676. Barker, Clive: The Essential Clive Barker - Selected Fictions

Published by Harper Collins, 1999

Hardback 1st edition. Both book and dustwrapper are in fine condition. With a special introduction by Armistead Maupin, author of Tales of the City, this is a unique selection of the author's best short stories and extracts from his novels, chosen by Clive and accompanied by a personal commentary which reveals the man behind the art. Clive Barker takes us on a personal tour through the dark and fantastic land of his imagination. Huge in scope, this unique collection examines the work of a man who has taken us further than any other writer of modern fiction: from the fantastic lands of The Fugue (Weaveworld) and the Dominions (Imajica) to the uncharted waters of the dream sea, Quiddity (The Great and Secret Show and Everville). His peerless imagination has only been matched by both his storytelling - from the groundbreaking series of short stories, the Books of Blood, which served as a wake-up call to a floundering horror industry, to the grand metaphysical vision of Galilee - and his ability to create memorable characters such as Will Rabjohns (Sacrament), Shadwell the salesman (Weaveworld) and Judith (Imajica).

677. Barker, Pat: The Ghost Road

Published by Viking, 1995

Hardback 1st edition in fine condition. The unclipped, pre-booker dustwrapper is very good having some minor edge wear and a couple of small closed tears to the bottom of the spine. The Ghost Road is the Booker Prize-winning final instalment in Pat Barker's acclaimed Regeneration trilogy. 1918, the closing months of the war, and army psychiatrist William Rivers is increasingly concerned for the men who have been in his care - particularly Billy Prior, who is about to return to combat in France with young poet Wilfred Owen. Pat Barker's The Ghost Road is an account of the devastating final months of the First World War.

288. Barker, Pat: Border Crossing

Published by Viking, London. 2001.

1st edition hardback in fine condition. both book and unclipped jacket are fine and probably unread. When Tom Seymour, a child psychologist, plunges into a river to save a young man from drowning, he unwittingly reopens a chapter from his past he'd hoped to forget. For Tom already knows Danny Miller. When Danny was ten Tom helped imprison him for the killing of an old woman. Reluctantly, Tom is drawn back into Danny's world - a place where the border between good and evil, innocence and guilt is blurred and confused. In Pat Barker's brilliant Border Crossing , Tom questions whether he might have crossed a line too far.

120. Barlow, Toby: Sharpe Teeth

Published by Heinemann, London. 2007.

1st edition hardback in fine condition and without dust wrapper as issued. Toby Barlow's clever, sexy, Los Angeles noir has not one, but two twists: there are werewolves in it, and it's written in verse. Still despite the hybrid gimmickry, SHARP TEETH offers up all the pleasures of both hardboiled crime and the contemporary supernatural. The book's hero, Anthony, is a no-nonsense dogcatcher who finds himself caught between rival gangs of werewolves (called only "lycanthropes" here) and romantically involved with a dangerous femme fatale. Barlow's tale also functions as an edgy satire of modern America. Dog culture has always helped define the social classes at war in the city (pitbulls for the gangbangers, lapdogs for the glitterati), but Barlow takes it all a step further by literally transforming humans into their pets.

678. Barnacle, Hugo: Day One

1st edition paperback original in fine condition. Marvellously particular in its treatment of London and authoritative in its depiction of the corridors and elevator-lobbies of power, Day One is a novel of magnificent scope and concision.  

86. Barnes, Julian: England, England

Published by Jonathan Cape, London. 1998.

Uncorrected proof, 1st edition paperback in near fine condition. There is a very faint crease at the front cover bottom corner otherwise fine and unmarked.

87. Barnes, Julian: England, England

Published by Jonathan Cape, London. 1998.

1st edition hardback in near fine condition. The book leans slightly and there are a couple of tiny puncture marks to the rear of the jacket, and one corresponding mark to the rear board. The dustwrapper is not clipped and there are no previous owner names or other marks.One of Barnes' finest and funniest novels, a parody of the Las Vegas/Disney World approach to vacation: why travel to "Old England" when you can see the best of the best in "England, England"?

88. Barnes, Julian: Arthur & George

Published by Jonathan Cape, London. 2005.

1st edition, 5th imp, later printing (black boards with jacket) hardback in fine, as new condition.The book has no previous owner names or inscriptions. The dust wrapper has not been price clipped and still retains the original £17.99 price. Arthur and George grow up worlds apart in late nineteenth-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, while George remains in hard-working obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events that made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages.

2144. Barnes, Julian: Flaubert's Parrot

Published by Jonathan Cape, London. 1984

Hardback edition, third reprint. Both book and the dust wrapper are in fine condition. eoffrey Braithwaite is a retired doctor haunted by an obsession with the great French literary genius, Gustave Flaubert. As Geoffrey investigates the mystery of the stuffed parrot Flaubert borrowed from the Museum of Rouen to help research one of his novels, we learn an enormous amount about the writer's work, family, lovers, thought processes, health and obsessions. But we also gradually come to learn some important and shocking details about Geoffrey himself.

89. Barry, Sebastian: A Long Long Way

Published by Faber & Faber, London. 2005.

1st edition, 4th printing hardback in fine, as new condition.The book has no previous owner names or inscriptions. The dust wrapper has not been price clipped and still retains the original £14.99 price.A remarkable book about Irish boys serving in the trenches for the British Army in World War I. The book was originally published as a paperback by Faber but its great reception and subsequent short-listing for the Man Booker Prize for 2005 caused the publisher to reissue it in this hardcover edition.One of the best books of its kind about the horrors of war on the Western Front.

679. Bateman, Colin: Empire State

Published by Harper Collins, 1997

Hardback 1st edition. Very good+ in like d/w. Page edges slightly browned. A wild American adventure of two Irish exiles, culminating in the accidental kidnapping of the US President on top of the Empire State Building. It's bad enough having a name like Nathan Jones - unless you're a Supremes fan, which Nathan isn't - but when his girlfriend leaves him (for a drag queen) and he gets mugged, then handcuffed to a bed and cut up in a misunderstanding with an S&M hooker, it looks as if things can't get any worse for this exile in the Big Apple. But they can! Will Nathan get his girl back? Will the President survive imprisonment by a psychotic white supremacist in (rapidly melting) black-face? Will veteran lift-operator Sam McClusky get his job back? Find out in Empire State. The stage is set for a vintage Bateman adventure, which takes the world of politics - international, racial and sexual - and holds it hostage atop the most famous building on Earth.

680. Bauer, Steven: Satyrday: A Fable

Published by Souvenir Press, 1981

Hardback 1st UK edition, pp213; illustrated by Ron Miller. A Night Owl book. A very good example in a like d/w. Story of an evil owl's attempt to rule in a world of eternal darkness. He orders his captive minions, the ravens, to steal the moon from the night sky and then turns his attention to quenching the fire of the sun.

681. Beaty, David: Electric Train

Published by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, 1973

1st edition hardback in very good condition. The jacket is also very good. A grand hotel on wheels, for ten passengers it sparked off drama and disaster.

2148. Bedford, Martyn: The Houdini Girl

Published by Viking, London. 1998

1st edition hardback. Both book and unclipped dust wrapper are in very good condition. The page edges are browned and there is a faint Penguin remainder mark at the top edge. Fletcher "Red" Brandon is a master magician who uses his talents to seduce Rosa, a flinty Irish woman. But when Rosa is killed suddenly, Red discovers secrets about the woman with whom he shared one sexy, combative, freewheeling year. Inside Rosa's shoulder bag are a wig and a stranger's passport. And when a routine investigation reveals that Rosa has vanished before--and that her father was a terrorist for the IRA--Peter suspects foul play. Red finds himself in Amsterdam, a stranger stumbling through his lover's secret history. Following a trail of addiction, prostitution, and murder, Red's search for the truth becomes more and more laden with mystery and forces him to reveal his own unsavory secrets. Masterfully plotted, The Houdini Girl transcends sleight-of-hand trickery for a stunning tale of love, loss, and the lure of illusion.

683. Bell, Stuart: Days That Used To Be

Published by Sagittarius Press, Durham, 1975

Hardback 1st edition. Very good in a very good, slightly rubbed and chipped dust wrapper which is not price clipped. The book is bound in plain black cloth without titles at the spine. A fictional, fascinating look at the village life of miners. And the collapse of the mining industry in Durham and the north east of England. The third novel by Sir Stuart Bell, the Labour Member of Parliament for Middlesbrough, recounting the closing of the pit in his village.

684. Benchley, Peter: The Girl of the Sea Of Cortez

Published by Andre Deutsch, 1982

A fine 1st edition hardback in a very good dust wrapper. A fable about a girl and her secret underwater "Garden of Eden" under threat from her fisherman father. A new departure for this author who usually writes underwater thrillers.

685. Benchley, Peter: The Deep

Published by Andre Deutsch, 1976

1st edition hardback in very good condition. The dust wrapper is also very good. The secret which unlocks the story lies on a coral reef off Bermuda. It's a harmless-looking ampoule - presumably from the medicine chest of the schooner Goliath which went down during World War Two. It is found by Gail and David Saunders, honeymooners who chose Bermuda for the diving they love. An agreeable underwater potter, a curious find....and suddenly Gail and David are plunged headlong into a situation of appalling danger.

1027. Benson, Raymond: The World Is Not Enough

Published by Hodder & Stoughton, 1999

Hardback, scarce 1st edition of this Bond novel, fine book & unclipped d/w. Greed, revenge, world domination through the power of oil, high-tech terrorism ...Only some of the ingredients of this latest 007 adventure which begins outside the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and takes Bond in a spectacular high-speed boat chase up the Thames before Bond faces an avalanche in the Caucasus Mountains and a potential nuclear explosion in Turkey. Sir Robert King, a wealthy oil tycoon, is murdered in an unprecedented bombing at MI6's London headquarters. M takes the attack personally and sends James Bond to protect King's beautiful and fiery daughter Elektra in Turkey. For the man responsible for the bombing is 'Renard', a cruel and cunning terrorist who once attempted to kidnap Elektra King and hold her to ransom. With nuclear weapons expert Dr Christmas Jones at his side, Bond travels to the Caspian Sea where a former enemy becomes a formidable ally before the final dramatic confrontation in a nuclear submarine.

686. Benzie, Alex: The Years Midnight

Published by Viking, 1995

1st edition hardback in fine condition. The dust wrapper is also fine. In the late 18th century, in the Scottish village of Aberlevin, a man is unjustly hanged. Enraged, the townsfolk destroy the clock tower and halt time. A century later, watchmaker William Leckie is commissioned to repair the clock, and unwittingly unleashes a tidal wave of hostility and hypocrisy.

689. Betteridge, Don: Dictators Destiny

Published by Herbert Jenkins, 1945

Hardback 1st edition. Date unsure. Very good in slightly edge worn and chipped d/w which is not price clipped. "Suppose a British secret service agent insinuated himself into the post of Hitler's astrologer". The author actually met Hitler and his entire clique.

2107. Bogarde, Dirk: West of Sunset

Published by Allen Lane, London, 1984

Hardback 1st UK edition. The book leans slightly otherwise very good. There are no previous owner names. The unclipped dust wrapper is a little rubbed at the edges with some surface marking but generally very good. Set amidst the gaudy wastes of Los Angeles, this is a savage, funny and romantic story about the power of Hugo Arlington, a celebrated writer, to destroy people, even from beyond the grave.

1599. Bourne, Sam: Pantheon

Published by HarperCollins, 2012

1st edition UK hardback in fine condition, the dust wrapper is not price-clipped and is also fine. Europe is ablaze. America is undecided about joining the fight against Nazism. And James Zennor, a brilliant, troubled, young Oxford don is horrified. He returns one morning from rowing to discover that his wife has disappeared with their young son, leaving only a note declaring her continuing love. A frantic search through wartime England leads James across the Atlantic and to one of America's greatest universities, its elite clubs and secret societies - right to the heart of the American establishment. And in his hunt for his family, James unearths one of the darkest and deadliest secrets of a world at war…

692. Boyd, William: Stars And Bars

Published by Good Books, 1985

Hardback 1st edition in very good condition. The dust wrapper is little rubbed but generally good. All Henderson Dores dreams of is fitting in. But America, land of the loony millionaire and the subway poet, down-home Bible-basher and sharp-suited hood, of paralysing personal frankness and surreally fantasized facilities, is hard enough for an Englishman to fit in to. Henderson could never shed enough inhibitions to become just another weirdo. Or could he?

693. Bradbury, Malcolm: Doctor Criminale

Published by Secker & Warberg, 1992

1st edition hardback in fine condition. The dust wrapper is also fine. Naive, anonymous, provincial Francis Jay has ambitions to break out of Camden and into the media. Writing a TV documentary about Doctor Bazlo Criminale - urbane polymath and the "Great Thinker of the Age of Glasnost", he steps into a world outside his experience and beyond his comprehension.

695. Bradbury, Ray: Green Shadows, White Whale

Published by Harper Collins, 1992

1st edition hardback in fine condition. The dust wrapper is also fine. In 1953 Ray Bradbury was summoned to Ireland to write the screenplay of "Moby Dick" for John Huston. This is the basis for a novel - the adventures of a green screenwriter coming to Ireland to confront a great director and a mythical beast, as well as discovering the humour of the Irish.

90. Bradbury, Ray: Death Is A Lonely Business

Published by Grafton Books, London. 1986.

This 1st edition book is in near fine condition, the book has black cloth boards with gold lettering to the spine. There are no owner names or inscriptions. The dust wrapper in in very good + condition and it has not been price clipped. Ray Bradbury's new novel, his first for 23 years, is a work of superb power, wit and magic: a fitting masterpiece from the master of the storytelling art. In the great tradition of Chandler and Hammett, the book is a carnival of extraordinary characters - a classic mystery, a love story, and a nostalgic evocation of a time and place.

696. Braine, John: The Crying Game

Hardback 1st edition. Very good in a very good unclipped d/w. Jacket has a small closed tear to the back panel and is slightly browned along the top edge. Inscription to front end paper. Young Frank Batcombe, fresh out of his middle-class, Yorkshire home, now belongs to the mod, sexy, brutal London scene. A rising star in journalism, good-looking, smooth and on the make in every way, he has two major schemes in progress: one is to create a scandal that will ruin a Labour politician and gain instant renown for himself; the other is to escape marriage to a girl he believes is carrying his child. The question is - could Frank simply be a half-decent man in a rotten environment? Bradford-born John Braine ranks alongside Kingsley Amis, John Osborne and Allan Sillitoe as one of the so-called Angry Young Men of the 1950s, whose literature was a protest against class distinctions and middle-class manners. His first novel, Room at the Top, was an overnight success and has been made into a highly successful film, which won two Oscars.  

698. Brice, Martin H.: The Witch in the Cave

Published by Allen & Unwin, 1986

Hardback 1st edition in near fine condition. The dust wrapper is also fine. The book is signed by the author. The author's first novel, set in a world of prehistoric savagery.

699. Brink, Andre: A Chain of Voices

Published by Faber & Faber, 1982

Hardback reprint in fine condition. The dust wrapper is very good. It is 1825 and high in the mountains of South Africa a group of slaves stand accused of the murder of their owner, Nicolass van der Merwe, a wealthy Afrikaner farmer. Galant, the van der Merwe family's chief hand, is held leader of the murderous band. Raised with the two sons of the house, it was not until adulthood and rivalry over Hester, orphaned daughter of a tenant farmer, that he realised their different roles, their unequal futures and opposed stations in life. A CHAIN OF VOICES stands as a prophetic lesson - when hopes of freedom from slavery are dashed, and when promises of equal treatment are broken, an escalating spiral of bitterness, resentment, and finally, explosive violence is inevitable.

700. Brookner, Anita: Fraud

Published by Jonathan Cape, 1992

1st edition hardback in fine condition. The dust wrapper is also fine. Anna Durrant, a spinster in her early 50s who has spent her life looking after her invalid mother, is missing. Her doctor, Lawrence Halliday, has reported this to the police who are asking questions.

701. Brookner, Anita: Incidents in the Rue Laugier

Published by Jonathan Cape, 1995

Hardback 1st edition in very good condition. The dust wrapper is also very good. Demure Maud Gonthier expects the holiday at her aunt's house near Meaux to be no different from any other - an endless round of tennis with silly neighbours, walks in the garden, and familial manipulations. But in the torpid late-summer heat, Maud meets David Tyler and falls for his sensual charm.

702. Bryers, Paul: The Prayer of the Bone

Published by Bloomsbury, 1998

Hardback 1st edition. A fine book and unclipped d/w. A crime thriller fleshed out around a skeleton of legend, folklore, witchcraft and archaeology. A woman is found dead in the snow on a cliff top just south off the Canadian border. The injuries to her face suggest that she was mauled by a bear. Yet, when Detective Calhoun begins interviewing the locals and learns of the history of the area and of the ingrained culture of suspicion between the white villagers and the nearby Souriquois Indian community, his imagination is gripped with wildly fantastical explanations for the killing--he has to struggle to sustain his grasp on the facts. a truly fine literary crime thriller that stands out from its contemporaries for its wisdom and magic. This is a frightening story about a place that has seen several centuries worth of murder and treachery but there is also tenderness and compassion. It's one of those rare novels that lives on in the mind long after you've finished the last page.

703. Bryson, John: To The Death, amic

Published by Hamish Hamilton Ltd, 1995

1st edition hardback in fine condition. The dust wrapper is also fine. In 1936 the Civil War begins, and the minor excitement of two twin boys in Barcelona becomes more serious when they become couriers for the Underground. Working alongside spies, arms traders, and document forgers, they watch the anti-fascist alliance form in the bombed city.

704. Burgess, Anthony: Any Old Iron

Published by Hutchinson, 1989

1st edition hardback in very good condition. The dust wrapper is also very good. This novel touches on the most crucial events of the period from the Russian Revolution to the emergence of Israel, as it follows the fortunes of two families, one Welsh and one Jewish, caught up in the events of World War II. Anthony Burgess is the author of over 20 novels, including "Earthly Powers", "Kingdom of the Wicked" and "The Pianoplayers".

705. Burgess, Anthony: Byrne

Published by Hutchinson, 1995

Hardback 1st edition. Otherwise very good in a like unclipped d/w. Anthony Burgess's final work: an epic verse novel. It tells the story of a rampant Irish artist who, in the early years of this century, goes rapidly to the bad, philandering at every opportunity, selling his talents as a composer and painter, and ending up in Hitler's Third Reich. He then vanishes and the story passes to his children, including twin sons, one a doubting priest, the other sick of an incapacitating disease, who move across the troubled face of contemporary Europe before encountering their father in one final apocalyptic confrontation. Brilliantly readable, enormously funny and full of passion and energy, it is also Anthony Burgess's last powerful statement of life and art.

Published by Atlantic Books, London. 2003

UK hardback, 1st edition in fine condition. There are no previous owner names or inscriptions. The dust wrapper is also fine and not clipped. This is the story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of grandeur) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead ringer for Santa Claus and a certifiable lunatic into the bargain. Suddenly at the age of 12, Augusten found himself living in a dilapidated Victorian house in perfect squalor. The doctor's bizarre family, a few patients and a paedophile living in the garden shed completed the tableau. Here, there were no rules or school. The Christmas tree stayed up until summer and Valium was chomped down like sweets. When things got a bit slow, there was always the ancient electroshock therapy machine under the stairs.

706. Burroughs, Edgar Rice: Jungle Girl

Published by Odhams, London. 1933.

No date or edition stated (circa 1933). Hardback without a dust wrapper. There is some light spotting at the edges and a little wear at the top and toe of the spine and the board tips otherwise clean and tidy. Green boards and gilt titles at the spine. There are no previous owner names or marks. A popular jungle adventure novel from the creator of TARZAN but with a female protagonist. Basis for the 1941 black and white film directed by John English and starring Frances Gifford and Tom Neal.

91. Burroughs, William: White Subway

Published by Aloes Books, London. 1973.

Scarce UK 1st edition soft bound (no hardbound issued). Generally very good, smells a bit, slightly soiled copy in publishers decorated wrappers. 73pp. Illustrated. Introduction by Paul Bowles. 1st edition of an elusive Burroughs item limited to 1000 copies.