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Ed Smith Books

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THE MUSEUM OF WHALES YOU WILL NEVER SEE And Other Excursions to Iceland’s Most Unusual Museums

Greene, Kendra A. Mythic creatures, natural wonders, and the mysterious human impulse to collect are on beguiling display in this poetic tribute to the museums of an otherworldly island nation, for readers of Atlas Obscura and fans of the Mütter Museum, the Morbid Anatomy Museum, and the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Iceland is home to only 330,000 people (roughly the population of Lexington, Kentucky) but more than 265 museums and public collections. They range from the intensely physical, like the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which collects the penises of every mammal known to exist in Iceland, to the vaporously metaphysical, like the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft, which poses a particularly Icelandic problem: How to display what can't be seen? In The Museum of Whales You Will Never See, A. Kendra Greene is our wise and whimsical guide through this cabinet of curiosities, showing us, in dreamlike anecdotes and more than thirty charming illustrations, how a seemingly random assortment of objects--a stuffed whooper swan, a rubber boot, a shard of obsidian, a chastity belt for rams--can map a people's past and future, their fears and obsessions. "The world is chockablock with untold wonders," she writes, "there for the taking, ready to be uncovered at any moment, if only we keep our eyes open." Illustrated. 252 pages, with acknowledgments, appendices. A fine copy in slick illustrated boards, issued without dust jacket
  • $50
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THE POTLIKKER PAPERS. A Food History of the Modern South

Edge, John T. Signed by the author on the title page. Like provincial dishes around the world, potlikker is a salvage food. During the antebellum era, slave owners ate the greens and set aside the leftover broth for the enslaved, unaware that the potlikker, not the greens, was nutrient rich. Today, potlikker has taken on new meanings as cooks reclaim and reinterpret the dish. Beginning with the pivotal role of cooks in the civil rights movement, noted authority John T. Edge narrates the region's journey from a hive of racism to a hotbed of American immigration. In the process, he traces how the food of working class Southerners has become a signature of American cuisine. Restaurants were battlegrounds during the civil rights movement. Access to food and ownership of traditions were key contentions on the long and fitful march toward racial equality. The Potlikker Papers begins in 1955 as black cooks and maids fueled the Montgomery bus boycott and it concludes in 2015 as a newer South came into focus, enriched by the arrival of immigrants from Mexico, Vietnam, and many points in between. Along the way, The Potlikker Papers tracks the evolution of Southern identity, from the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s that began in the Tennessee hills to the rise of fast and convenience foods modeled on Southern staples. Edge narrates the gentrification that gained traction in North Carolina and Louisiana restaurants of the 1980s and the artisanal renaissance that reconnected farmers and cooks in the 1990s and 2000s. He profiles compelling Southern figures who played transformative American roles, including Fannie Lou Hamer, Harland Sanders, Edna Lewis, Craig Claiborne, Mahalia Jackson, Nathalie Dupree, Sean Brock, and many others. Wrenching changes transformed the South over the last two generations. During that same span, Southerners transformed America. The Potlikker Papers frames and interprets these shifts in beliefs and identities, revealing how Southern food has become a shared culinary language for the nation. Illusstrated from photographs. 307 pages. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket
  • $50
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THE HOLY BOOKS OF THELEMA

Crowley, Aleister This first edition copy has been signed by Frater Hymenaeus Alpha who wrote the Preface to this edition, the first published collection of the fourteen Holy Books received by Crowley. It could well be called the bible of Thelema. Crowley considered these books to be theophanies--divinely inspired and beyond criticism. They form the kernel of his developmental system, and reveal the essence of his mission to mankind. This collection was prepared by Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) using painstaking editorial techniques to reproduce the most reliable source for each book. Every effort has been made to adhere to the formal prerequisites for publication. Technical questions were resolved in accordance with Crowley's instructions wherever possible. A comprehensive preface by Frater Hymenaeus Alpha, Caliph of the O.T.O., surveys the sensitive issues concerning the editorial handling of revealed material. Crowley's writings concerning the Holy Books are excerpted, including his diaries for the period. Through these, the chronology of the Holy Books' reception is outlined for the first time. In addition, Crowley's own summary of his magical development up to the reception of the Holy Books is given its first publication, editorially referenced to his widely-available 'Confessions'. A synthetic synopsis provides the reader with a concise introduction to each Holy Book in Crowley's own words, conveniently arranged by title for ease of study. Three appendices have been prepared especially for this edition: An in-depth study of the Stele of Revealing that includes three separate translations of the Egyptian text of this link with antiquity. Also included is the first authentic photograph to be published in the magical literature. A comprehensive list of Thelemic technical writings, arranged by number, class and title, and finally an annotated bibliography of the Holy Books. The traditional "Hello", the #93 is stamped under the half-title page. A near fine clean copy (small bookstore label to bottom of the half-title page) in a near fine clean dust jacket
  • $500
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TOUGH LOVE. My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For

Rice, Susan This copy is inscribed by Susan Rice on the title page. Recalling pivotal moments from her dynamic career on the front lines of American diplomacy and foreign policy, Susan E. Rice--National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations--delivers an inspiring account of a life in service to family and country. Although you may think you know Susan Rice--whose name became synonymous with Benghazi following her Sunday news show appearances after the deadly 2012 terrorist attacks in Libya--in Tough Love, the author reveals the truth of her surprising story with unflinching honesty. Often mischaracterized by political opponents, Rice emerges as neither a villain nor victim, but a strong, compassionate leader. Mother, wife, scholar, diplomat, and fierce champion of American interests and values, Rice connects the personal and the professional. Taught early, with tough love, how to compete and excel as an African American woman in settings where people of color are few, Susan shares wisdom learned along the way. Laying bare the family struggles that shaped her early life in Washington, D.C., she also examines the ancestral legacies that influenced her. Rice's elders--immigrants on one side and descendants of slaves on the other--had high expectations that each generation would rise. And rise they did, but not without paying it forward--in uniform and in the pulpit, as educators, community leaders, and public servants. Susan too rose rapidly. She served throughout the Clinton administration, becoming one of the nation's youngest assistant secretaries of state and, later, one of President Obama's most trusted advisors. Rice provides an insider's account of some of the most complex issues confronting the United States over three decades, ranging from "Black Hawk Down" in Somalia to the genocide in Rwanda and the East Africa embassy bombings in the late 1990s, to Libya, Syria, a secret channel to Iran, the Ebola epidemic, and the opening to Cuba during the Obama years. With unmatched insight and characteristic bluntness, she reveals previously untold stories behind recent national security challenges, including confrontations with Russia and China, the war against ISIS, the struggle to contain the fallout from Edward Snowden's leaks, the U.S. response to Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the surreal transition to the Trump administration. Intimate, sometimes humorous, but always candid, Tough Love culminates with an appeal to the American public to bridge our dangerous domestic divides in order to preserve our democracy and sustain our global leadership. Illustrated from photographs. 531 pages with index.
  • $100