£2.99 / £1.99 Saul Bellow A THEFT Vintage Penguin 1989 Pb VG+ This item is an early Penguin [published date 1989, with a run 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3. This is a very good + copy, with bright cover artwork in an edition that features the cover design by Neil Stuart, illustration by Amy Hill. The pages have slightly tanned, but the text is large and bold on this collectable edition. There is very slight fade to spine, which is cease-free and tight. Very small crease to front (at bottom right, see image) and back (for an explanation on the grading of this book, see below). The item can be hard to find in early status and very good condition and is regarded highly. Many years ago, Ted gave Clara an emerald ring that she has cherished as a symbol of her passion for him. The ring is lost and after many years - eventually - discovered. A second time it disappears. As she attempts to recover the precious ring, Clara emerges as a genuine heroine, a woman of great depth and unsuspected capacities of wisdom and love. A Theft is witty and tender, and Bellow is as vivid and as sharp as ever. 

£2.99 / £1.99 Tracy Chevalier BURNING BRIGHT New Mint 2007 Ex This item is new, just published [published date 2007] with a run line 1. This is a mint copy, with one page slightly dog-eared at the top(accident in transport) and otherwise as new (for an explanation on the grading of this book, see below). The item is new and retails for £11.99. An historical novel set in London in 1792, where the Kellaways have moved from familiar rural Dorset to the tumult of a cramped, unforgiving city and against the backdrop of the increasingly bloody French Revolution. The youngest boy Jem and streetwise Londoner Maggie Butterfield form a surprising bond and their friendship takes a dramatic turn when they become entangled in the life of their neighbour, the printer, poet and radical, William Blake. He is a guiding spirit as Jem and Maggie navigate the unpredictable, exhilarating passage from innocence to experience, and their journey influences one of Blake’s most entrancing works. 

£0.99 / £1.99 David Hughes THE PORK BUTCHER / SOUVENIR Vintage VG+ This item is published by Penguin books in [published date] 1985. This is a very good + copy, with bright art cover -- being the film tie-on edition, filmed as Souvenir starring Christopher Plummer -- with some slight tanning to page ends, a crease-free and tight spine with however a horizontal midway mark (see image) and small creases to corners for an explanation on the grading of this book, see below). This item is out-of-print. Ernst Kestner, a pork butcher in Lubeck, has guarded a secret so terrible that for 40 years he has been reliving it. Now, under the threat of death, he closes his shop and drives to France for the first time since the war, to confront those memories and settle accounts. ‘An unforgettable experience, a fable which touches many unexpected nerves’ Anthony Thwaite, The Observer.

SOLD Chuck Palahniuk FUGITIVES AND REFUGEES Vintage 2004 Ex This is an excellent copy, a nice tight, bright one, with no creases anywhere including to spine and which gives the impression of no reading at all (for an explanation on the grading of this book, see below). The item is getting hard to find, as Palahniuk fans belatedly turn to it to find more on the author. In the closest thing he may ever write to an autobiography, Chuck Palahniuk provides answers to all these questions and more as he takes you through the streets, sewers and local haunts of Portland, Oregon. According to Katherine Dunn, author of the cult classic "Geek Love", Portland is the home of America's 'fugitives and refugees.' Get to know these folks, the "most cracked of the crackpots,' as Palahniuk calls them, and come along with him on an adventure through the parts of Portland you might not otherwise actually believe actually exist. No other travel guide will give you this kind of access to "a little history, a little legend, and a lot of friendly sincere, fascinating people who maybe should've kept their mouths shut." Here are strange personal museums, wierd annual events and ghost stories. Tour the tunnels under downtown Portland. Visit swingers' sex clubs, gay and straight. See Frances Gabe's famous 1940's Self-cleaning house. Look into strange local customs like the I-Tit-a-Rod Race and the Santa rampage. Learn how to talk like a local in a quick vocabulary lesson. Get to know, I mean really get to know, the animals at the Portland Zoo. Oh, the list goes on and on.

SOLD Chuck Palahniuk FIGHT CLUB Vintage 2003 VG+  This is the edition with raised (embossed) artwork on the cover. This is a very good + copy, a tight copy but with a very feint crease to spine (hard to detect and does not diminish the artwork), slight creasing / rubbing to bottom. Nice bright artwork (for an explanation on the grading of this book, see below). Really attractive edition which, er, beats the competition into a pulp (poly-humour anyone?). Every weekend, in basements and parking lots across the country, young men with good white-collar jobs and absent fathers take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded for as long as they have to. Then they go back to those jobs with blackened eyes and loosened teeth and the sense that they can handle anything. Fight Club is the invention of Tyler Durden, projectionist, waiter and dark, anarchic genius. And it's only the beginning of his plans for revenge on a world where cancer support groups have the corner on human warmth.

Other:

Peter Høeg BORDERLINES Large Format Harvill '95 **Ex**

Saul Bellow A THEFT Vintage Penguin 1989 Pb *VG++*

Jean Genet THE THIEF'S JOURNAL Vintage Penguin Ed 71 Ex

Abdulrazak Gurnah BY THE SEA 1st pb edition 2002 *Ex*

Peter Ustinov THE FRONTIERS OF THE SEA Pan 1st 1966 VG+

Kate Grenville THE IDEA OF PERFECTION Orange Prize *Ex*

Alexander Solzhenitsyn IVAN DENISOVICH Vintage Ed 71 Ex

Tim Winton SHALLOWS Picador pb edition 1991 VG+

Elisabeth Hyde THE ABORTIONIST'S DAUGHTER **Ex**

Irvine Welsh MARABOU STORK NIGHTMARES **Ex**

Hanif Kureishi INTIMACY Faber 1999 **Ex**

David Hughes THE PORK BUTCHER / SOUVENIR Vintage *VG+*

Roddy Doyle A STAR CALLED HENRY *near Mint* **Ex**

Marina Lewycka SHORT HISTORY TRACTORS UKRAINIAN Nr Mint

Bella Pollen DAYDREAM GIRL **Ex**