Search Results: Titles starting with B from ReadInk

New York: Curtis Books. Near Fine. (c.1973). First Edition. Softcover. [a nice tight copy with minor handling wear and some light age-toning to the spine]. (The Curtis Film Series) Series Mass Market PB (B&W photographs) As much a history of the various 'Poverty Row' studios that churned out B- films as of the films themselves,this excellent work remains one of the best on its subject. Reprinted several times, this is the original low-budget, cheaply-produced paperback -- the first entry, I believe, in the "Curtis Film Series," produced under the general editorship of Leonard Maltin. As Maltin noted in an introductory comment to the 1987 reprint, although the original "was released with a minimum of fanfare -- or distribution -- word of it spread throughout the film buff community like wildfire; here, in a modest little paperback, was the most comprehensive history of B movies ever published -- a gold mine of facts and observations the likes of which had never… Read More

New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.. Very Good+ in Good dj. (c.1948). First Edition. Hardcover. [light wear to book at extremities, a touch of soiling to top of text block, small bookseller's rubber-stamped name on front pastedown (Bertrand Smith's Acres of Books, Long Beach, Calif.); jacket very worn, with tears and paper loss at several corners, more pronounced at spine ends]. The author's second novel, set in the community of American expatriates in Buenos Aires, where (per the jacket blurb) she had "made her home for many years" (and where part of her first novel, "The Restless" (1946), also took place). Although she continued to contribute short fiction to various magazines, she published no more books prior to her death from cancer in 1957, at the age of 42. (A posthumous collection of her stories, with the ironic title "A Little More Time," was published in 1960.) .

New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. Good. 1924. 2nd printing before publication. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [worn copy, both hinges cracked but holding, front endpaper removed, rubbing/bumping at most corners, surface wear to covers, long-ago child owner's name and address in pencil on front pastedown]. (6 color plates) INSCRIBED and SIGNED by Diana Serra Cary/"Baby Peggy" (signed with both names) on the half-title page; the inscription is undated, but the content places it as no earlier than circa 2003. A collection of two dozen fairy tales other children's fare, including some classic selections (from Hans Christian Andersen, the Brother Grimm, and the like) and more then-contemporary pieces by Thornton Burgess, Joel Chandler Harris, etc. The conceit is that "Baby Peggy," who for a few brief years in the 1920s was a huge movie star, had selected "the stories I like best to read or get somebody to tell to me." I'm not saying the… Read More

Montreal: Kylix Media Inc.. Near Fine. 1991. First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket; as issued) [nice copy, essentially as-new but with a former owner's name and date & pace of purchase written in ink on the rear pastedown, and a crescent-shaped scrape mark on the front cover (which looks much worse in the scanned image than it does to the eye)]. A wine-themed Sherlock Holmes pastiche. Limited to 150 copies, "specially bound and signed by the author," this being No. 138; all this stated on a limitation page in the front of the book, which bears the author's signature. A 2-page appendix contains "wine notes" on 26 different wines mentioned in the course of the story, which opens with Holmes speaking this line to Watson: "An interesting little wine, Watson. But does not its presumption amuse you?" (So now you know: in addition to being a brilliant detective, an egomaniac, and a drug addict, Holmes was also a wine snob.) .

New York: Grosset & Dunlap. Near Fine in Good dj. (c.1915). Reprint. Hardcover. [a solid copy with minimal shelfwear, just a touch of dust-soiling to the top of the text block, bookseller's rubber-stamp at upper left corner of front pastedown; jacket is soiled and rubbed but still presentable despite several tape-repairs (internal and external) along the top and bottom edges]. (B&W frontispiece illustration) Novel about "varying types of men affected in different ways by college ideals in meeting the world as we know it today." As explained in a contemporary review: "One of the bachelors is a self-made man without the veneer of society training; another is a polished, perfectly conventional afternoon tea type, while the third is a recluse embittered with life and its fascinations. How the three men get together through the agency of one woman furnishes the romance of the book." Orcutt (1870-1953) was primarily known as a book and typeface designer, and… Read More

New York: Berkley Books. Near Fine. 1994. First Edition. Softcover. [very slight wear to several corners of front cover, otherwise nice and clean]. Trade PB (B&W photographs) INSCRIBED and SIGNED by Adam West on the title page, with an additional handwritten note from West to the inscribee, laid in. The author recounts his experience of portraying Batman in the campy 1960s TV series. Includes a full annotated episode guide to the series. From the author's prefatory note: "It is certainly not my intention to celebrate anything about myself within these pages. Bookshelves are heavy with autobiography. To add my two cents' worth of glowing comments on my life and times seems an unworthy exercise. This modest book is not the memoirs of an aging actor, nor written simply for the pleasure of the author. This book is for the many loyal Batfans who have asked for it." Signed by Author .

New York: Farrar & Rinehart. Good in Fair dj. (c.1934). First Edition. Hardcover. [worn but intact copy, apparently an ex-rental library book (although marked as such only by the rubber-stamped name "James Pharmacy" on both endpapers); the jacket shows quite a bit of wear (creasing, soiling, etc.), and has a chip at the top of the front panel and another (patched crudely with white paper) at the lower right corner; in addition, the jacket has been reinforced with tape along the top and bottom edges; oh, and the front flap is also firmly affixed to the front pastedown, which unfortunately makes it impossible to put a mylar protector on the jacket]. This "up-to-the-minute romance [is] fresh, impudent and filled with pungent commentary on the ways and manners of 'today's rather complex series of younger generations.'" More specifically, it deals with a couple of orphaned sisters who are taken in by an aunt who is "pretty set in her Victorian… Read More

New York: Roy Publishers. Very Good in Fair dj. (c.1946). First Edition. Hardcover. NOISBN . [solid copy, minor bumping at several corners, light soiling to page edges, small faint bookseller's stamp at bottom of front pastedown; jacket heavily worn at edges, with numerous small tears, soiling, etc.] "It was just a casual impulse that sent Corporal Blackie backstage to visit his friend Joe -- an impulse which carried him into the life of Eileen, the red-haired strip-teaser. This is their story, and the story of Norman, Eileen's husband, married just a few weeks before he was shipped out to Africa, to lose both hands, win the Military Medal and fall in love with his courageous young nurse. It is the story of Gerry, for whom Blackie was not glamorous enough; of John, who was lonely, but who could not face what the company psychiatrist discovered about him." The author, in his first novel, has constructed the narrative out of "letters, bits of conversation,… Read More

New York: House of Field Inc.. Good in Poor dj. (c.1938). Unstated ed. Hardcover. NOISBN . [soiling and uneven fading to cloth, soiling to page edges, ffep removed with consequent weakening of front hinge; jacket is edgeworn with various small tears, but downgraded to "Poor" due to large piece (about 1/6 of total area) missing from bottom right-hand corner of front panel (taking most of the author's name with it)]. "A love story 'tis true, but unlike any other -- not the love of man for woman, of parent for child, or friend for friend; none of these, but a passionate all-consuming love of daughter for mother, as inversion of material instinct as it were." Takes place against "a background that extends from the theatre of New York and London of the present day, to the life and tragic death of Joan of Arc [wonder how they worked that in?] more than five hundred years ago." The author is described on the jacket as a New York corporate lawyer who had also… Read More

San Diego: The San Diego Historical Society. Fine. 1982. First Edition. Spiral bound. [nice clean copy, essentially as-new]. (sepia-tone photographs) A nicely-produced calendar/datebook illustrated with "a sampling of the many hundreds of photographs from both expositions [in 1915-1916 and 1934-1937] that are contained with the Society's Title Insurance and Trust Collection." Yeah, OK, so it's from 1982 -- but it'll be completely accurate again in 2027! (Plan ahead, I always say.) .

London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson. Near Fine in Very Good dj. 1936. First Edition. Hardcover. [good sound clean book, one-time owner's signature on ffep, very slight bumping to bottom rear corner; jacket has tiny tears and very slight paper loss at several corners, a little more pronounced (but still small) paper loss at base of spine and top front corner of spine]. Novel based on one of the more horrifying subplots, so to speak, of World War I: the fate of a group of Serbian girls who were evacuated from Belgrade in July 1914 to the Monastery of St. Roman, deep in the Balkans. When the old monks fled in the face of invading armies, the children, "abandoned in [the] forlorn and desolate monastery . . . starved, but had all manner of adventures, finally being sold into virtual slavery to Bulgarians. Their names were changed and they were lost to their parents." Although the novel focuses primarily on the story of one girl, Desa, "it is also an epic of the war and tells… Read More

Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin Company / Atheneum Publishers. Fine in Very Good dj. (c.1963). Fireside Theatre BCE. Hardcover. [nice clean copy with no discernible wear; jacket has one itty-bitty nick at top of front panel, small tears and a tiny piece missing mid-spine]. (B&W photographs) This adaptation of McCullers's Southern Gothic novella about a small-town woman and her tragic love affair was produced on Broadway in the 1963/64 season, with Colleen Dewhurst in the lead, and had a respectable run of 123 performances; it was re-adapted for a film version in 1991. .

New York: Plume/Penguin. Very Good+. 1995. First Edition. Softcover. 0452272947 . [covers clean and bright, tiny nick at right edge of front cover, very slight bump/dog-earing to bottom right corner of front cover]. Trade PB "It's the year 2000 [ahem], and baseball has changed dramatically. Dan Quayle is the new commissioner, the Yankees have moved to New Jersey, and the Supreme Court has ruled that women can play in the major leagues. Enter Louise 'Balls' Gehrig, sporting baby blue eyes and a smile that can steal a heart almost as quickly as she can steal a base. As first baseperson for the expansion Manhattan Meteorites, she's about to break baseball's gender barrier and change America's pastime forever." A trade paperback original. .

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Near Fine in Very Good dj. (c.1974). First Edition. Hardcover. [minor bumping and slight wear to bottom corners of book; jacket moderately soiled, with a bit of damage (small scraped area and puncture tear) to spine (obliterating most of THE in title), short closed tear at to of rear panel, faint shadow of removed price sticker on front panel]. Described in the jacket blurb as the author's "first picturebook for children," this freakishly-illustrated tale features the chronically noise-making titular family -- with parents who appear to have serious rage-management issues. (The term "nuclear family" might take on a little extra meaning when applied to this crew!) .

London: Michael Joseph. Very Good in Very Good dj. 1977. First Edition. Hardcover. 0718115937 . [good sound copy, light shelfwear to bottom edge, small red lip print on bottom edge of text block (presumably a remainder mark); jacket moderately rubbed, no tears or chips, a touch of wrinkling along top edge of front panel]. (pen and ink drawings) The author's second book about dogs, and his first about the "grueling but hilarious adventures" of the title pooch, a mongrel pup rescued from drowning in Leeds, England, who subsequently "became a delinquent in the back streets of Leeds, the instinct for survival gradually taking over and replacing his trust in humans." .

New York/London: Harper & Brothers. Near Fine. 1929. 5th printing. Hardcover. (no dust jacket, but encased and protected by a new, professionally-produced FACSIMILE jacket) [a very nice copy, the gilt spine lettering a bit rubbed but otherwise the book is unblemished, and has an attractive vintage bookseller's label (from The Satyr Book Shop, Hollywood) on the rear pastedown]. The second of three novels by this Jamaican-born author, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Set along the Marseilles waterfont, its protagonist is a jazz musician, making his away among "the flotsam and jetsam of the human tide [which] sweep into Marseilles from every corner of the world." Please NOTE that this book comes with a new FACSIMILE dust jacket (see second scanned image), but this has not been factored into our pricing. .

New York: Longmans, Green and Company. Good+. 1937. First Edition. Hardcover. NOISBN . (no dust jacket) [solid enough copy, but with some evident wear (boards exposed at all corners), some white scuff marks on spine, previous owner's signature (in pencil) on ffep]. Third novel by this Texas-born author, and a sequel to his second ("The Wind Blew West," 1935). An autobiographical fictionalization, about a young man who leaves his Texas hometown, falls in with other American expatriates in Paris, and eventually returns to America. (The author himself had lived in the south of France for part of the 1920s, and also worked in Paris with Robert McAlmon, who published Lanham's first novel, "Sailors Don't Care," in 1929.) .

Toronto: Reginald Saunders. Very Good+. 1940. First Canadian Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [good sound copy, gilt spine lettering dulled but still fully readable, some discoloration to endpapers and also to pp. 80-81 (where a newspaper clipping or some other piece of acidic paper had once been laid in)]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the front endpaper: "Cordial Greeting: / Robert Service." A relatively late work by the immensely popular British-Canadian poet (1874-1958) who was known as "the Bard of the Yukon" (and was sometimes called "the Canadian Kipling," which was not always meant, or taken, as a compliment). Whatever you may think of such doggerel as "The Ballad of Salvation Bill" or "Bessie's Boil," Service's relentlessly rhyming verse made him both famous and rich, the latter sufficiently to enable him to travel widely and to live for most of the rest of his life (after leaving Canada in 1913) in France,… Read More

(n.p.): The American Film Institute. Very Good+. 1987. First Edition. Stapled wraps. [a bit of wear at the spine ends, very slight bends at corners of front cover]. (B&W photographs, facsimiles) Tribute book commemorating the presentation of the AFI's Fifteenth Life Achievement Award to Ms. Stanwyck -- only the third woman to have been honored (thus far) since the inception of the award in 1973. Following brief introductory pieces by Jeanine Basinger and Diane Kolyer (and excerpts from previously-published works by Frank Capra and Frank S. Nugent), most of the book is devoted to full-page sponsored ads, each with a still or related image from one of her movies with an informative caption. Includes a filmography with basic credits and a couple of pages of propaganda about the AFI. .

New York: Stackpole Sons. Very Good in Very Good- dj. (c.1937). First Edition. Hardcover. NOISBN . [solid copy, some wear to the lower extremities (slight fraying at bottom corners and base of spine), light dust-soiling to top edge; jacket has minor tears at a couple of corners, small nick at fore-edge of front panel, slight paper loss around top of spine (no text affected), moderate soiling]. Historical romance set against the backdrop of the American war with Tripoli (1801-1805). "The infant American Republic had no navy with which to fight pirates at the beginning of the nineteenth century -- and that is how the young American physician, who is the hero of [this book], came to be captured, held as a slave, and projected into a torrid romance in the harem of a Barbary king in Tripoli. Corsairs, harem girls, international intrigue, war and high romance are the ingredients of [the story]. Rich in atmospheric detail and local color, [the novel] is an exciting historical romance --… Read More