Catalog 128, K-L
157. KIDDER, Tracy. The Soul of a New Machine. Boston: Little Brown (1981). His second book, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for nonfiction. Kidder spent a year with a design team at Data General, chronicling the process of designing a new minicomputer, and recounted the tale in lucid, accessible prose which opened up this normally invisible aspect of the contemporary world of high technology and industry to a wide readership. A shining example of the kind of "literary journalism" that grew out of the New Journalism of the 1960s, and the breakdown of the stylistic barriers between journalism and the more literary forms. Inscribed by the author to another writer: "To ___,/ My good/ friend and/ wonderful, wonderful/ writer/ Tracy." Cocked; foxing to top edge; offsetting to rear endpages from newspaper article laid in discussing Kidder's Pulitzer; a very good copy in a near fine, spine-faded dust jacket. A somewhat uncommon book in the first edition: Kidder was not the bestselling author that he became after this book; signed first printings are scarce, and association copies even more so.
158. KIDDER, Tracy. House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985. His bestselling third book, which chronicles the design and construction of a house from before the blueprints to the finished home, from the perspectives of all those involved: the homeowners, architect, contractor, carpenters. Like his other books, an in-depth exploration of a complex subject, but in some sense also an everyday subject, whose inner workings are not often examined or revealed. Inscribed by the author in 1993. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
159. KIDDER, Tracy. Among Schoolchildren. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. A year in the life of an inner city schoolteacher. This is a third printing and is inscribed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
160. KIDDER, Tracy. Old Friends. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. His fifth book, a portrait of a nursing home seen through the eyes of two of its residents. Inscribed by the author. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket.
161. KINSELLA, W.P. Shoeless Joe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982. His highly praised, much-loved first novel, winner of a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award and basis for the award-winning movie Field of Dreams. A North American magical realist baseball novel, with J.D. Salinger as a character. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with mottling on the verso and light edge wear.
162. KINSELLA, W.P. Box Socials. NY: Ballantine Books (1992). The first American edition of this Depression-era novel set in western Canada. Inscribed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
163. KUNDERA, Milan. Life is Elsewhere. NY: Knopf, 1974. The first American edition of the second novel by the author of The Joke and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Winner of the French Medicis Award as the best foreign novel published that year in France. Fine in a fine, price-clipped dust jacket.
164. KUNDERA, Milan. The Farewell Party. NY: Knopf, 1976. The first American edition. Faint fading to spine cloth; very near fine in a near fine dust jacket.
165. KUNDERA, Milan. Laughable Loves. (London): John Murray (1978). The first British edition, which follows the American edition by four years and the Czech edition by nine. Introduction by Philip Roth (which was also in the U.S. edition). Fine in a fine dust jacket.
166. KUNDERA, Milan. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. NY: Knopf, 1980. The first American edition. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
167. KUNDERA, Milan. The Joke. NY: Harper & Row (1982). The second American edition of the author's first book, first published in Czechoslovakia in 1967 and in the U.S. in 1969, in a "mutilated" (Kundera's description) version. Here issued in a new translation with a new preface by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
168. KUNDERA, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. London: Faber and Faber (1984). The first British edition of his best-known book, basis of the well-received movie that was nominated for two Academy Awards. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with a bit of wear to the rear panel. A Waterstones book of the century.
169. KUNDERA, Milan. The Art of the Novel. NY: Grove Press (1988). The first American edition. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
170. LARDNER, Ring. Bib Ballads. Chicago: P.F. Volland (1915). The first regularly published book by the humorist who came to be considered the best writer of baseball fiction of the first half of the 20th century. These are humorous poems of early childhood, with the satirical edge that came to characterize his later fiction. One small smudge on the page with the book's Foreword, otherwise a very fine copy in a close to fine publisher's book. Scarce thus: the box is notoriously fragile, prone to splitting and fading, and this one, despite a couple of small splits at the corners, is the nicest copy we have seen.
171. LAX, Robert and MERTON, Thomas. A Catch of Anti-Letters. Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel (1978). A collection of letters between Merton and Lax, a classmate at Columbia. Illustrated with Merton's calligraphy. Inscribed by Lax. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket with slight wear at the heel.
172. (LE CARRÉ, John). Siege. Six Days at the Iranian Embassy. (London): Macmillan (1980). A paperback original, assembled by reporters for The Observer, and recounting the events of a siege at the Iranian Embassy in London. With a 7-page introduction by Le Carré. Creasing to spine and joints; near fine.
173. LEM, Stanislaw. Mortal Engines. NY: Seabury Press (1977). The first American edition of this collection of 14 science fiction stories by the Polish author of Solaris, among others. One slight corner bump; else fine in a near fine, lightly rubbed dust jacket.
174. LEVINE, Philip. Not This Pig. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press (1968). Second printing of the author's uncommon second book, and his first by a trade publisher. This is the hardcover issue; there were also softcover issues of both the first and second printing. Inscribed by the author. Fine in a very good, rubbed and price-clipped dust jacket with a couple closed edge tears.
175. LEVINE, Philip. One for the Rose. NY: Atheneum, 1982. Second printing, the hardcover issue. Inscribed by the author across two pages: "For party & for/ life./ How many roses/ make a dozen?/ Answer [arrow to next page]/ one./ Philip Levine." Fine in a fine dust jacket.
176. LEVINE, Philip. Sweet Will. NY: Atheneum, 1985. The hardcover issue of this collection of poems. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Levine won the National Book Award for poetry in 1991 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1995.
177. LEVINE, Philip. A Walk with Tom Jefferson. NY: Knopf, 1988. Second printing of the hardcover issue of this poetry collection. Inscribed by the author, "with hope for our lives." Fine in a fine dust jacket.
178. LEVINE, Philip. New Selected Poems. NY: Knopf, 1991. Inscribed by the author across three pages. On the title page: "Hey ___/ Is there a/ better book/ than this?/ [arrow]/ Answer." On the dedication page: "A dumb question !/ Philip Levine." On the verso of the dedication page: "Autumn/ by John/ Keats." A touch of handling apparent to black cloth; else fine in a fine dust jacket. Levine won the National Book Award for his collection What Work Is, published simultaneously with this volume.
179. LEVINE, Philip. What Work Is. NY: Knopf, 1991. His National Book Award-winning collection of poems. Inscribed by the author on the title page: "Hanover/ For ___ ___/ who knows/ [What Work Is],/ & who knows what/ poetry is/ Yours,/ Philip Levine." Fine in a fine dust jacket. Uncommon, particularly signed.
180. LEWIS, Sinclair. Our Mr. Wrenn. NY: Harper & Brothers, 1914. His first book under his own name, after the 1912 Hike and the Aeroplane by "Tom Graham." This copy is inscribed by the author: "To Frank Webb,/ one of the few/ business-men/ I know who haven't/ let business keep/ them from being/ real human beings/ with senses of humor/ from the author/ Sinclair Lewis." Also includes a pictorial inscription by the author, with caricatures in place of names. Lewis, the author of such classics as Babbitt, Main Street, Elmer Gantry and Arrowsmith, all published in the 1920s, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1930, the first American writer to win that award. Modest general wear to boards; near fine, lacking the dust jacket. Lewis made his reputation as a critic of conservative, materialistic American society -- businessmen in particular: Babbitt was a scathing portrait of a Midwestern businessman, and Arrowsmith, which won the Pulitzer Prize, was a portrait of a doctor caught between commercial imperatives and the idealistic impulses of the medical profession. Our Mr. Wrenn explores the themes that reached fruition in his later, award-winning works.
181. LOPEZ, Barry Holstun. Of Wolves and Men. NY: Scribner (1978). The uncorrected proof copy of his third book, winner of the John Burroughs Medal as the best work of natural history published that year, and a nominee for the National Book Award. A remarkable and unlikely bestseller: the book was reprinted numerous times, brought into a new edition by the publisher (in a smaller format), picked up by the Book of the Month Club, and became a significant commercial success in a trade paperback edition as well. It attempts to explore the wolf both in the objective world and in the subjective ways that humans have seen and imagined it throughout history. This proof copy was printed with the original title, The Book of the Wolf, on the cover and the title page; the ultimate title has been written in by hand on the cover. A fragile, padbound proof, this copy has a green backstrip and faded khaki covers; near fine. Laid in is a letter from the publisher soliciting a review from Harper's magazine and sharing advance comments, including one from John Fowles.