Recent Arrivals from Lightholder Books

Viper Jazz by James Tate. 1976 Wesleyan University Press, paperback edition, 79 pages. Tate was a Pulitzer and National Book award-winning poet. According to his obituary in the Guardian: "James Tate . . . was one of the most original and inventive American poets of his era, whose sense of humour and love of the tall story calls to mind… Read more about this item

The Land Surveyor's Daughter by Ellen Gilchrist. 1979 Lost Roads, first edition, 46 pages. Gilchrist is a Southern author who won the National Book Award for her story collection Victory Over Japan. Her work is steeped in the Southern tradition, witty and wise. Land Surveyor's Daughter was her first book, a collection of poetry, with a small print run. Condition: Good,… Read more about this item

Blue Movie by Andy Warhol. 1970 Grove Press, first edition, 123 pages. "The complete dialogue with over 100 photos." Blue Movie was the first erotic film to receive wide theatrical release in 1969, and was an influence for Last Tango in Paris. Condition: VG

voices/I hear/voices by William Packard. Illustrated by Steffan. 1972 Barlenmir House, first edition. Packard was a novelist, playwright, and poet who founded the poetry magazine New York Quarterly, known for publishing poems and interviews by the likes of Sexton, Ashbery and Bukowski. Voices was his third book of poems. Condition: Inscribed by the author. Jacket in good- condition with stain on… Read more about this item

Tell Sally by Magda Szabo. 1963 Corvina Press, no edition stated, 286 pages. Szabo was a Hungarian writer who has experienced a renaissance with the NYRB reissue of her novel The Door. She won awards for her poetry in the forties, but one an award was revoked when she was declared an enemy by the new communist government, and she… Read more about this item

Eureka Mill by Ron Rash. 1998 Bench Press, unstated edition, signed, 63 pages. Rash is a poet, short story writer, and novelist who often writes of Appalachia. Eureka was Rash's debut poetry collection which depicts life in the mill. Condition: VG. Signed on title page "After tonight I see why mill and hell are spelled almost the same and sound alike."

Sanctified Church by Zora Neale Hurston. 1983 Turtle Island, later printing, 107 pages. Hurston was an author and anthropologist and key figure in the Harlem Renaissance. She is best known for her novel Their Eyes Are Watching God. She documented Black folklore of the south and voodoo practices of the Caribbean, as well as wrote plays and short stories. She… Read more about this item

Slobodkina: The Life and Art of Esphyr Slobodkina. 1992 Tufts University, unstated printing, 80 pages. Slobodkina was a semi-abstract painter as well as textile designer and children books illustrator. She was one of the founders of the American Abstract Artists group and participated in the Artist's Union in the 1930s. Condition: VG

Nigeria in Costume.1960, first printing, original blue cloth gilt. 102 pages. Illustrated by John Danford, preface by W.L Stewart. Includes illustrations with accompanying text explaining the dress. Condition: VG. No jacket.

The Incognito Lounge and Other Poems by Denis Johnson. 1982 Random House, first paperback edition, 79 pages. Johnson was a novelist and poet who garnered acclaim for his short-story collection Jesus's Son and award-winning novel Tree of Smoke. According to New York Times, "[His] novels and short stories about the fallen — junkies, down-and-out travelers, drifters and violent men in… Read more about this item

Angels by Denis Johnson. 1983 Knopf, first edition, 209 pages. Johnson was a novelist and poet who garnered acclaim for his short-story collection Jesus's Son and award-winning novel Tree of Smoke. According to New York Times, "[His] novels and short stories about the fallen — junkies, down-and-out travelers, drifters and violent men in the United States and abroad — emerged… Read more about this item

The Circle Game by Margaret Atwood. 1966 House of Anansi, later printing, 80 pages. Atwood is an award-winning Canadian poet and novelist, most well-known for the cultural and feminist touchstone Handmaid's Tale. Circle Game, her second book of poems, was the winner of the 1967 Governor General's Award. Condition: Good, price sticker residue and creases on cover, a bit of separation… Read more about this item

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. 1952 Scribners, first edition, 140 pages. According to a review in the New York Times: "'The Old Man and the Sea' is a short novel, only 27,000 words. It is much simpler and enormously better than Mr. Hemingway's last book, 'Across the River and Into the Trees.' No phony glamour girls… Read more about this item

An Academic Question by Barbara Pym. 1986 Dutton, first American edition, 182 pages. Pym was an English novelist, forever forgotten and rediscovered. In a retrospective in the New York Times: "However remote her themes may seem — a churn of parish politics and petty romances — beneath the gentle surfaces of her novels is a slow-building comedy, salt wit… Read more about this item

The Land Surveyor's Daughter by Ellen Gilchrist. 1979 Lost Roads, first edition, 46 pages. Gilchrist is a Southern author who won the National Book Award for her story collection Victory Over Japan. Her work is steeped in the Southern tradition, witty and wise. Land Surveyor's Daughter was her first book, a collection of poetry, with a small print run. Condition: Good,… Read more about this item

The Owl Remembers: Gaelic Poems Selected and Edited with Notes by John Mackechnie. 1933, 110 pages. Includes poems from the eighth century to the 20th century. Includes the Gaelic and English translation. Condition: Jacket in good+ edition, some chips and browning, book in good+, inscription on first page, foxing "The hand that wrote this, now is gone."

A Cadre School Life: Six Chapters by Yang Jiang. Translation by Geremie Barme with the assistance of Bennett Lee. 1984 Joint Publishing, first U.S. edition, 91 pages. Jiang was a scholar and translator, most notably of the definitive translation of Don Quixote in China, which at the time landed her in Henan to be "reformed through labor" during the Cultural… Read more about this item

The Nine Guardians by Rosario Castellanos. Translated by Irene Nicholson. 1992 Readers International reprint (c/r 1957), 272 pages. Castellanos was a feminist poet, essayist, and novelist who wrote confessional fiction and criticized male literary figures of the time. According to an essay in the Paris Review: "As a child, Castellanos was cared for by a Mayan woman, Rufina, in whose… Read more about this item

A Lover's Discourse by Roland Barthes. Translated by Richard Howard. 1978 Hill and Wang, first U.S. edition, 234 pages. Barthes was a French philosopher, theorist, critic, and intellectual, who died in 1980 by laundry truck. According to the Washington Post: "In "A Lover's Discourse," he wrote that his investigation of love and desire "has been restored to its fundamental person,… Read more about this item

Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones by Carole Boyce Davies. 2008 Duke University Press, paperback edition, 311 pages. Jones was a "pioneering Afro-Caribbean radical intellectual, dedicated communist, and feminist," who was exiled to the UK in 1955 after a stint in federal prison. Here Boyce brings her biography to life. Condition: Like new. "Thus, one cannot… Read more about this item