One day Ackerman's husband, Paul West, an exceptionally gifted wordsmith and intellectual, suffered a terrible stroke. When he regained awareness he was afflicted with aphasia--loss of language--and could utter only a single syllable: "mem." The standard therapies yielded little result but frustration. Diane soon found, however, that by harnessing their deep knowledge of each other and her scientific understanding of language and the brain she could guide Paul back to the world of words. This triumphant book is both a humane and revealing addition to the medical literature on stroke and aphasi... View More...
8vo; A square, tight copy with unmarked text. Foxing to prelims and edges. Laid in is a bookstore receipt from Joseph Tabler-Books, sold to the equally famous Wahrenbrocks Books, dated 5/18/76. Dark maroon cloth covers, moderately scuffed, although the gilt lettering is still bright. View More...
Since her suicide at age thirty, Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) has been celebrated for her impeccable and ruthless poetry, which excels at describing the most extreme reaches of Plath's consciousness and passions. Her work includes the autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, and such collections as The Collosus, Ariel, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Collected Poems. Based on exclusive interviews and extensive archival research, Rough Magic probes the events of Plath's life--including her turbulent marriage to the English poet Ted Hughes--in a biography that stands alone in its compassionate view of... View More...
In this second volume of her poignant autobiographical series, Maya Angelou powerfully captures the struggles and triumphs of her passionate life with dignity, wisdom, humor, and humanity. "A curiously heartening story in which decency, honor, truth, love do exist, imperfectly, fractionally and flickeringly, not in some Platonic realm of the ideal, but in the flawed lives of real men and women."--The Washington Post Gather Together in My Name continues Maya Angelou's personal story, begun so unforgettably in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The time is the end of World War II and there is a se... View More...
From a National Book Award-winning biographer, the first complete life of legendary gangster Al Capone to be produced with the cooperation of his family, who provided the author with exclusive access to personal testimony and archival documents. From his heyday to the present moment, Al Capone--Public Enemy Number One--has gripped popular imagination. Rising from humble Brooklyn roots, Capone went on to become the most infamous gangster in American history. At the height of Prohibition, his multimillion-dollar Chicago bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling operation dominated the organized-cr... View More...
Now a Major Motion Picture starring Dame Judi Dench from director Stephen Frears. History's most unlikely friendship--this is the astonishing story of Queen Victoria and her dearest companion, the young Indian Munshi Abdul Karim. In the twilight years of her reign, after the devastating deaths of her two great loves--Prince Albert and John Brown--Queen Victoria meets tall and handsome Abdul Karim, a humble servant from Agra waiting tables at her Golden Jubilee. The two form an unlikely bond and within a year Abdul becomes a powerful figure at court, the Queen's teacher, her counsel on Urdu and... View More...
First Edition. Inscribed to William Lanouette, author of Leo Szilard biography, 'Genius in the Shadows.' A square, tight and unmarked copy with text which appears unread. Dust jacket now protected in removable mylar. View More...
Sm 8vo; First Edition. Binding very slight cocked, otherwise a tight copy with unmarked text, altho there are a handful of pgs with light staining. Bookstore (Puerto Rican) stamp, rear free endpaper. Previous owner inscription front pastedown, in clipped dj with light staining, small chips and short tears to extremities and light fading to spine. However, the cover illustration of Carrieri surrounded by bats and with a red background shows up well. Dj now protected in removable mylar cover. View More...
The never-before-told account of the intersection of some of the most insightful minds of the 20th century, and a fascinating look at how war, resistance, and friendship can catalyze genius. In the spring of 1940, the aspiring but unknown writer Albert Camus and budding scientist Jacques Monod were quietly pursuing ordinary, separate lives in Paris. After the German invasion and occupation of France, each joined the Resistance to help liberate the country from the Nazis and ascended to prominent, dangerous roles. After the war and through twists of circumstance, they became friends, and throug... View More...
Near very good. 4to. Square, tight and unmarked text. Navy blue boards with gilt art nouveau pictorial binding designed by Mary Armstrong., Top edge gilt, fore edge deckled. Shelf wear at head and bottom of spine. 13 plates by Morris, Burne Jones and Rossetti. A very clean and bright copy of a book that is hard to find in such condition. View More...
Here is the most important autobiography from Renaissance Italy and one of the most spirited and colorful from any time or place, in a translation widely recognized as the most faithful to the energy and spirit of the original. Benvenuto Cellini was both a beloved artist in sixteenth-century Florence and a passionate and temperamental man of action who was capable of brawling, theft, and murder. He counted popes, cardinals, kings, and dukes among his patrons and was the adoring friend of--as he described them--the "divine" Michelangelo and the "marvelous" Titian, but was as well known for his ... View More...
