Werner Herzog

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

New Jersey

Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

One of the most revered filmmakers of our time, Werner Herzog wrote this diary during the making of Fitzcarraldo, the lavish 1982 film that tells the story of a would-be rubber baron who pulls a steamship over a hill in order to access a rich rubber territory. Later, Herzog spoke of his difficulties when making the film, including casting problems, reshoots, language barriers, epic clashes with the star, and the logistics of moving a 320-ton steamship over a hill without the use of special effects. Hailed by critics around the globe, the film went on to win Herzog the 1982 Outstanding Director Prize at Cannes. Conquest of the Useless, Werner Herzog's diary on his fever dream in the Amazon jungle, is an extraordinary glimpse into the mind of a genius during the making of one of his greatest achievements.

Conquest of the Useless

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David Sterritt

Like new except for slight bend in Upper right cover - probably got stuck putting in the shelves. 

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Interviews

Some thirty years ago filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard told critic Gene Youngblood, I am trying to change the world. He has pursued his revolution in works ranging from the explosive Breathless to the eloquent Contempt to the controversial Hail Mary and the postmodern Histoire(s) du cinéma, shaking up conventional formulas with boldly innovative ap-proaches to every aspect of cinema and video-including film criticism via provocative essays in Cahiers du Cinéma and interviews dating to the early years of his career. This book presents a varied selection of his conversations with critics, scholars, and journalists, spanning the 1960s to the 1990s and illuminating key facets of his life, work, and ideas. Topics include the seductiveness of cinema (Films are the only things by which to look inside of people, and that's why people are so fond of movies and why they'll never die); film as a blend of truth and beauty (I mix images and sounds like a scientist, I hope. The mystery of the scientific is the same as the mystery of the artist. So is the misery); and the personal realities of aging (Maybe it's that when you get old, in one way you feel younger and younger but still being old-young oldness, if I may say so, which is very. . .comforting). As challenging and evocative as they are quirky and unpredictable, these interviews cast light on Godard's lifelong position as a proudly unclassifiable thinker who feels, as he said in 1980, that a language is obviously made to cross borders. I'm someone whose real country is language, and whose territory is movies. David Sterritt is an associate professor of film at Long Island University and film critic of The Christian Science Monitor.

Jean-Luc Godard

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Peter Graham

Study of French new wave. Collection of articles by Godard, Truffaut, Bazin and others. 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Critical Landmarks

A new, expanded edition of a classic anthology on the French New Wave. Original writings by and interviews with filmmakers and critics such as Godard, Truffaut and Bazin, some newly translated for this edition, are accompanied by critical and contextualising commentary by the editors, leading authorities in the field.

The French New Wave

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Hubert I. Cohen

Almost like new except for some minor discoloration. And the inscription :) Note that the person who wrote the inscription and I are still friends… Im just doing a very serious downsizing. 

The Art of Confession

The late Jean Renoir once observed that every film auteur tells and retells essentially one story: his own. In this pathbreaking study of all Bergman's films, Hubert I. Cohen vividly demonstrates how the great director is the quintessential auteur, driven from his earliest efforts by an "almost pathological narcissism: toward self-revelation. Drawing on the numerous interviews Bergman has granted as well as other biographical and critical sources, including the director's autobiography The Magic Lantern, Cohen shows us how Bergman's preoccupation with his own life is the wellspring of his art. Progressing chronologically through Bergman's oeuvre, he finds the films both the product of and commentary on their creator's childhood and youth, loves and beliefs.

Ingmar Bergman

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Francois Truffaut

1985 First Touchstone Edition. Paperback. Slight bent corners on front rear covers. Discoloration on edges. See my other listing for other French new wave related and other film books. 

The definitive study of Alfred Hitchcock by François Truffaut

Iconic, groundbreaking interviews of Alfred Hitchcock by film critic François Truffaut--providing insight into the cinematic method, the history of film, and one of the greatest directors of all time.

In Hitchcock, film critic François Truffaut presents fifty hours of interviews with Alfred Hitchcock about the whole of his vast directorial career, from his silent movies in Great Britain to his color films in Hollywood. The result is a portrait of one of the greatest directors the world has ever known, an all-round specialist who masterminded everything, from the screenplay and the photography to the editing and the soundtrack. Hitchcock discusses the inspiration behind his films and the art of creating fear and suspense, as well as giving strikingly honest assessments of his achievements and failures, his doubts and hopes. This peek into the brain of one of cinema's greats is a must-read for all film aficionados.

Hitchcock

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Robert Ingram

Some minor discoloration around edges. 2004 edition. 

The Complete Films

This title, written by Robert Ingram, takes a critical look at the films and work of François Truffaut.

Truffaut

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Yelena Akhtiorskaya

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

A Novel

"A virtuosic debut [and] a wry look at immigrant life in the global age." --Vogue
 
Having left Odessa for Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, with a sense of finality, the Nasmertov family has discovered that the divide between the old world and the new is not nearly as clear-cut as they had imagined. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, returning is just a matter of a plane ticket, and the Russian-owned shops in their adopted neighborhood stock even the most obscure comforts of home. Pursuing the American Dream once meant giving up everything, but does the dream still work if the past refuses to grow distant and mythical, remaining alarmingly within reach?
 
If the Nasmertov parents can afford only to look forward, learning the rules of aspiration, the family's youngest, Frida, can't help looking back--and asking far too many questions.
 
Yelena Akhtiorskaya's exceptional debut has been hailed not only as the great novel of Brighton Beach but as a "breath of fresh air ... [and] a testament to Akhtiorskaya's wit, generosity, and immense talent as a young American author" (NPR).

Panic in a Suitcase

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Niccolo Machiavelli

In the four and a half centuries since Machiavelli's death, no single and unanimously accepted interpretation of his ideas has succeeded in imposing itself upon the lively debate over the meaning of his works. Yet there has never been any doubt about the fundamental importance of Machiavelli's contribution to Western political theory.The Portable Machiavelli brings together the complete texts of The Prince, Belfagor, and Castruccio Castracani, newly translated by Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa especially for this volume. In addition, the editors include an abridged version of The Discourses; a play, The Mandrake Root, in its entirety; seven private letters; and selections from The Art of War and The History of Florence.

The Portable Machiavelli

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Primo Levi

Raymond Rosenthal

An extraordinary work in which each of the 21 chapters takes its title and starting point from one of the elements in the periodic table. Mingling fact and fiction, history and anecdote, Levi uses his training as a chemist and his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz to illuminate the human condition. "From the Hardcover edition.

The Periodic Table

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Louis de Bernieres

When the spoilt and haughty Dona Constanza tries to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, she starts a running battle with the locals. The skirmishes are so severe that the Government dispatches a squadron of soldiers led by the fat, brutal and stupid Figueras to deal with them. Despite visiting plagues of laughing fits and giant cats upon the troops, the villagers know that to escape the cruel and unusual tortures planned for them, they must run. Thus they plan to head for the mountains and start a new and convivial civilization. "The War of Don Emmanuel s Nether Parts" is the first novel in a trilogy set in South America. It won a Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1991."

War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts

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Alan Watts

“Our main object will be to describe one of the most incomparably beautiful myths that has ever flowered from the mind of man, or from the unconscious processes which shape it and which are in some sense more than man.… This is, furthermore, to be a description and not a history of Christian Mythology.… After description, we shall attempt an interpretation of the myth along the general lines of the philosophia perennis, in order to bring out the truly catholic or universal character of the symbols, and to share the delight of discovering a fountain of wisdom in a realm where so many have long ceased to expect anything but a desert of platitudes.” —from the Prologue

Myth and Ritual in Christianity

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Paul Auster

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

* * * Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize * * *

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review,
NPR, The Globe and Mail, Kirkus Reviews, Huffington Post, and The Spectator UK

"An epic bildungsroman . . . . Original and complex . . . . A monumental assemblage of competing and complementary fictions, a novel that contains multitudes."--Tom Perrotta, The New York Times Book Review

"A stunningly ambitious novel, and a pleasure to read. . . . An incredibly moving, true journey."--NPR

New York Times Bestseller, Los Angeles Times Bestseller, Boston Globe Bestseller, National Indiebound Bestseller

Paul Auster's greatest, most heartbreaking and satisfying novel--a sweeping and surprising story of birthright and possibility, of love and of life itself.

Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson's life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four identical Fergusons made of the same DNA, four boys who are the same boy, go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Athletic skills and sex lives and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Each Ferguson falls under the spell of the magnificent Amy Schneiderman, yet each Amy and each Ferguson have a relationship like no other. Meanwhile, readers will take in each Ferguson's pleasures and ache from each Ferguson's pains, as the mortal plot of each Ferguson's life rushes on.

As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ever written, yet with a passion for realism and a great tenderness and fierce attachment to history and to life itself that readers have never seen from Auster before. 4 3 2 1 is a marvelous and unforgettably affecting tour de force.

4 3 2 1

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Robert O. Kurzban

Philosophy

Evolution and the Modular Mind

The evolutionary psychology behind human inconsistency We're all hypocrites. Why? Hypocrisy is the natural state of the human mind. Robert Kurzban shows us that the key to understanding our behavioral inconsistencies lies in understanding the mind's design. The human mind consists of many specialized units designed by the process of evolution by natural selection. While these modules sometimes work together seamlessly, they don't always, resulting in impossibly contradictory beliefs, vacillations between patience and impulsiveness, violations of our supposed moral principles, and overinflated views of ourselves. This modular, evolutionary psychological view of the mind undermines deeply held intuitions about ourselves, as well as a range of scientific theories that require a "self" with consistent beliefs and preferences. Modularity suggests that there is no "I." Instead, each of us is a contentious "we"--a collection of discrete but interacting systems whose constant conflicts shape our interactions with one another and our experience of the world. In clear language, full of wit and rich in examples, Kurzban explains the roots and implications of our inconsistent minds, and why it is perfectly natural to believe that everyone else is a hypocrite.

Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite

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John Fowles

The Magus is the story of Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching assignment on a remote Greek island. There his friendship with a local millionaire evolves into a deadly game, one in which reality and fantasy are deliberately manipulated, and Nicholas must fight for his sanity and his very survival.

The Magus

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Alejandro Jodorowsky

A Psychomagical Autobiography

A glimpse into the mind and life of one of the most creative and enigmatic visionaries of our time, filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky • Retraces the spiritual and mystical path Jodorowsky has followed since childhood, vividly repainting events from the perspective of an unleashed imagination • Explores the development of the author’s psychomagic and metagenealogy practices via his realization that all problems are rooted in the family tree • Includes photos from Jodorowsky’s appearance at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and from the film based on this book, which debuted at Cannes Retracing the spiritual and mystical path he has followed since childhood, Alejandro Jodorowsky re-creates the incredible adventure of his life as an artist, filmmaker, writer, and therapist--all stages on his quest to push back the boundaries of both imagination and reason. Not a traditional autobiography composed of a chronological recounting of memories, The Dance of Reality repaints events from Jodorowsky’s life from the perspective of an unleashed imagination. Like the psychomagic and metagenealogy therapies he created, this autobiography exposes the mythic models and family templates upon which the events of everyday life are founded. It reveals the development of Jodorowsky’s realization that all problems are rooted in the family tree and explains, through vivid examples from his own life, particularly interactions with his father and mother, how the individual’s road to true fulfillment means casting off the phantoms projected by parents on their children. The Dance of Reality is autobiography as an act of healing. Through the retelling of his own life, the author shows we do not start off with our own personalities, they are given to us by one or more members of our family tree. To be born into a family, Jodorowsky says, is to be possessed. To peer back into our past is equivalent to digging into our own souls. If we can dig deep enough, beyond familial projections, we shall find an inner light--a light that can help us through life’s most difficult tests. Offering a glimpse into the mind and life of one of the most creative and enigmatic visionaries of our time, The Dance of Reality is the book upon which Jodorowsky’s critically acclaimed 2013 Cannes Film Festival film of the same name was based.

The Dance of Reality

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Karl Ove Knausgaard

Don Bartlett

"[Book 2] sears the reader because Knausgaard is a passionate idealist [who] wants to fight the conformity and homogeneity of modern bourgeois existence." --James Wood, The New Yorker

In the second installment of Karl Ove Knausgaard's monumental six-volume masterpiece, the character Karl Ove Knausgaard moves to Stockholm, where, having left his wife, he leads a solitary existence. He strikes up a deep friendship with another exiled Norwegian, a Nietzschean intellectual and boxing fanatic named Geir. He also tracks down Linda, whom he met at a writers' workshop a few years earlier and who fascinated him deeply.

My Struggle: Book 2 is at heart a love story--the story of Karl Ove falling in love with his second wife. But the novel also tells other stories: of becoming a father, of the turbulence of family life, of outrageously unsuccessful attempts at a family vacation, of the emotional strain of birthday parties for children, and of the daily frustrations, rhythms, and distractions of city life keeping him from (and filling) his novel.

It is a brilliant work that emphatically delivers on the unlikely promise that many hundreds of pages later readers will be left breathlessly demanding more.

My Struggle: Book 2

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At eighteen years, old Karl Ove moves to a tiny fisherman's village in the far north of the arctic circle to work as a school teacher. No interest in the job itself, his intention is to save up enough money to travel while finding the space and time to start his writing career. Initially everything looks fine. He writes his first few short stories, finds himself accepted by the hospitable locals, and receives flattering attention from several beautiful local girls. But as the darkness of the long arctic nights start to consume the landscape, Karl Ove's life takes a darker turn. His writing repeats itself, his drinking escalates to some disturbing blackouts, his attempts at losing his virginity end in humiliation and shame, and to his distress, he also develops romantic feelings towards one of his students. Along the way, there are flashbacks to his high school years and the roots of his current problems. Ever present is the long shadow cast by his father, whose own sharply increasing alcohol consumption serves as an ominous backdrop to the author's lifestlye.

My Struggle: Book Four

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Max Bainbridge

A Modern Guide to Carving Spoons, Bowls, Boards, and Other Homewares

Heirloom Wood is a love letter to wood's form and function through simple woodworking projects. Combining traditional techniques with contemporary design, Max Bainbridge teaches you how to identify wood types, source timber, and set up a basic toolbox, then offers step-by-step carving and cutting techniques for making your own pieces. With little experience and very few tools, you'll learn to create hand-carved bowls, cutting boards, spoons, knives, and spatulas, perfect for adding a touch of the handmade to your home. With further advice on finishing your projects--how to sand, ebonize, scorch, and texture the surfaces, as well as wax and oil your new, beloved kitchen creations--each of your handcrafted projects will be imbued with a tangible history visible through the maker's mark. With beautiful photography and clear how-to instruction, Heirloom Wood gives you everything you need to create timeless kitchen keepsakes to be passed down from generation to generation.

Heirloom Wood

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Emile Zola

Robin Buss

Zola's classic novel of turbulent passion, now appearing on Broadway at the Roundabout Theatre starring Keira Knightley In a dingy apartment on the Passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, Thérèse Raquin is trapped in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin, Camille. The numbing tedium of her life is suddenly shattered when she embarks on a turbulent affair with her husband’s earthy friend Laurent, but their animal passion for each other soon compels the lovers to commit a crime that will haunt them forever. Thérèse Raquin caused a scandal when it appeared in 1867 and brought its twenty-seven-year-old author a notoriety that followed him throughout his life. Zola’s novel is not only an uninhibited portrayal of adultery, madness, and ghostly revenge, but also a devastating exploration of the darkest aspects of human existence. Robin Buss's translation superbly conveys Zola's fearlessly honest and matter-of-fact style, combining fidelity to Zola's idiosyncrasies with easy fluency in English. This edition also includes an introduction discusses Zola's life and literary career and the influence of art, literature, and science on his writing, as well as the preface to the author's second edition of 1868, a chronology, suggestions for further reading, and notes. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Therese Raquin

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George Holden

Prompted by his theories of heredity and environment, Zola set out to show Nana, "the golden fly," rising out of the underworld to feed on society—a predetermined product of her origins. Nana's latent destructiveness is mirrored in the Empire's, and they reflect each others' disintegration and final collapse in 1890. Built around the book's scientific skeleton is a powerful, sensual atmosphere, and a rich use of words which elevate the novel beyond the realistic platform into a "poem of male desires."

Nana

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Émile Zola

Ernest A. Vizetelly

Emile Zola (1840-1902) was an influential French writer and a major figure in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J'Accuse. The Joy of Life( Joie de Vivre) is the 12th first in Zola's monumental twenty-volume series, Les Rougon-Macquart.

The Joy of Life

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Now the basis for the major BBC tv adaptation The Paradise, this is a lavish drama and a timeless commentary on consumer capitalism. The Penguin Classics edition of mile Zola's The Ladies' Delight is based on an acclaimed, vivid and modern translation by Robin Buss, who has also introduced the novel.
The Ladies' Delight is the glittering Paris department store run by Octave Mouret. He has used charm and drive to become director of this mighty emporium, unscrupulously exploiting his young female staff and seducing his lady customers with luxurious displays of shimmering silks, satins, velvets and lace. Then Denise Baudu, a naive provincial girl, becomes an assistant at the store - and Mouret discovers that he in turn can also be enchanted. With its greedy customers, gossiping staff and vibrant sense of theatre, The Ladies' Delight (Au Bonheur des Dames in the original French) is one of the most richly exciting novels in Zola's Les Rougon-Macquart cycle.
This edition also contains a bibliography, introduction, chronology and explanatory notes.
Emile Zola (1840-1902) was the leading figure in the French school of naturalistic fiction. His principal work, Les Rougon-Macquart, is a panorama of mid-19th century French life, in a cycle of 20 novels which Zola wrote over a period of 22 years, including Au Bonheur des Dames (1883), The Beast Within (1890), Nana (1880), and The Drinking Den (1877).
'A complete page-turner about the consumer society, greed, fashion and instant gratification'
India Knight
'A fine translation'
The Times Literary Supplement


Au Bonheur des Dames

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Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall

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Jean-Michel Mension

Ed van der Elsken

Donald Nicholson-Smith

Portraits of the dissolute Left Bank youth whose lifestyle and ideas prefigured the May 1968 revolt.

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