2004, ISBN: 9780375412141

Hardcover

Berkley Publishing Corporation : New York, 1977. Paperback. good/no jacket. Starlight, by Alfred Bester, a Berkley Medallion Book published by Berkley Publ… More...

Berkley Publishing Corporation : New York, 1977. Paperback. good/no jacket. Starlight, by Alfred Bester, a Berkley Medallion Book published by Berkley Publishing Corporation 1977, ISBN#: 0425034518, Soft bound, Good- condition (cover wear at corners, edges and along spine, tear on top front cover at spine, light spine crease). This is a fantastic collection of some of the best great short fiction of Alfred Bester. If you are not familiar with Besters work, this is a great chance to acquire one of his best works. Alfred Bester was born in Manhattan in 1913, the city which appears in much of his writing. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, gave law school a try, got married in 1936, and then began his long writing career. A childhood spent reading fairy tales, H. G. Wells, and the then new magazine Amazing Quarterly naturally led him to attempt to write science fiction. His first story, "The Broken Axiom," published in Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1939, won him the prize in the magazine's short story contest. He published about a dozen stories, few of which have been collected, and disappeared for the first time from science fiction. In 1942, he began writing for comics, which were just getting their start, working on popular titles such as Batman, Superman, and the Green Lantern, where he invented the Green Lantern Oath and the famous villain Solomon Grundy. A few years later he moved into radio, writing for Charlie Chan, The Shadow, and many other programs; he even directed one for awhile. When television came around he tried that too and came to hate it; he wrote about the experience in his first mainstream novel, the satirical Who He?, also published as The Rat Race, which came out in 1953. Tired of rehashing the same few plots, shocked at having been criticized for being "too original," Bester returned to science fiction as an escape, an outlet for the plots and characters that wouldn't fit into the structured, simple stories he wrote for others. He had committed himself to a life of writing, and had learned all the tricks of the trade, particularly plotting, character, and tension. It is in science fiction that he took all these skills and practiced them in double time, confounding all expectations of the genre by taking its tenets and extrapolating them out of the water, sending them into the future. "So, out of frustration, I went back to science fiction in order to keep my cool. It was a safety valve, an escape hatch, therapy for me. The ideas which no show would touch could be written as science fiction stories and I could have the satisfaction of seeing them come to life." Bester's return to science fiction was marked by "Oddy and Id," published in 1950 in John Campbell, Jr.'s Astounding under the title "The Devil's Invention" - an apt one considering Campbell's new infatuation with "dianetics," invented by another science fiction writer, L. Ron Hubbard. Bester, with great humor and a little sadness, tells of his first "demented" (his words) meeting with the editor in "My Affair with Science Fiction." He was made to read the galleys of Hubbard's first articles on dianetics, all the while feigning interest, with the editor hovering over him, every moment trying to convert him. He lies, pretending to be taken in and telling Campbell, "...the emotional wounds are too much to bear. I can't go on with this." Bester was trying desperately to hold back laughter. The editor's response: "Yes, I could see you were shaking." The experience alienated him from Campbell, an important writer and one of the genre's most influential editors, who he thought of as a mentor. Bester began to write for Horace Gold, who sought him ought for his new magazine Galaxy, which was publishing more psychology-based, less "hard" science fiction. Gold helped Bester formulate the ideas for his first science fiction novel, and gave it its title The Demolished Man (the author's working title was the much less memorable Demolition!). The novel won the first Hugo award for best novel in 1953, and the attention it received kept Bester in the science fiction field for the next ten years and allowed him to meet and befriend some of his peers (who, incidentally, called him Alfie.) Several of the stories collected in Virtual Unrealities were written during this time, many of them for the new Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine. In 1956, Alfred Bester began writing travel articles for Holiday magazine and published his second novel The Stars My Destination. It was even more unusual than his first novel and received mixed reviews, its violent passages and sexuality put off many critics. Time would prove it just as important, if not more so, than his first novel. There are even recent rumors of a movie. In the early Sixties Bester also wrote reviews for Fantasy and Science Fiction, many of them very critical of the state of the genre. Though a career writer, he never relied on science fiction for his livelihood. This fact, and his many departures from the genre, gave him outsider status. It is likely the reason his stories and novels were so unique; he did not write them in haste, as a pulp writer who needed to make the money would, and he wrote all kinds of stories. These are things he finds at fault in science fiction, whose authors, he argued, are too short-sighted in their literary aspirations, not well read, and have a deadly reliance on science fact which stifles the genre's relevance to real life. Nitpicking critics often criticized him for his bad science, most notably the editor Damon Knight who nonetheless is impressed by him. Bester's response: "I hate hard science fiction." He advocated psychological drama over technological speculations, such as in this review of the author James Blish, who he urges to take up "...drink, drugs, seduction, crime, politics...anything that will shock him into experiencing the stresses that torture people, so that he will be able to write about them with the same lucid dedication which he presently reserves exclusively for science." Though Bester was critical, it was out of love for the genre: "It's the only literary medium left in which we have a free hand. We can do any damn thing we please. And we know we have a creative reading public who will go along with us." It is speculated that Bester's critical stance may have led to his second departure from science fiction, but it was actually his decision to concentrate on his job at Holiday, where he became a senior editor in 1967. (He remained there until the magazine changed hands in 1970.) His job, he says, was too much fun. In his essay, he tells of interviews with Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, and Laurence "Sir Larry" Olivier, visits to NASA, and test driving new cars. "Reality had become so colorful for me that I no longer needed the therapy of science fiction." After this flashy career, Alfred Bester returned to science fiction in 1973 with the story "The Four-Hour Fugue," which became part of his third science fiction novel, The Computer Connection, published in 1975 to uniformly negative reviews. (He himself admits that it was an experiment that failed - "that confounded book," he called it. ) Starlight, a short story collection compiling two earlier ones, appeared in 1976. In 1980 he published the story "Galatea Galante" and Golem100, which only he considered to be his greatest novel. His last novel, The Deceivers, published in 1981, was so bad some reviewers neglected to review it for fear of offending its author. Though his later stories are good, he never recaptured the glory of his early science fiction career. Alfred Bester died in Pennsylvania in 1987, the same year the Science Fiction Writers of America gave him the Grandmaster prize of the Nebula Awards. It is time that you find out why. The table of contents contains the following stories: from The Light Fantastic: 5271009; Ms Found in a Champagne Bottle; Fondly Fahrenheit; The Four Hour Fugue; The Men Who Murdered Mohammed; Disappear Act; Hell is Forever; from Star Light Star Bright: Adam and No Eve; Time if the Traitor; Oddly and Id; Hobson's Choice; They Don't Make Life Like They Used To; Of Time and Third Avenue; Isaac Asimov; The Pi Man; Something Up There Likes Me; and My Affair with Science Fiction. The book is approximately 4 1/8 X 6 7/8 inches in size and contains 452 pages. The cover price is $1.85. Another copy of the book is currently offered on the Internet at House of Books for $12.95. For more info about this other book, Visit: http://www.alibris.com/search/detail.cfm?binding=sc&chunk=25&mtype=&qisbn=0425034518&S=R&bid=8138231597&pqtynew=&page=1&matches=14&qsort=r> Buyer pays minimal shipping - US Post Office Media Mail unless specified otherwise. If you have any questions please send me an email. Thanks for looking!, Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1977, 2.5, UsedAcceptable. There is handwriting and/or underling and or highlighting throughout the book Cover has some rubbing and edgewear. Access codes, CD's, slipcovers and other accessories may not be included., 0, New York: Warner Books, 2004-01-20. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 6x1x9. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. light edge wear to boards and jacket; Matthew Mercer and Harris Sandler are best friends who have plum jobs as senior staffers to well-respected congressmen. But after a decade in Washington, idealism has faded to disillusionment, and they're bored. Then one of them finds out about the clandestine Zero Game. It starts out as good fun-a simple wager between friends. But when someone close to them ends up dead, Harris and Matthew realize the game is far more sinister than they ever imagined-and that they're about to be the game's next victims. On the run, they turn to the only person they can trust: a 16-year-old Senate page who can move around the Capitol undetected. As a ruthless killer creeps closer, this idealistic page not only holds the key to saving their lives, but is also determined to redeem them in the process. Come play The Zero Game–you can bet your life on it., Warner Books, 2004-01-20, 3, Warner Home Video, 2001-08-28. VHS Tape. Good/Good. 7x4x1. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. excellent condition tape in worn clamshell case; A police dog finds himself pitted in a battle of wits against an accident-prone mailman and a gang of crooks (and it looks like the dog has the edge in the brains department) in this broad comedy. Agent 11 (Bob) is a bulldog trained by the FBI agent Murdoch (Michael Clarke Duncan) to sniff out drugs, and the dog's keen nose ferrets out the storage facility of Mafia kingpin Sonny (Paul Sorvino); Agent 11 has also been taught to show no mercy with criminals, and he gives Sonny a serious bite in a rather personal place. Needless to say, Sonny is not amused, and wants revenge against the pooch, so Agent 11 is put into the animal equivalent of the witness protection program. However, unlikely circumstances set the dog loose, where he soon pairs up with Gordon (David Arquette), a stunningly inept letter carrier with a long history of fending off ill-tempered pets. Gordon is attempting to impress Stephanie (Leslie Bibb), an attractive single mother, by helping to look after her son James (Angus T. Jones), and when he comes across Agent 11, he adopts the dog and names him Spot, feeling certain he can smooth out the critter's often cranky relationship with people. But Gordon doesn't know that Sonny and his henchmen are hot on Agent 11's trail and that his new best friend will lead a gang of ruthless gangsters into Stephanie and James' home. See Spot Run was originally announced as a vehicle for comedy star Martin Lawrence, but when changes in Lawrence's schedule prevented him from taking on the project, it was retooled for the talents of David Arquette. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi, Warner Home Video, 2001-08-28, 2.5, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 1993-02-02. VHS. Very Good/Very Good. 7x4x1. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. excellent condition VHS tape in lightly worn sleeve. A woman learns the value of friendship as she hears the story of two women and how their friendship shaped their lives in this warm comedy-drama. Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) is an emotionally repressed housewife with a habit of drowning her sorrows in candy bars. Her husband Ed (Gailard Sartain) barely acknowledges her existence, and while he visits his aunt at a nursing home every week, Evelyn is not permitted to come into the room because the old women doesn't like her. One week, while waiting out Ed's visit, Evelyn meets Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy), a frail but feisty old woman who lives at the same nursing home and loves to tell stories. Over the span of several weeks, she spins a whopper about one of her relatives, Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson). Back in the 1920s, Idgie was a sweet but fiercely independent woman with her own way of doing things who ran the town diner in Whistle Stop, Alabama. Idgie was very close to her brother Buddy (Chris O'Donnell), and when he died, she wouldn't talk to anyone except Buddy's girl, Ruth Jamison (Mary-Louise Parker). Idgie gave Ruth a job at the cafe after she left her abusive husband, Frank Bennett (Nick Searcy). Between her habit of standing up for herself, standing up to Frank, and serving food to Black people out the back of the diner, Idgie raised the ire of the less tolerant citizens of Whistle Stop, and when Frank mysteriously disappeared, many locals suspected that Idgie, Ruth, and their friends may have been responsible. Evelyn finds herself looking forward to her weekly visits with Ninny, and is inspired by her story to take a new pride in herself and assert her independence from Ed. Fried Green Tomatoes was based on the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by actress-turned-author Fannie Flagg, who makes a cameo appearance as the leader of a self-help group., Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 1993-02-02, 3, New York: A Dell Book, 1998-01-01. Book Club. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8x5x1. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. light edge wear to boards and jacket; Everything has come out in the wash for artist Mandy Dyer since she inherited Dyer's Cleaners. Her divorce is behind her, her future is secure, her heart is healed. Mandy's friendship with Kate Bosworth, proprietor of an antique clothing store, dates from their halcyon days of working at street fairs and dreaming great dreams. And the dress Kate wants Mandy to clean hails from another era too, a genuine 1920's Fortuny. Kate calls the creation in blue the find of her career: a ten -dollar purchase worth thousands. Its real cost is her life.Within days Mandy finds Kate murdered in her ransacked apartment, and the memory haunts her. Worse, so does the killer, evidently looking for the Fortuny. Now Mandy is searching flea markets and garage sales to unravel the mystery of where Kate found the dress. But the clues to Kate's death are as slippery as silk--until Mandy realizes that like Kate, the threads of past and present are weaving her destiny. And it's time to face a hard truth, a chilling betrayal...and a murderer's rage., A Dell Book, 1998-01-01, 3, 20th Century Fox, 2001-04-17. VHS Tape. Very Good/Very Good. 7x4x1. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. VHS in excellent condition in original sleeve. This lavish Shirley Temple starrer is set in New York, sometime in the 1850s. While lovable pickpocket "Professor" Eustace Appleby works the crowd, his talented granddaughter Dimples (Temple) dances for pennies. Dimples demands that Appleby stop his thieving ways, but every time he tries to follow the straight and narrow, he comes out the loser (most memorably when he's hoodwinked by a dapper con man played by John Carradine). While Dimples entertains at the home of society matron Mrs. Caroline Drew (Helen Westley), Appleby pilfers several valuable objects. This time he's caught with the goods, but Dimples gallantly takes the blame. Touched by this, Mrs. Drew adopts the little girl, enabling her to find success on the legitimate stage. Hal Erickson, Rovi, 20th Century Fox, 2001-04-17, 3, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1998-07-06. Book Club. Hardcover. Very Good/Good. 6x1x10. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. edge wear, small tears in jacket; A farmhouse destroyed by fire. A body amongst the ruins. Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner and consulting pathologist for the federal law enforcement agency ATF, is called out to a farmhouse in Virginia which has been destroyed by fire. In the ruins of the house she finds a body which tells a story of a violent and grisly murder. The fire has come at the same time as another, even more incendiary horror: Carrie Grethen, a killer who nearly destroyed the lives of Scarpetta and those closest to her, has escaped from a forensic psychiatric hospital. Her whereabouts is unknown, but her ultimate destination is not, for Carrie has begun to communicate with Scarpetta, conveying her deadly - if cryptic - plans for revenge., G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1998-07-06, 2.75, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998-02-23. Book Club. Hardcover. Good/Good. 6x1x10. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. 426 pages; edge wear to jacket and boards, small edge tears in jacket; An incomparable beauty, Lara Ivory is a dazzling movie star with the whole world at her feet. But at thirty-two, she has yet to find a man who is capable of coexisting with such a tempting object of desire -- a woman who becomes the center of attention wherever she goes. Lara's ex-husband, Richard Barry, is a successful veteran film director now married to Nikki, a feisty costume designer. Nikki is strong and stubborn, and likes to keep Richard under her thumb. But Richard is not the kind of man who takes orders -- even from a beautiful woman. On the surface, the three are great friends. But beneath their glittering facade lies jealousy, resentment, and a bitter struggle for control. Then along comes Joey Lorenzo, a handsome actor with a mysterious past...and the trouble really begins. Glowing with all the fun and glamour Jackie Collins is famous for, this sexy, highly charged novel has got it all. Its seductive cast of characters includes Summer, a fifteen-year-old wild child, an obsessed female stalker, a crazed director, a drugged-out movie star. One by one, the men and women of Thrill! reveal all of their darkest secrets -- but not until the novel edges toward an explosive finale that will have Jackie's fans cheering for more, Simon & Schuster, 1998-02-23, 2.5, New York: Dell, 1999. Mass Market Paperback. Good. 7x4x1. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. spine creasing, edge wear; What if the Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s had actually uncovered a spy? The bestselling author of Los Alamos returns with a thrilling new novel of suspense, romance, and intrigue. Washington, 1950. The trouble with history, Nick Kotlar's father tells him, is that you have to live through it before you know how it'll come out. And for Walter Kotlar, a high-level State Department official, the stakes couldn't be an ambitious congressman has accused him of treason. As Nick watches helplessly, his family's privileged world is turned upside down in a frenzy of klieg lights and banging gavels. Then one snowy night the chief witness against his father plunges to her death and his father flees, leaving only an endless mystery and the stain of his defection. It would be better, Nick is told, to think of him as dead. But twenty years later Walter Kotlar is still alive, and he enlists Molly, a young journalist, to bring Nick a disturbing message. He badly wants to see his son; after two decades of silence and isolation, he is desperate to end his own Cold War. Resentful but intrigued, Nick agrees to accompany Molly to Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia for the painful reunion. Once in Prague, Nick finds a clandestine world where nothing is what it seems--not the beautiful city, shadowy with menace; not the woman with whom he falls in love; and most of all not the man he thinks he no longer knows, yet still knows better than anyone. For Walter Kotlar has an impossible he wants to come home and he wants Nick to help. He also has a valuable secret about what really happened the night he walked out of Nick's life--and about the deadly conspiracy that still threatens them. The Prodigal Spy is a story of fathers and sons and the loyalties that transcend borders, and of a young man's search for the truth buried in his own past, when a national drama was made personal and history itself became a crime story., Dell, 1999, 2.5, 20th Century Fox, 1996-07-01. VHS. Very Good/Very Good. 7x4x1. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. VHS tape in excellent condition in original clamshell case. A young boy overcomes his obsessive fears by discovering a love for books in this animated fantasy adventure. In a live action wraparound, Macaulay Culkin stars as Richard Tyler, an easily bullied, nervous wreck of a kid who's an expert on safety statistics. His mother and father (Mel Harris and Ed Begley, Jr.) don't know how to inspire their son to embrace life boldly. Barely able to leave the house, Richard ventures out one day, but he gets lost in a storm and ends up at a mysterious library. Inside, he slips, knocks himself unconscious and finds himself in a cartoon realm where books come to life. Guided by Adventure (Patrick Stewart), Fantasy (Whoopi Goldberg) and Horror (Frank Welker), Tyler experiences the adventures of classic novels such as Moby Dick and Treasure Island, and he even meets some famed fictional characters, such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Leonard Nimoy). Through his experiences in the pages of the legendary books, Richard confronts his phobias and learns to face life more courageously. The Pagemaster was directed by Joe Johnston, a former special effects supervisor and production designer who later directed Jumanji (1995) and October Sky (1999). Karl Williams, Rovi, 20th Century Fox, 1996-07-01, 3, 218 pages. Royal octavo (9 1/4" x 6") bound in original publisher's blue cloth with white lettering to spine in original pictorial jacket. First edition. Mickey Acuña is a man suspended between a vague past and a vaguer future. Emerging from the landscape of the Southwest, buffeted by life and licking his wounds, he moves into a YMCA to wait for a check that is coming to save him and that demands an address. As days and then weeks pass without its arrival, he picks up work - first odd jobs and then shifts at the cash register of the Y - and hangs out with his neighbors, playing handball, drinking coffee, shooting pool, getting drunk, falling in love or lust with women he meets, works with, passes on the street. In the vacuum of the Y, Mickey finds himself becoming the unwitting center of a community starved for human contact and for meaning: Sarge, with his fast-food coupons; Omar, with his drunken rages and obsession with the vanished Lucy; Rosemary, whose abundant physical presence both attracts and repels him. Mickey fights to maintain his distance and his freedom, until the narrative converges abruptly around him in a profound and shocking conclusion. Condition: Heal end pages with remainder mark, decorative stamp to front end paper, spine heal bumped else very good to fine in a fine jacket., Grove Press, 1995, 3, HarperCollins. Paperback. GOOD. Spine creases, wear to binding and pages from reading. May contain limited notes, underlining or highlighting that does affect the text. Possible ex library copy, will have the markings and stickers associated from the library. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included., HarperCollins, 2.5, Paperback. Very Good., 3, HarperCollins. Library Binding. POOR. Noticeably used book. Heavy wear to cover. Pages contain marginal notes, underlining, and or highlighting. Possible ex library copy, with all the markings/stickers of that library. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, and dust jackets may not be included., HarperCollins, 1, 393 pages. Royal octavo (9 1/2" x 6 1/4") bound in original publisher's quarter black paper with gilt lettering to spine over blue boards in original pictorial jacket. First edition. Review copy with material laid in. Upcher's lovers are all star-crossed in this with-it, literate sitcom about who's right for whom. Hope Collins, a high-powered Hamptons real estate agent, is married to husband number two, the helpless/hopeless but charming British Eddie Calder, an editor at a New York publishing house and the father of baby Booty. Hope has two older children eight-year-old Harry and six-year-old Coco by her bounder ex-husband, Craig, now a hotshot Hollywood producer. She still carries a torch for this stinker, who butters her up only so she'll come baby-sit the kids on the rare occasions they see him. Feeling the need for a Mary Poppins to set all right, Hope requires Eddie to find one, and his sister sends along 47-year-old Annabel Quick. Annabel has the training but hasn't worked as a nanny for years; her plan is to come to the U.S. to escape the shambles of her personal life in England. Will she straighten out the disastrous Collins-Calder household and find time for a bit of romance herself? This work is charming, if a bit light, with gentle befuddlement standing in for suspense. Though initially Hope seems to be quite the empty career woman, she grows on the reader, and the kids add a realistic dimension, as do in-law and co-worker problems. While Upcher's characters take a ridiculous amount of time to come to the obvious conclusions, this is still an entertaining ride. Condition: Near fine in like jacket., HarperCollins Publishers, 2001, 4, 295 pages. Octavo (8 1/2" x 5 3/4") bound in original publisher's black boards with gilt lettering to spine in original pictorial jacket. First edition. For Chief of Police Susan Wren, investigating a homicide comes with the territory, but when a young friend gets caught in the crossfire, the former big-city cop's routine work becomes a personal mission. When Dr. Dorothy, the dictatorial eldest sister of the five Barringtons (four of whom are doctors practicing together), is shot in her office, the greater part of the tragedy is the critical wounding of the most vulnerable innocent bystander - eleven-year-old Jen Bryant. To make it worse for Susan Wren, Jen was in her care that weekend, while her mother was out of town. As with any homicide investigation, Susan begins her search for the killer with the victim's family, and finds that looks can be deceiving when it comes to the successful, respected Barringtons. Once the facade of a proud and unified family is shattered by Dr. Dorothy's murder, a Pandora's box is opened, and the little Kansas community is plunged into fear and danger.Condition: Jacket with light edge wear else near fine in like jacket., St Martin's Press, 1995, 4, 367 pages. Octavo (8 3/4" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's quarter red paper with silver lettering to sine over blue boards in original pictorial jacket. First edition. 1. Smells play a major role in The Yokota Officers Club . They are even used as titles for each chapter. What effect did they have on you as a reader? 2. The central image/metaphor of the book is the perfume factory. At the end of the book, Bernie says: 'That honeysuckle is but one link in an endless limbic chain that contains all the smells of my family and of our life together.' Then she goes on to name all the smells in the book, concluding that 'each smell is a blossom that combines with all the other smells the same way real flowers would in a real perfume factory where the days of sunshine and growing, the days of storm and drought, the times of plenty, times of want, what the flowers got, what they didn't get, they're all squeezed together under preposterous pressure or boiled or tinctured or distilled into a few drops of a smell so beautiful it can make you remember everything.' Do you agree with this metaphor of how family unity/memories are created? 3. Understanding what you do about Moe, Macon, Fumiko, and Bernie, is there anything any of them could have done to change their fate? 4. Are the pressures a military life puts on soldiers--particularly the kind of military life Macon Root had, involving highly classified, highly dangerous missions--compatible with being a warm and loving spouse? Parent? 5. Have you known any military families? How much did you know about their lives? Did the novel give you a greater appreciation of those lives? 6. It seems that military brats enjoyed their peripatetic childhoods in direct relation to how extroverted they were. The more outgoing they naturally were, the more they thrived on the constant moving. How do you think you would have fared as a military child? As a military wife? 7. Have you ever had an experience similar to the one Bernie had when you return to the scene of a childhood memory and find it strangely shrunken or diminished in some way? How is this idea of a diminution, of a degradation, of, in some cases, a fall from grace, carried out in other ways in the book? In Bernie's experience of Okinawa as contrasted with her memories of Japan? In Mace's career? In the military in general from World War II to the Vietnam War? In Moe's experience both with the military and with her marriage? 8. Did you ever reveal a secret as a child? What were the consequences? Can Bernie or any child of that age be held responsible for unkept secrets? 9. Moe and Mace seem to have come to a stalemate in their marriage. Who is responsible? What do you predict will happen to them? What do you think should happen? 10. Contrast the two mothers in the book, Moe and Fumiko's mother. How does each one react to the stresses placed upon her and her family by their respective countries? 11. One of the themes of the novel is silence, the silence of men flying reconnaissance missions, but more especially the silence of the women around them. How does each of these characters find her voice: Bernie? Moe? Fumiko? 12. This novel straddles the line between fiction and memoir. Does it take the best from each approach or the worst? What do you like and dislike about the two different approaches? 13. Did you believe that Mace and Fumiko had had an affair? Were you relieved that they hadn't? 14. Since Bernie could not have ever seen her father acting as Wingo's co-pilot, how is the crucial relationship they had in flight demonstrated? 15. Humor and tragedy collide throughout the novel. Do you prefer fiction that blends these parts of life or keeps. Condition: Near fine in like jacket., Alfred A Knopf, 2001, 4<

2003, ISBN: 9780375412141

Paperback. Like New., 5, Counterpoint, 2003. Ex-Library. Trade Paperback. Very Good. GREAT BOOK! NO SPINE CREASES & MILD WEAR ON LAMINATED COVER. A FEW LIBRARY STAMPS, NO MARKINGS… More...

Paperback. Like New., 5, Counterpoint, 2003. Ex-Library. Trade Paperback. Very Good. GREAT BOOK! NO SPINE CREASES & MILD WEAR ON LAMINATED COVER. A FEW LIBRARY STAMPS, NO MARKINGS IN TEXT. Description: In her first collection of short stories, Beth Goldner looks at loss-of love, of health, of life-through the lives of ordinary women in extraordinary circumstances . The women of Wake are suffering-or have suffered-a profound loss, loss that has left them seeking renewal or perhaps just escape. Sometimes they long for a husband, a baby, a trinket, sometimes for something far more elusive. In the title story, two sisters are slowly losing their parents to mental illness. In "Cardiff-by-the-Sea," a man who lost his sight in Vietnam is reborn through a new relationship with a daughter he didn't know he had. In "Plan B," a woman loses her husband to an affair with a much younger woman-and loses her grip on sanity at the same time. In "Outcomes," we meet a hospice worker who steals an inconsequential token from the patients she watches die, her own strange, unethical, but intimate ritual to the life cycle. This bravura performance from a fresh literary voice, bringing together a diversity of characters in various stages of life, will touch and surprise readers as it reveals some of life's smallest but most rewarding possibilities., Counterpoint, 2003, 3, St. Martin's Griffin. Paperback. GOOD. Spine creases, wear to binding and pages from reading. May contain limited notes, underlining or highlighting that does affect the text. Possible ex library copy, will have the markings and stickers associated from the library. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included., St. Martin's Griffin, 2.5, 367 pages. Octavo (8 3/4" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's quarter red paper with silver lettering to sine over blue boards in original pictorial jacket. First edition. 1. Smells play a major role in The Yokota Officers Club . They are even used as titles for each chapter. What effect did they have on you as a reader? 2. The central image/metaphor of the book is the perfume factory. At the end of the book, Bernie says: 'That honeysuckle is but one link in an endless limbic chain that contains all the smells of my family and of our life together.' Then she goes on to name all the smells in the book, concluding that 'each smell is a blossom that combines with all the other smells the same way real flowers would in a real perfume factory where the days of sunshine and growing, the days of storm and drought, the times of plenty, times of want, what the flowers got, what they didn't get, they're all squeezed together under preposterous pressure or boiled or tinctured or distilled into a few drops of a smell so beautiful it can make you remember everything.' Do you agree with this metaphor of how family unity/memories are created? 3. Understanding what you do about Moe, Macon, Fumiko, and Bernie, is there anything any of them could have done to change their fate? 4. Are the pressures a military life puts on soldiers--particularly the kind of military life Macon Root had, involving highly classified, highly dangerous missions--compatible with being a warm and loving spouse? Parent? 5. Have you known any military families? How much did you know about their lives? Did the novel give you a greater appreciation of those lives? 6. It seems that military brats enjoyed their peripatetic childhoods in direct relation to how extroverted they were. The more outgoing they naturally were, the more they thrived on the constant moving. How do you think you would have fared as a military child? As a military wife? 7. Have you ever had an experience similar to the one Bernie had when you return to the scene of a childhood memory and find it strangely shrunken or diminished in some way? How is this idea of a diminution, of a degradation, of, in some cases, a fall from grace, carried out in other ways in the book? In Bernie's experience of Okinawa as contrasted with her memories of Japan? In Mace's career? In the military in general from World War II to the Vietnam War? In Moe's experience both with the military and with her marriage? 8. Did you ever reveal a secret as a child? What were the consequences? Can Bernie or any child of that age be held responsible for unkept secrets? 9. Moe and Mace seem to have come to a stalemate in their marriage. Who is responsible? What do you predict will happen to them? What do you think should happen? 10. Contrast the two mothers in the book, Moe and Fumiko's mother. How does each one react to the stresses placed upon her and her family by their respective countries? 11. One of the themes of the novel is silence, the silence of men flying reconnaissance missions, but more especially the silence of the women around them. How does each of these characters find her voice: Bernie? Moe? Fumiko? 12. This novel straddles the line between fiction and memoir. Does it take the best from each approach or the worst? What do you like and dislike about the two different approaches? 13. Did you believe that Mace and Fumiko had had an affair? Were you relieved that they hadn't? 14. Since Bernie could not have ever seen her father acting as Wingo's co-pilot, how is the crucial relationship they had in flight demonstrated? 15. Humor and tragedy collide throughout the novel. Do you prefer fiction that blends these parts of life or keeps. Condition: Near fine in like jacket., Alfred A Knopf, 2001, 4<

2001, ISBN: 9780375412141

Paperback, Hardcover

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. Very good++ (lightly soiled top and bottom edges, owner's name on ffep) in Fine dust jacket. A huge, rambling McMurtry--542 pages--with this opening sent… More...

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. Very good++ (lightly soiled top and bottom edges, owner's name on ffep) in Fine dust jacket. A huge, rambling McMurtry--542 pages--with this opening sentence to give you an idea of the overall tone: "Duane was in the hot tub, shooting at his new doghouse with a .44 Magnum." How can you resist that?. 1st Edition. Hard Cover., Simon & Schuster, 1987, 0, Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fairview Press, 1994. Edition Not Specified. Very Good +/No DJ. 12mo = 7-9". Diane Palmisciano. Printing Not Spec. Trade paperback. Illustrated front cover. Slight bumping on front corners. Very clean with tight binding. TV's Captain Kangaroo presents ideas for wholesome family fun and activities., Fairview Press, 1994, 3, 367 pages. Octavo (8 3/4" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's quarter red paper with silver lettering to sine over blue boards in original pictorial jacket. First edition. 1. Smells play a major role in The Yokota Officers Club . They are even used as titles for each chapter. What effect did they have on you as a reader? 2. The central image/metaphor of the book is the perfume factory. At the end of the book, Bernie says: 'That honeysuckle is but one link in an endless limbic chain that contains all the smells of my family and of our life together.' Then she goes on to name all the smells in the book, concluding that 'each smell is a blossom that combines with all the other smells the same way real flowers would in a real perfume factory where the days of sunshine and growing, the days of storm and drought, the times of plenty, times of want, what the flowers got, what they didn't get, they're all squeezed together under preposterous pressure or boiled or tinctured or distilled into a few drops of a smell so beautiful it can make you remember everything.' Do you agree with this metaphor of how family unity/memories are created? 3. Understanding what you do about Moe, Macon, Fumiko, and Bernie, is there anything any of them could have done to change their fate? 4. Are the pressures a military life puts on soldiers--particularly the kind of military life Macon Root had, involving highly classified, highly dangerous missions--compatible with being a warm and loving spouse? Parent? 5. Have you known any military families? How much did you know about their lives? Did the novel give you a greater appreciation of those lives? 6. It seems that military brats enjoyed their peripatetic childhoods in direct relation to how extroverted they were. The more outgoing they naturally were, the more they thrived on the constant moving. How do you think you would have fared as a military child? As a military wife? 7. Have you ever had an experience similar to the one Bernie had when you return to the scene of a childhood memory and find it strangely shrunken or diminished in some way? How is this idea of a diminution, of a degradation, of, in some cases, a fall from grace, carried out in other ways in the book? In Bernie's experience of Okinawa as contrasted with her memories of Japan? In Mace's career? In the military in general from World War II to the Vietnam War? In Moe's experience both with the military and with her marriage? 8. Did you ever reveal a secret as a child? What were the consequences? Can Bernie or any child of that age be held responsible for unkept secrets? 9. Moe and Mace seem to have come to a stalemate in their marriage. Who is responsible? What do you predict will happen to them? What do you think should happen? 10. Contrast the two mothers in the book, Moe and Fumiko's mother. How does each one react to the stresses placed upon her and her family by their respective countries? 11. One of the themes of the novel is silence, the silence of men flying reconnaissance missions, but more especially the silence of the women around them. How does each of these characters find her voice: Bernie? Moe? Fumiko? 12. This novel straddles the line between fiction and memoir. Does it take the best from each approach or the worst? What do you like and dislike about the two different approaches? 13. Did you believe that Mace and Fumiko had had an affair? Were you relieved that they hadn't? 14. Since Bernie could not have ever seen her father acting as Wingo's co-pilot, how is the crucial relationship they had in flight demonstrated? 15. Humor and tragedy collide throughout the novel. Do you prefer fiction that blends these parts of life or keeps. Condition: Near fine in like jacket., Alfred A Knopf, 2001, 4<

2001, ISBN: 9780375412141

367 pages. Octavo (8 3/4" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's quarter red paper with silver lettering to sine over blue boards in original pictorial jacket. First edition. 1. Smells p… More...

367 pages. Octavo (8 3/4" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's quarter red paper with silver lettering to sine over blue boards in original pictorial jacket. First edition. 1. Smells play a major role in The Yokota Officers Club . They are even used as titles for each chapter. What effect did they have on you as a reader? 2. The central image/metaphor of the book is the perfume factory. At the end of the book, Bernie says: 'That honeysuckle is but one link in an endless limbic chain that contains all the smells of my family and of our life together.' Then she goes on to name all the smells in the book, concluding that 'each smell is a blossom that combines with all the other smells the same way real flowers would in a real perfume factory where the days of sunshine and growing, the days of storm and drought, the times of plenty, times of want, what the flowers got, what they didn't get, they're all squeezed together under preposterous pressure or boiled or tinctured or distilled into a few drops of a smell so beautiful it can make you remember everything.' Do you agree with this metaphor of how family unity/memories are created? 3. Understanding what you do about Moe, Macon, Fumiko, and Bernie, is there anything any of them could have done to change their fate? 4. Are the pressures a military life puts on soldiers--particularly the kind of military life Macon Root had, involving highly classified, highly dangerous missions--compatible with being a warm and loving spouse? Parent? 5. Have you known any military families? How much did you know about their lives? Did the novel give you a greater appreciation of those lives? 6. It seems that military brats enjoyed their peripatetic childhoods in direct relation to how extroverted they were. The more outgoing they naturally were, the more they thrived on the constant moving. How do you think you would have fared as a military child? As a military wife? 7. Have you ever had an experience similar to the one Bernie had when you return to the scene of a childhood memory and find it strangely shrunken or diminished in some way? How is this idea of a diminution, of a degradation, of, in some cases, a fall from grace, carried out in other ways in the book? In Bernie's experience of Okinawa as contrasted with her memories of Japan? In Mace's career? In the military in general from World War II to the Vietnam War? In Moe's experience both with the military and with her marriage? 8. Did you ever reveal a secret as a child? What were the consequences? Can Bernie or any child of that age be held responsible for unkept secrets? 9. Moe and Mace seem to have come to a stalemate in their marriage. Who is responsible? What do you predict will happen to them? What do you think should happen? 10. Contrast the two mothers in the book, Moe and Fumiko's mother. How does each one react to the stresses placed upon her and her family by their respective countries? 11. One of the themes of the novel is silence, the silence of men flying reconnaissance missions, but more especially the silence of the women around them. How does each of these characters find her voice: Bernie? Moe? Fumiko? 12. This novel straddles the line between fiction and memoir. Does it take the best from each approach or the worst? What do you like and dislike about the two different approaches? 13. Did you believe that Mace and Fumiko had had an affair? Were you relieved that they hadn't? 14. Since Bernie could not have ever seen her father acting as Wingo's co-pilot, how is the crucial relationship they had in flight demonstrated? 15. Humor and tragedy collide throughout the novel. Do you prefer fiction that blends these parts of life or keeps. Condition: Near fine in like jacket., Alfred A Knopf, 2001, 4<