New York: Riverhead Books, 2012. dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - An account of the twenty years Sweet spent at San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital, the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hotel-Dieu (GodÕs hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. "Victoria Sweet writes beautifully about the enormous richness of life at Laguna Honda, the chronic care hospital where she has spent the last twenty years, and the intense sense of place and community that binds patients and staff there. Such community in the medical world is vanishingly rare now, and Laguna Honda may be the last of its kind... God's Hotel is a most important book which raises fundamental questions about the nature of medicine in our time. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the 'business' of healthcare Ð and especially those interested in the humanity of healthcare." (Oliver Sacks, M.D.) SIGNED on the title page. Notes. 372 pp. ISBN: 978-1594488436.

Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, (1992) dj. Hardcover first edition - Winner of the 1991 Elliott Rudwick award. A discussion of three phases of slave resistance in the Anglo Americas. The first from the 1730s to the 1760s was usual sudden and violent and rooted in African ritual; the second from the late 1760s to the early 1800s involved plantation slaves who were conservative and wary, and the third from the 1760s through the first half of the 19th century was led by assimilated Blacks, artisans and drivers, who had developed skills both on and off teh plantations. The Southern Historian called this "A brilliant and provocative work of historical anthropology and a synthetic account of slavery that firmly places the subject in a comparative and longterm context... Mullin's three-part chronology of resistance and rebellion is attractive in its simplicity and flexibility." A title in the series 'Blacks in the New World.' Appendices, notes, bibliography, index. Illustrated with maps and pictures. 412 pp. ISBN: 0-252018893.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, n.d. (ca 1880). Hardcover - Foreword on ' Fisk University's Great Necessity' dated 1880. Author's note stating that this was ".in part an abridgement of the two Jubilee Histories which were written by the Rev. G.D. Pike, one giving an account of the first campaign in America and the other of the first visit to Great Britain. But the interval between the two narratives is here bridged over, and the story is brought down to the return of the Jubilee Singers from Germany. The personal histories have been more fully written out and a large number of new songs have been added." The Jubilee singers were a small group of former slaves who embarked on their tour to raise funds for Fisk University. Illustrated, including an Albertype frontispiece photograph of the Jubilee singers - with an accompanying caption printed on the tissue guard.. Includes 128 songs. vii, 265 pp. Previous owner's name with the notation "bought when the Jubilee Singers were in Mansfield in 1880."

New York: Crown, (2012) dj. Hardcover first edition - Pulitzer Prize winning biography of General Alexandre Dumas, the father of the novelist Alexandre Dumas. In discussing this book, Reiss comments that "Napoleon buried the memory of this great man, the son of a black slave who led more than 50,000 men at the height of the French Revolution and then stood up to the megalomaniacal Corsican in the deserts of Egypt. Letters and eyewitness accounts show that Napoleon came to hate Dumas not only for his stubborn defense of principle but for his swagger and stature - over six feet tall and handsome - and for the fact that he was a black man idolized by the white French army.. . I first came across Gen. Dumas's life in the memoir of his son Alexandre, the novelist. Alex Dumas was born in Saint Domingue, later Haiti, the son of a black slave and a good-for-nothing French aristocrat who came to the islands to make a quick killing and instead barely survived. In fact, to get back to France in order to claim an inheritance, he 'pawned' his black son into slavery, but then he bought him out, brought him to Paris, and enrolled him in the royal fencing academy. . What really stuck with me from reading the memoir was the love that shows through from the son, the writer, for his father, the soldier. When he grew up, young Alexandre took a greater sort of revenge, infusing his father's life and spirit into fictional characters like Edmond Dantes and D'Artagnan." Also awarded the 2013 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography.Double page map, notes, selected bibliography, index. ix. 414 pp. ISBN: 978-0307382467.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, (1974) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - The first thorough analysis of the growth of "the Russian state from the 9th century to the 1880s, and its unique role in managing Russian society. The development of Russia was different from that of the rest of Europe. The natural poverty of geographical conditions made it extremely difficult to construct an effective regime, and a 'patrimonial' state arose in which the country was conceived as the personal property of the tsar. The book describes the evolution of this regime, and analyzes the political behaviour of the principal social groupings, peasantry, nobility, bourgeoisie and clergy, and accounts for their failure to stand up to the increasing absolutism of the tsar. The third part deals with the conflict between the intelligensia and government as it unfolded in the 19th century." INSCRIBED on the title page to noted collector, Larry Owens, and uncommon thus. Pipes was a noted Russian and Eastern Europe scholar and historian who taught at Harvard for many years, the recipient of many awards, who also served as an advisor to the CIA, although not without controversy. This was the first of his books on Russia. A title in The History of Civilization series. Illustrated with photographs, maps, notes, chronology, index. xxii, 361 pp. ISBN: 0-684140411.

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1939. Hardcover - Foreword by Whit Burnett,the editor of Story Magazine, who describes this as the most popular story ever published in the then 8 year old history of that magazine. It is a story written as a series of letters, from November 1932 to March 1934, between a Jewish art dealer, living in San Francisco, and his business partner, who had returned with his family to Germany in 1932. This, the first separate edition, reportedly sold 50,000 copies, it was translated into many languages, although the edition in German was published in Moscow and banned in Germany, and the basis for a 1944 film of the same name. A 1995 re-issue was translated into 20 languages and sold millions of copies. A 2019 review in The Guardian comments that this story, "distils the essence of the ideology that cast a deathly shadow over the 20th century. Across a few economic pages it touches the heart of the Nazi darkness. . . it illuminates not just the specific texture of the early Nazi period, but something more timeless. It serves as a guide to the way any politics of identity especially one that invokes the people, rooting that idea in blood and soil eventually, and often very rapidly, divides and polarises. Max and Martin [had found] 'warmth and understanding, where small selfishnesses are impossible and where wine and books and talk give a different meaning to existence'. But even the very best of friends can be rent apart. . . We tell ourselves, as these characters do, that friendship is eternal, that some bonds will never be broken. This short story warns us that ideology, once it has turned to fever, is stronger than friendship.. That this short, fleeting story has lasted so long is not only because of its artistic achievement, and not only because, written in 1938, it astonishingly anticipated the horror that was yet to come. It is because its prescience is not confined to its time. It saw into our own future too." An appealing small volume, uncommon in all printings of the original edition. Unpaginated (61 pp)

New York: Random House, (1976) dj. Hardcover first edition - Her second novel. Toni Morrison, who had only published two novels herself at that time, was her editor at Random House for both of her first two novels. These first two books "form a diptych exploring the undercurrents of the psyche in a world of slave-owners, whoremongers, prostitutes, killers, man-eaters, jealous husbands, wayward wives, psych-ward inmates, pedophiles, wife-beaters, women in love with their abusers, and girls who carry knives. Nobody goes to church much." (author Calvin Baker). ÊJones was one of the first writers to show how the tentacles of slavery have extended into Black lives into the present day. Jones was recently the subject of an Atlantic Monthly article entitled "The Best American Novelist Whose Name You Might Not Know." by Calvin Baker. More than two decades after her novel "The Healing" was nominated for the National Book Award, and her life was roiled by tragedy, Êa new novel -which she has been working on for decades - Êwill be published by Beacon Press in 2021. 177 pp. Striking dust jacket design by Wendell Minor.

Berkeley, CA: Frog Books, (2003) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - A memoir by the daughter of writer Irving Wallace (who introduced her to Castaneda), which describes "her complex relationship with Carlos Castaneda [as it] plunges readers deep into the reality of the Castaneda cult and the psychological terrors it perpetrated. With the skill of a master storyteller, Wallace recounts early meetings with Castaneda, shares previously unpublished material straight from the Nagual, and explores the aftermath of Castaneda's death and the long term effects of his legacy. Insightful and unwaveringly honest, Sorcerer's Apprentice is simultaneously a love story, a cautionary tale about the dangers of giving one's power to another, and a joyous account of healing and self-affirmation." INSCRIBED on the title page. Illustrated with photographs. Appendices, glossary. 521 pp. ISBN: 1-583940766.

Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, (1998) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - A later book by this Baptist minister, civil rights leader and social activist focusing on the creation of job training opportunities for African Americans (founder of the Opportunities Industrialization Centers - OIC), and as an anti-Apartheid activist. It begins in 1971 when he attended the first meeting of the Board of General Motors as a member - the first Black man to hold such a position in the US, and it also focuses on the development of what became known as the "Sullivan Principles" which used the economic strength of US corporations to dismantle apartheid in South Africa.Warmly and personally INSCRIBED on the front endpaper. Although Sullivan wrote many books, and received innumerable awards, books signed or inscribed by him are very scarce. Illustrated with photographs. foreword by Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr, list of abbreviations. Index. 300 pp. ISBN: 0-817012893.

Beverly Hills, CA: Bronzeville Books, (2000) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - The second book featuring Elliot Caprice, set in 1950s Chicago area. Caprice, a "former Chicago cop and World War II veteran, has returned to his rural childhood hometown of Southville, Illinois. to help his uncle with the family farm which is tottering on failure due to drought. Hoping for rain to bring in the string beans, Elliot takes a quick job to serve a summons in Chicago for a divorce case. His half-day job turns into weeks of murders, revelations of family secrets and old grudges, squabbles with the Irish mob," and more. One of the themes - the politics involved in how people were compensated for their land when it was acquired for the University of IllinoisÕ Chicago Campus - is still relevant today, and an area where there is growing awareness of the extent of past injustices and especially how it affected Black families for generations to come. Gardner has commented that he hopes writing about wrongs can help right some wrongs. INSCRIBED on the title page. 284 pp. ISBN: 97-1952427060.

Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1937. dj. Hardcover - Novel for older girls set on the coast of New Jersey and involving an unsolved mystery from Revolutionary days. Even Seaman's books which had many printings have become very hard to find in recent years, and this title - issued in the midst of the Depression - had, as far as is known, only a first printing of only 5,000 copies (many of which went to libraries) and 2 presumably smaller later printings in 1937 and 1940, making it one of her most uncommon novels. Since it is also one of her best-realized and most satisfying books with a great ending, the fact that it is so hard to find is doubly disappointing. Illustrated by Manning De V. Lee with a 3 color frontispiece, green and white illustrated endpapers, and a portion of a 1765 map. 273 pp.

New York: William H. Morrow / Quill, (1983). First edition - An important and uncommon anthology - from the back cover: "Renowned poet and dramatist Amira Baraka and his wife, poet Amina Baraka, bring together here the work of forty-nine black women writers who represent a body - genre - of American literature that is just beginning to receive widespread recognition. This book . . embraces a variety of themes: a consciousness of oppression on all levels; a sense of history and ancestral past; the struggles inherent in any love relationship; and the redefinition of the 'black woman.' Includes Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Walker, Toni Cade Bambara, Alice Walker, June Jordan, and Alexis De Veaux to name a few - as well as newer writers, some of whom are published here for the first time." Among the other authors are Gayl Jones, Shirley Ann Williams, Faith Ringold, Mari Evans, Nikki Grimes, Audre Lorde, Sonia Sanchez and many others. Introduction by Amiri Baraka. Notes on contributors. 418 pp. ISBN: 0-688015824.

Scappoose, OR: RBA Publishing, 2006. First edition - A memoir of the 1950s and the Beat era, the pivotal decade of the 20th Century in which a Beat Generation revised the awareness of consciousness at the same time as a deceptive military-industrial complex was corporatizing the Cold War. Poet David Meltzer commented that this "is the book within the book, the history within the mystery, the mythology of the '50s, the so-called Beat Generation. Briggs reveals the real deal as a participant in that confounding history. His work is a remarkable embodiment of the personal as the political; a brave demonstration of tough insight, survival and triumph. Briggs brings it all into play - as the ongoing and complex struggle all dissident spirits had to contend with in dark yet illuminated days." Illustrated with photographs, notes, bibliography, index. Large format. 326 pp. ISBN: 0-931191213.

New York: Dial Press, 1971. dj. Hardcover first edition - A memoir by one of the most influential, controversial, and complex Black politicians of the first half of the 20th century, one which details his childhood in Harlem, his education at an all-white college, his years spent preaching the gospel, and his rise to political fame, as a flamboyant black congressman, a civil-rights activist who was also notorious for his private life. "As the congressman from Harlem, he denounced racist southern colleagues and introduced the 'Powell Amendment' to deny federal funds to projects or organizations that practiced discrimination. In 1960, he became chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, then the strongest position ever held by a black in the US government - and he became a thorn in the side of ally and foe alike. He was a maverick seldom bound by party, duty, or conventional morality, although in this book, he barely mentions the charges of corruption that led to his exclusion from Congress. Nor does he discuss his opposition to Bayard Rustin, as depicted in the recent film. Illustrated with photographs. Index. x, 260 pp. Dust jacket by Wendell Minor.

New York: The Century Co., (c. 1915). Hardcover - The first of Seaman's mysteries for girls and still one of her most popular and sought-after books. As most of her best books do, this involves solving a mystery buried in the past - in this case, during the Civil War - to solve a current mystery - what is the story behind this mysterious old house? In a nod to enduring popular culture, the two friends are reading the Sherlock Holmes book "Sign of the Four" and wish they had his mystery solving abilities. Although at least 14 printings are known withThe Century Company imprint, and this title was kept in print after Century merged with D. Appleton in 1933,this title remains rather hard to find. Illustrated with a frontispiece and 7 inserted glossy plates by C. Clyde Squires. 217 pp.

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, (1993) dj. Hardcover first edition - Although the American settlement house movement was influential in helping immigrants adjust to life in American cities, when African Americans began migrating from the rural South to cities in the North "most houses failed to redirect their efforts toward their new neighbors. Nationally, the movement did not take a concerted stand on the issue of race until after World War II. . . [Instead] Lasch-Quinn recasts the traditional definitions, periods, and regional divisions of settlement work and uncovers a vast settlement movement among African Americans. By placing community work conducted by the YWCA, black women's clubs, religious missions, southern industrial schools, and other organizations within the settlement tradition, she highlights their significance . . . Her analysis fundamentally revises our understanding of the role that race has played in American social reform." Illustrated with photographs. Includes extensive notes, bibliography and index. xii, 225 pp. ISBN: 0-807821144.

New York: Umbra, 1968. First edition - A very scarce copy of an anthology/literary journal which grew out of the Umbra Poets Workshop which ran from Manhattan's Lower East Side in New York City between 1962-1965. ÊConsidered "the first post-civil rights Black literary group, they sought to establish a voice distinct from the prevailing institutions of the 60s. . .According to the group, they had two definite goals: one, to share the experience of being Black in America; and two, to share the human quality of social awareness. Besides this, the ethos of their magazine had a particular bent to it, specifically towards the innovation, politics and race. The forward of the first issue, which is simply signed by 'The Editors (Calvin Hernton, David Henderson and Tom Dent),' Êstates that 'UMBRA is not another haphazard Ôlittle literaryÕ publication.' They believed that 'there [were] unpublished and infrequently published ethnic writers whose works are excellent, important and often far superior to those adopted few with which the standard press habitually and expediently affronts the public.' . . They wanted writers who were 'too hard on society'." (https://globalpoetics.org/society-of-umbra/) ÊThey were also credited with being a forerunner of the Black Arts movement. ÊWhile Umbra was itself an offshoot of the 1960 ÊBlack nationalist literary organization, On Guard for Freedom, founded ÊCalvin Hicks, Êmembers of this group went on to create and/or participate in many journals, among them Nkombo, Black River Journal, Callaloo, Yardbird, YÕbird, Quilt, Ear And Main St.ÊThis anthology, which could be considered the third issue of Umbra, was edited by David Henderson, and it contains contributions -including poetry, prose, photographs and art - Êfrom Sun Ra, LeRoi Jones, Langston Hughes, Calvin Hernton, Oscar Brown Jr, photographer Bob Fletcher, Henry Dumas, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Alice Walker (preceding her first novel), Bob Kaufman, Allen Ginsberg, Yusuf Rahman and many more. 66 pp, plus a review of an art exhibit and 3 pp of notes on contributors.Ê

Minneapolis: Challenge Productions, 1979. SIGNED first edition - Book 1 covers "Tom's childhood to his legal enslavement in 1865" - that is, it is an account of the earliest years of his exploitation by General Bethune, the slave owner who recognized Blind Tom's musical abilities, gave him access to a piano, but soon exploited him. "He hired out 'Blind Tom' from the age of eight years to concert promoter Perry Oliver, who toured him extensively in the US, performing as often as four times a day and earning Oliver and Bethune up to $100,000 a year, an enormous sum for the time, (equivalent to $1.5 million/year in 2004), making Blind Tom undoubtedly the nineteenth century's most highly compensated pianist. General Bethune's family eventually made a fortune estimated at $750,000 at the hands of Blind Tom. Oliver marketed Tom as a 'Barnum-style freak' advertising the transformation from animal to artist. In the media, Tom was frequently compared to a bear, baboon, or mastiff. (Wikipedia). While 'slavery' was supposedly abolished in 1865, Blind Tom remained bound to his "guardians" who continued to exploit him. Includes an introduction by Dr. Samuel A. Floyd, Jr. INSCRIBED by Southall on the title page, and also initialled underneath her photograph on the back cover. Extensive bibliographical notes, appendices. xx, 108 pp.

San Francisco: Kearny Street Workshop 1977. A scarce booklet featuring poetry and photography by members of the Kearny Street Workshop - including Teri Lee, Nelson Yee, Al Robles, Genny Lim, Janice Mirikitani and others - documenting a 10 fight attempt ing to stop the eviction of the elderly Filipinos for whom the hotel had been home for many years. Originally built as a luxury destination in 1854, moved from Jackson St to Kearny St in 1873, and rebuilt after the Great Earthquake of 1906, by 1968 it had become a low-income single-room-occupancy residential hotel in what was left of Manilatown. While originally the fight was to halt the tragic eviction process and larger community demise, it also sparked grassroots activism for affordable senior housing and was influential in developing a nationwide activist Asian American Movement. This copy has two newspaper photographs carefully taped inside the covers - in the front, the police on horseback are shown brutally riding through the phalanx of over 2000 protestors who tried to create a blockade to protect the building and in the rear is the infamous picture of Sheriff Richard Hongisto taking a sledgehammer to an apartment door, and on the final page is the handwritten comment 'Eviction carried out 8/4 at 3:00 AM" 40 pp. The front cover features a photograph of Felix Ayson standing in front of an International Hotel posting that announces a "rally to stop eviction." The eviction of the International Hotel tenants outraged the nation, and ended the developer's plans. After the building was demolished the lot stood empty for many years, until almost 30 years later, the city of San Francisco completed a new I-Hotel to provide affordable housing for senior citizens and low income residents and to house a Manila Cultural Center.

Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, (1928.). SIGNED hardcover first edition - An interesting reminder of early aviation history and an uncommon early edition of this Pulitzer prize-winning novel set on a plantation in South Carolina and written in dialect. However, far from depicting the black people of the South with the usual stereotype, they are described as "Gullahs with tall straight bodies, and high heads filled with sense." This airplane edition is SIGNED on a blank preliminary page at the front, with the number 674 (out of 1000) in the upper corner, printed on thin India paper and bound in lightweight, flexible boards. In the 1920s commercial passenger air travel was still in its first decade, and it was both uncomfortable and expensive as well as uncommon (the first stewardesses were not on planes until 1931) and the first mass market paperbacks would not appear until ten years later. An appealing small volume, measuring 6 3/4 inches tall, 4 1/2 inches wide, and just 3/8 inch in bulk. 345 pp. Illustrated endpapers.

New York: By the author, (1980). SIGNED first edition - A book which was the culmination of a series of photographs Barboza created between 1975-1980, with the publication of this funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The title refers both the black border around each photograph, which gives a unity to the book, and to the fact that most, although not all, portraits are of African Americans, of writers, artists and musicians working on the edge (or on the border) "What sets these photographs apart, and gives them their durable vitality, is their innovative use of lighting and backgrounds. . Barboza turns the dark distorted forms into expressive echoes of the sitters. Underneath setups create shadows that loom above and behind Normal Lewis and the World Saxophone Quartet, while side arrangements turn the shadows into repetitions and echoes, doubling Amiri Baraka, and James Baldwin. Barboza then went on to add a bit of blur to some of the portraits, creating the appearance of back and forth motion or elusive ghosting to Ntozake Shange and Pharoah Sanders. The backdrops that he created and employed were equally unorthodox. Rolls of hanging paper were cut, slashed, and sliced, creating abstract patters of squiggles, lines, and openings, and then overpainted with expressive dashes and arcs of silvery spray paint. . So James Van Der Zee is surrounded by a whorling swirl of shining light, Toukie Smith shares the stage with snake-like back-and-forth forms." (Loring Knoblauch, Collectordaily) . Includes poetry by Ntozake Shange and Steven Barboza and brief handwritten captions under each portrait. SIGNED on the title page by Barboza and numbered AB/72, dated 1981. Square format, unpaginated (32 pp)

London: Fontana, (1961). Fontana Books Paperback Original #605. A jazz opera play which tells the story of a black boxer in a South African shanty town - inspired by the life and death of the heavyweight boxing champion Ezekiel Dlamini. Billed as a 'Jazz-Opera', the production was first staged in Johannesburg, opening in February 1959 and even though it was a direct challenge to apartheid it was an immediate success touring the country for two years, before multi-racial audiences, and then opening in London in 1961. The author, Harry Bloom, was a South African attorney and activist who worked with Nelson Mandela during the late 1950s and was detained, without being charged, after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. Lyrics by Pat Williams. Illustrated with black and white stills from the theater production. 98 pp.

London: Thriller Book Club, (1942). Hardcover - The 11th title in the series featuring Mrs Bradley and one of the most difficult to find in any early edition - Jason Half comments that "Gladys Mitchell had a pretty low opinion of Brazen Tongue, calling it 'a horrible book' in an interview with Barry Pike decades later." but then he asks "what of this horrible book's pleasures? First and foremost would be the British-village-gearing-up-for-war backdrop, presented in fascinating detail as the town of Willington adapts to the still new and novel accoutrements of land defense. War spirit specifics are sharp and often very comic, from Mrs. Bradley knitting a khaki balaclava helmet to chauffeur George mischievously siphoning rationed gas to aid his employer.. . The number of relations represented in this book is also cause for celebration. Not only niece Sally but also her mother, Lady Selina Lestrange, make an effort, with Sally operating the radio at the Report Centre and Lady Selina investigating blackout infractions. (Says Sally: 'She loves going round and knocking up all the people in the village and telling them to cover up lights. She's passed her anti-gas stuff, too, and I believe she sleeps in her tin hat.') Formidable defense attorney (and Bradley offspring) Sir Ferdinand Lestrange oversees the Control Room at the Centre, and even the villagers make an impression, bearing surnames like Coffin and Mort or possessing outsized personalities, like Mrs. Commy-Platt, the self-proclaimed owner of Willington. Added to this, Mrs. Bradley actually gets to employ her psychiatric training when she pays a memorable visit to Doctor Lecky's asylum. The prose and dialogue are consistently fast and engaging, and though the plot may be too tangled for its own good, one cannot accuse 'Brazen Tongue' of being boring." 214 pp.

New York: Holiday House / Neal Porter, (2022) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - A fascinating and lovely book by this Caldecott winning author and illustrator - an "exploration of the tiniest components of matter conceptualized by science. The book opens with a brown-skinned child who uses a wheelchair visiting a Southwestern desert. The United States smallest bird, butterfly, and bee, in turn, alight on her finger, in close-ups that ultimately zoom in to a hair on that finger and put in motion a journey inward to the 'building blocks' of biology and physical science. The expedition moves from skin cells to molecules, then to atoms, protons, and elementary particles. Each page, ending in suspenseful sentence breaks takes readers to the next step inward. Chin's stunning watercolor and gouache illustrations, colorfully detailed and scientifically accurate, employ perspective to draw readers into observations of life and matter within the smallest possible spaces." (Horn Book) SIGNED by Chin on the title page with the comment "Look close!" Includes several pages of factual information. Large square format, unpaginated (40 pp). ISBN: 978-0823450701.

Pasadena, California: Clara Vista Press, (1951). Hardcover first edition - Autobiography of a woman defined as "a clubwoman and a philanthropist," born in New York, but who moved to California in the 1880s and made it her home for the rest of her life. While women's clubs are no longer as important in American life as they were during the Progressive Era, her contributions were wide-ranging and significant and far more extensive than this brief list: she was the first president of the California Federation of Women's Clubs, active in politics, a founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Ebell Club (originally called the International Academy for the Advancement of Women) and erected their clubhouse at her expense, director of the Southwest Museum and the Pasadena Humane Society, first woman trustee of Syracuse University (where she had been one of the founders of the Alpha Phi sorority while she was a student there), and after suffrage was gained (she was quoted as saying she was a believer in suffrage politically, socially and morally), she was an organizer of the national League of Women Voters. This book - published when she was turning 96 - depicts her life from her youngest years through the early 1900s (ending with a trip with her family to Europe and the Middle East in 1900-1901, her funding the construction of the maternity wing of the Pasadena Hospital, and some discussion of her contributions towards the building of the Temple Baptist Auditorium, later known as the Philharmonic Auditorium), with only brief excerpts of her writings and short letters for the second half of her life. Illustrated with photographs. 246 pp.

Seattle: Owl Creek Press, 1990. dj. Hardcover first edition - A tautly constructed satirical treatment of the Medea myth which explores its relationship to questions both of race and gender as told in the voices of Medea, her nurse, Jason, Polydeuces and Tamar. Early in the story, Medea comments on Jason "That he was not overly bright was apparent, though he was a talker I would not have let him touch me, but the gods... not even my gods, but some chalk-skinned, bitch voyeur caused me to fall in love with this Jason." Anyone who has read Everett's novel 'Erasure" (basis of the film 'American Fiction') will recognize the autobiographical element in that novel. Hard to find, especially in the first edition. 152 pp. Dust jacket illustration by Shere C. Everett. ISBN: 0-937699458.

New York: Viking, (1993) dj. Hardcover first edition - The first novel by one of China's most innovative writers, and his first book to appear in English, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt (with a note that, at the request of the author, this is based on the 1988 Tapei Hongfan Chinese edition which restored some of the deletions made in the 1987 Mainland Chinese edition). Mo Yan is a pseudonymic phrase meaning 'Don't speak.' Over more than 30 years, Mo Yan has been writing brutally vibrant stories about rural life in China that flout official Party ideology and celebrate individualism over conformity. He also flouts literary conformity, spiking his earthy realism with fantasy, hallucination and metafiction. The story in this book revolves around three generations of the Shandong family between 1923 and 1976 as the narrator tells the story of his family's struggles, first as distillery owners making sorghum wine and then as resistance fighters during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The first parts were the basis of the award-winning 1987 film of the same name. 359 pp. Translated by Howard Goldblatt. In 2012 Mo Yan was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. 387 pp. ISBN: -670844020.

New York: W. W. Norton & Company, (2020) dj. Hardcover first edition - A novel which begins as a sardonic teen comedy: A group of families have rented an old mansion together for the summer. The adults are all embarrassing, drunken bores, and their children, who have free run of the house, want nothing to do with them - but then it transforms to a modern-day tale of climate change which creates a shattering vision of our apocalyptic future. "Millet writes brilliantly about everything politics, physics, mermaids and shes one of the leading writers of environmental fiction. [She] addresses the existential crisis of climate change with a technical understanding of the science and a humane understanding of the heart. Shes also ferociously witty. That rare combination has made her stories about species extinction and global warming profound and weirdly amusing." (Ron Charles, Washington Post) Finalist for the National Book Award. 234 pp. A variant edition with first edition stated, but no number line, bound in gray cloth and measuring 8 3/4 inches tall, 5 3/4 inches wide. ISBN: 978-1324005032.

Chusma House Publications, (1992). SIGNED first edition - A book which combines poetry in both Spanish and English, drawings by Montoya, song lyrics and more. Rigoberto Gonzalez noted that the title "is 'joda' as in 'twenty years of struggle,' as in 'twenty years of fighting back.' A collection, commemorating two decades worth of work by Chicano poet Jose Montoya, one of the writers who pioneered the use of Calo and code-switching in American poetry, includes a portfolio with representations of Pachucas y Pachucos, Cholas y Cholos, Chicanas y Chicanos and other images reflecting a vatos worldview. 'I chose to include em,' Montoya explains in his preface, 'because they were done in el mismo espiritu that the poems were written in'." The book also includes lyrics to songs and corridos, many of which are performed by Montoyas musical group Tro Casindio. But the true engines in the book are his poems, many of which have become classics of Chicano letters, like 'El Louie', an all-attitude urban elegy and the celebrated poem 'The Movement Has Gone For Its Ph.D Over at the University or, The Gang Wars Are Back.' Born in Escoboza, New Mexico, Jos Montoya was raised there in Albuquerque and in California. He is a multidisciplinary artist: poet, painter, writer, and musician. Montoya is a founding member of the Rebel Chicano Art Front, better known as the Royal Chicano Air Force, a group of artists and poets in Sacramento, California. Boldly INSCRIBED by Montoya on the title page. 254 pp. Cover art by Jose Montoya. ISBN: 0-962453617.