UBC #8 - The Bruins In Black and White 1924-1966 PB

The Bruins In Black and White 1924-1966 by Richard A. Johnston
Arcadia Publishing c2003 Softcover

since the hometown team has won five of their last six contests (all on the road) now would be the perfect time to jump back on that frozen bandwagonzamboni and show your bruin pride. The Bruins in Black and White 1924-1966 makes for an exciting refresher course on the early days of our causeway street brethren. this book's got plenty of game photos, media clippings, and off the ice pictures to encapsulate the rich early history of beantown's hockey franchise. from the days of eddie shore to the "uke line" and the first years of the bobby orr lovefest, you learn all about it. though if you move the book around a bit it sort of (not really, actually doesn't) feels like you're watching it on the tele. also, as the title suggests, this book has all bacl and white photos. i presume this to be so because color wasn't invented until '67 by the space program. that's why all the kids started getting high and dancing in the streets. hooray for hockey!


SOLD
(that's cheaper than a beer at the garden)

please call or email to hold or purchase. only one copy, so its first come first serve. please note that we will only keep books on hold at the store for three days (including weekends).

UBC #7 - The Future Dictionary of America by McSweeney's

The Future Dictionary of America
McSweeney's c2004 First Edition Hardcover

with the help of such diverse literary talent as paul auster, charles baxter, dave eggers, jim shephard, chris ware, diane ackerman, michael chabon, as well as [insert your favorite author here ________ ], this definitive collection of definitions is sure to have you whelping waves of laughter in no time flat. and if anyone can make me whelp, it sure as sheep is diane ackerman. for example: bookmonster babs: babs is a five-foot tall, purple-furred, eggplant-shaped monster with magical yellow boots who travels around the world on a spherical silver hovercraft dispersing her endless library of books to good boys and girls every year on the anniversary of their first read word."i think my first word was something rather blase--like ball or buns. this, i believe, is the norm with children. if you say your child's first word was either doritos, omnivore or lovely schenectady, you are a liar. also, bookmonster babs is a noun.

a very funny
SOLD

please call or email to hold or purchase. only one copy, so its first come first serve. please note that we will only keep books on hold at the store for three days (including weekends).

UBC #6 Black Moutain: AN Exploration In Community by Martin Duberman PB

Black Mountain: An Exploration In Community by Martin Duberman
W.W. Norton c1993 First Edition Paperback

from the back cover: "In its relatively brief existense (1933-56) Black Mountain College served as the refuge or seedbed for some of the most singular literary and artistic talents of our time, including John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Joseph Albers, Buckminster Fuller, Paul Goodman, and Robert Rauschenberg. It was an experiment in community that proved the forerunner of a wide range of innovations in art and education." i remember i'd checked this book out of the college library at umass and ended up skipping class for three days while i hid and read Maximus Poems [second olson reference in this blog], stared at rauschenberg collages, and wrote dissertations on how creeley lost his eye. this book is a great lesson on how a community can come together to create change and challenge its members to grow not just as artists but as people.

SOLD

please call or email to hold or purchase. only one copy, so its first come first serve. please note that we will only keep books on hold at the store for three days (including weekends).

UBC #5 Crack Up At The Race Riots by Harmony Korine PB

Crack Up At The Race Riots by Harmony Korine
Doubleday c1998 First Edition Paperback

i've never heard of this one before, but upon reading reviews online and seeing how sought-after this bad boy is, i figured it was blogable [new word. i made it.]. though i wasn't willing to completely commit to reading this one, i did flip through it rather briskly and determined that i'd liken it to a cross between mark danielewski and david shrigley. think of a series of lucid vignettes mirroring life's luculent absurdity and postmodern poverty. here's Korine's bio: "Harmony Korine is the self-educated twenty-three-year-old who wrote the screenplay for the controversial film Kids. Korine was raised in the carnival and currently resides in West Virginia." this explains a lot. i mean, i've actually been to and lived in [well, for two months, but still...] west virginia. how else would you explain this?

my apologies to west virginians for my sweeping generalizations.

SOLD

please call or email to hold or purchase. only one copy, so its first come first serve. please note that we will only keep books on hold at the store for three days (including weekends).

UBC #4 - Elizabeth Gilbert

The Last American Man + Stern Men by Elizabeth Gilbert
Penguin, Houghton Mifflin Paperbacks

some of you may recognize elizabeth gilbert as the author of the wildly successful "Eat, Pray, Love" which came out of nowhere to become one of our best bestsellers (i'd be more specific but the list eludes me, but trust me, its up there). down here in the basement we've come across a couple of her lesser known books that we feel you should read. published back in 2002, The Last American Man is the story of eustace conway who makes his home in the appalachian mountains where he lives the edward-abbey-lifestyle. this memoir recounts the trials and tribulations of having to hunt for dinner and snacks, making fire, and trying to mend a decent pair of slacks from leaves and animal skins. though not for the faint of heart, this is still a riveting read that nearly won the national book award. likewise, Stern Men is gilbert's foray into the sexy world of novel writing. set off the coast of maine, a lobsterman's daughter seeks to prove herself in the rough and tumble world of, you guessed it, lobster fishing. or lobster trapping. whatever lobstermen do. according to the seattle times, "Stern Men" captures a feisty american spirit through the unforgettable heroine who is destined for greatness despite herself."



$7.00
update 2/27: Last American Man has been sold.

please call or email to hold or purchase. only one copy, so its first come first serve. please note that we will only keep books on hold at the store for three days (including weekends).

UBC #3 - Eater's Digest by Lorraine Bodger - hardcover

Eater's Digest by Lorraine Bodger
Stewart, Tabori & Chang c2006 Hardcover

from the back cover: "love food? love trivia? Eaters Digest is the best of both: a smorgasbord of food, fun, and trivia served up in perfect snack-sized portions." so if you've ever wondered why beans give you gas or what to serve at a luau, this handy encycopedia will give you the straight-up facts. it'll also inform you about the different types of sushi, which states have the most restaurants, and which foods were named after real people (re: veal oscar, named after king oscar II of sweden). however, it still doesn't provide a clear scientific explanation as to why a circle of bologna once took the paint off my friend jimmy's '88 ford taurus. regardless...

$10.50

please call or email to hold or purchase. only one copy, so its first come first serve. please note that we will only keep books on hold at the store for three days (including weekends).

Shakespeare Daze!

i feel bad for our drama section. its hidden behind a row of spinners. overshadowed by poetry. reduced to being perpendicular to the fiction wall. quite sad, it is. but before you begin weeping into a frilly pillow, let me tell you that help has arrived. tell your sadness to kindly exeunt! stage left 'cause this week the drama section opened up its mouth and took a bite out of poetry forcing Auden and company to shift one shelf down. why? because Shakespeare is back and he's hootin' and hollerin' all the way to Cash Town. you asked for it (well, one guy. Bobby Riles.) and we delivered. a whole shelf of Mr. Shakes. $3.00 per book! grab one or grab em all. you'd finally be able to put some shakespearean insults into some sort of context...

[now, if you hate poetry, you might think it a funny gag to keep people from buying these books thereby keeping the poetry section shrunken by one shelf. i can assure you that this would not really be all that funny. we could always move woody allen to humor and the screenplays to film. so don't even try it, thou caluminous fen-sucked strumpet!]

now that's funny.

UBC #2 - Evergreen Review #8 (Spring 1959)

Evergreen Review #8
Spring Issue/1959 Grove Press Paperback


The Evergreen Review/Grove Press along with City Lights and New Directions, arguably three of the most influential literary outputs of the last fifty years, are an obsession of mine. I used to collect any New Directions titles i'd find while rummaging through thrift shops. I had bookshelves devoted to moderately priced books with black and white covers--books with gnarly looking bearded, bespectacled, downtrodden dudes forcing smiles [re kerouac's Scattered Poems] . a couple cross-country relocations later and i'd been forced to dwindle down the collection. i'm hoping this is the same reason this Evergreen Review copy landed in our laps a few months back. hidden away in the stacks was issue #8. published in the spring of 1959. the rise of beat literature was rising steadily and this issue captures a few on the cusp of greatness. Kerouac, Corso, Ginsberg, Ashberry, Charles Olson, as well as a few other greats: Cummings, Derek Walcott, Alex Trocci, and James Merrill. not to mention one creepy ad with the floating head of Bernard Malamud gazing lovingly into space as only Bernard Malamud could. the Olson poem is worth the price alone:

...the catch
repeats but the generosity
can come only
from those
who have fish

this is an absolute gem of a book. plus it's in great condition for being nearly half a century old. let me roll the price-dice and say....

SOLD

please call or email to hold or purchase. only one copy, so its first come first serve. please note that we will only keep books on hold at the store for three days (including weekends).

UBC #1 - Frank by Jim Woodring - Signed!

Frank by Jim Woodring
Fantagraphics c2000 SIGNED! Paperback

what better way to kick off the blog than with Woodring's Frank. Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy the Pinhead put it best when he described Woodring as "patroling the perimer between cuteness and terror." I remember a few years back I attened a Dan Clowes/Kim Deitch "reading" in which a half dozen times the name "Jim Woodring" came up as "essential." Me, being the blind follower I am, immediately sought out some of his titles, notably Book of Jim and a few Star Wars related books. Frank though takes the cake. beautifully illustrated to give it an old-time feel--visually, like old Tom and Jerry cartoons. plus this beast is signed by Jim himself. double-plus for having the name Woodring which goes into the pantheon of bad ass names (along with ex-St. Louis outfielder Enos Slaughter and musician Mr. Quintron to name a few...well, two). this paperback book is in excellent condition and is a stated third edition from june 2000. did I mention IT'S SIGNED?!

SOLD

please call or email to hold or purchase. only one copy, so its first come first serve. please note that we will only keep books on hold at the store for three days (including weekends).

Welcome!

welcome to the official blog of brookline's best used book basement! we've just completed out fourth and most successful year so right off the bat we'd like to thank you, our valued customers (with books to sell and money to burn!) for allowing us to serve you for the last four years. sure, 2003 seems like a lifetime ago. the sox were still cursed and I hadn't yet morphed into a slightly-balding dude with a beer gut. but like those commercials pitching "solid gold disco" and "summer of love boxsets" let me just say: "man, what a magical year that was for books." here's a list of titles published in 2k3 currently in stock here in the cellar (along with our prices):

time traveller's wife - a. niffenegger ($7.50 )

shutter island - d. lehane ($4.50)

devil in the white city - e. larson ($8.00)

da vinci code - d. brown ($4.50)

random family - a. leblanc ($8.50)

reading lolita in tehran - a. nafisi ($8.00)

stiff - m. roach ($7.50)

harry potter order of the phoenix - j. rowling ($5.50)

kite runner - k. hosseini ($8.00)

living to tell the tale - g. garcia-marquez ($8.00)

[all books listed are paperbacks]

now then, lets get back to the present. here at the "official UBC blog" we'll be keeping you posted on recent arrivals, noteworthy books, and interesting tidbits from the world of used bookselling. all books listed in this blog are available at the store on a first come first serve basis. you can call or email us to put a book on hold, and you can even pay for books over the phone if you are so inclined, again, on a first come first serve basis. so if you see something you like, act fast.

stay tuned!