jacket, which is printed in black on orange paper. Jacket price-clipped and very good.

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1945. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. 491 pages. Niggli's classic novel of Mexican village life. Niggli (1910-1983) was born to Anglo parents in Mexico, and for much of her childhood she went back and forth between Mexico and San Antonio. Her close connection to the land of her birth inspired most of her writing. The novel was adapted into film as Sombrero, starring Ricardo Montalban. First edition (first printing, with statement of printing; distinguishable from the 1960s reprinting by the title page, which is enclosed in a frame measuring 6-1/4 inches from top to bottom). A beautiful copy, near fine in a like, price-clipped jacket, and very uncommon in this condition.

Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 297 pages. Extensively illustrated. First edition (first printing). Fine in a fine dust jacket.

Tacoma, WA: Washington State Historical Society, 1991. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 352 pages. First edition (first printing, with a numberline ending in 1). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket.