Tag Archives: Secondhand second hand books

Books Update: Always Mind The Pollacks – These Dames Don’t Come Cheap!

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*Crime, Spies & Sleaze:  John Pollack is a name frequently seen on 1940s/1950s British gangster pulp fiction digests, although most of these are particularly hard to come by these days; he was a local artist (like the more (in)famous Reginald Heade) and lived in Clapham, South West London. Pollack’s women were gorgeous and glamorous and his men were chiselled tough guys. For the second part of our Pollack retrospective, five more hardboiled crime thrillers have joined our shelves. Two are from Michael Storme, Make Mine A Corpse and Make Mine A Harlot. The rest are from a pair of previously unlisted authors, Gene Ross (Lady Throw Me A Curve and Two Smart Dames), and Timothy Trenton (the extremely rare Death For A Tough Guy). These are hard to find volumes much prized by collectors of this sought after sub-genre.
PICTURED:
GENE ROSS            
LADY THROW ME A CURVE VG £40
TWO SMART DAMES GD £30
MICHAEL STORME             
MAKE MINE A CORPSE FA/GD £25
MAKE MINE A HARLOT VG £30
TIMOTHY TRENTON
DEATH FOR A TOUGH GUY GD/VG £40

Books Update: A Whole Lotta Horror Goin’ On

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: Here’s a monstrously large addition to our selection of horror books, consisting of works by William Hope Hodgson, Robert E Howard, H P Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith as well as a plethora of other authors marshalled into anthologies by Herbert Van Thal. Hodgson’s blend of Science Fiction and Horror is represented by The House On The Borderland (cover art by Ed Emshwiller) and The Night Land Volume 1 and 2. Howard’s contribution is an early work of Fantasy/Horror, Wolfshead (cover art by Frank Frazetta). We have five books by Lovecraft: The Colour Out Of Space And Others, The Shadow Over Innsmouth And Other Stories Of Horror, The Tomb And Other Tales, The Lurker At The Threshold and The Survivor And Others (the last two also have August Derleth as author). In addition we have Lin Carter’s study of the master, Lovecraft: A Look Behind The Cthulhu Mythos. Rounding this update off is Smith with The City Of The Singing Flame and The Last Incantation and four Pan Books Of Horror edited by Van Thal, consisting of #5, #8, #12 and #21. If this isn’t enough to make your blood run cold we don’t know what is!

 

Books Update: Michael Moorcock Restocked

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: Here are six more of Moorcock’s books, coming from a range of series: An Alien Heat (Dancers At The End Of Time #1), Stormbringer (Elric), The Sword Of The Dawn (The History Of The Runestaff #3) and The War Lord Of The Air (Oswald Bastable #1). The remaining books are The Shores Of Death (a variant title of the novel The Twilight Man) and The Time Dweller (a collection of short stories).

Books Update: More Mack Reynolds Titles

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: It’s a pleasure to add five more books by this author to our listings. Specialising in predictions of the near future, with many stories set in the year 2000, Reynolds correctly anticipated the credit-card economy, the worldwide web and a ‘Common Europe’. His anticipated utopian societies, sadly, were less accurate, but nevertheless he uses the imagined societies to explore how they would (or wouldn’t) work. In this update we have Earth Unaware, Police Patrol: 2000 A.D., Space Pioneer, The Earth War and Time Gladiator.

Books Update: Honey West: Private Eyeful

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*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: ‘Private eyeful’ was just one of the ways Honey West, one of the first female private detectives in popular fiction, was described – others included ‘sexsational’, ‘sexiest private eye ever to pull a trigger’, ‘hotter than a pistol’ and ‘the best-stacked private eye alive’. Every adventure managed to involve loss of at least some of Honey’s clothing, before order was restored, at least in part due to her long-suffering boyfriend, Johnny, with plenty of jeopardy and thrills along the way. We have five of G G Fickling’s Honey books, all first US PB Pyramid editions (second printing for This Girl For Hire) plus a second copy of Blood And Honey released as a tie-in to the 1960s television show, and with TV covers. This classy dame also has classy covers on the other books, with art by Robert Maguire (Blood And Honey and Kiss For A Killer), Robert Maginnis (Girl On The Prowl), Ronnie Lesser (Bombshell) and Harry Schaare (This Girl For Hire).

Books Update: Midwood: Sapphic Sisters In Sleaze

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*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: The emphasis is firmly on the latter here, with a set of six Midwood books from the 1960s. Midwood were notorious as publishers of ‘tasteful’ sub-erotica, employing some of the most accomplished cover artists of the time, such as Paul Rader, who created the art on all but one of the novels in this update. Hailing from a time when LBGTQQIAAP just meant that a monkey had got to your typewriter, all six of these books are in the sub-genre dealing with the euphemistically described ‘forbidden love that dare not tell its name’. The five with Rader covers are A Twilight Affair (James Harvey), When Lights Are Low (Dallas Mayo), The Beauty Game (Emory Paine), The Blonde (Peggy Swenson) and The Unfortunate Flesh (Randy Salem). The final book is Private Party, written by Kimberly Kemp (who also features in the Midwood Double Pampered/Perfumed, already in stock). All six books are highly collectable 1st US PB, in grades ranging from GD to VG/FN.

Books Update: Gosh, Parker, What A Lot Of Gerry Anderson Books!

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*TV/Film Tie-Ins: Yus, m’lady! Ten books have been added to this category, all linked to favourite series by Gerry Anderson: Captain Scarlet and the Angels, Thunderbirds and Lady Penelope, and Stingray. Captain Scarlet encounters The Mysterons and The Silent Saboteur, while the Angels do battle with The Creeping Enemy. Stingray is represented by Stingray itself and by Stingray And The Monster, while in the Thunderbird universe Lady Penelope deals with the Albanian Affair and the Tracy family appear in Thunderbirds, Calling Thunderbirds, Ring Of Fire and Thunderbirds Are Go. All ten books are 1st UK PB and guaranteed to let you wallow in nostalgia as you enjoy the adventures.

 

Books Update: Jack Vance A-Plenty

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: This latest addition to this category consists of a hefty chunk of Jack Vance titles, including an Ace Double (The Brains Of Earth/The Many Worlds Of Magnus Ridolph), an early Lancer edition of The Dying Earth (a superbly crafted fantasy with a dark undertone of humour, which helped inspire Gene Wolfe’s great Book Of The New Sun) and a host of 1st PB editions, rightfully giving works previously only published in pulps a wider audience. Vance was a master of the Swords & Sorcery genre, with a greatly appreciated humorous streak. He created several series, each encompassing its own carefully imagined universe: from the Big Planet series we have Big Planet itself and Showboat World, from the Durdane series The Anome, The Brave Free Men and The Asutra, from the Gaean Reach series The Gray Prince, Maske: Thaery, Trullion: Alastor 2262, Marune: Alastor 933 and The Book Of Dreams, while from the Planet of Adventure series we have The Dirdir and The Pnume. In addition – yes, there’s more! – we have Son Of The Tree, The Dragon Masters, The Houses Of Iszm and The Languages Of Pao. The Ace Double has two Jack Gaughan covers, while The Dirdir and The Pnume have Jeff Jones cover art and The Dying Earth has Emshwiller cover art.

Books Update: Clark Ashton Smith In The Shop

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: We’re delighted to add Clark Ashton Smith to our list of authors, a writer whose work spans all three genres of this category. When you get fulsome praise from H P Lovecraft ‘Smith’s stories deal powerfully with other galaxies, worlds and dimensions. Who else has seen such gorgeous, luxuriant and feverishly distorted visions of infinite spheres and multiple dimensions and lived to tell the tale?’ and from August Derleth ‘..virtually without peer in the genre of fantasy and the macabre’, there’s really not much more recommendation required. We’ve added three collections of short stories, Out of Space & Time Volumes 1 and 2, and two copies of The Abominations Of Yondo. All these titles are hard to find, so snap them up to find out what all the praise was about.

Books Update: What’s ‘Aldiss’ Then?

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: ‘All this’ is a great selection of books written or edited by Brian Aldiss, one of the most interesting, inventive, thought-provoking and entertaining of the great British SF writers. Pictured are Frankenstein Unbound, Hothouse, The Interpreter, The Malacia Tapestry and Space Opera. In addition we’ve added An Age, Non-Stop, The Airs Of Earth, The Canopy Of Time, The Dark Light Years, The Eighty-Minute Hour, Evil Earths and Space Odysseys. Whichever you choose you can be sure of a great read!

Books Update: Philip K Dick – Spotted!

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: We’ve added a baker’s dozen of books by this very popular author. Pictured are A Maze Of Death, Clans Of The Alphane Moon, The Preserving Machine And Other Stories, Time Out Of Joint, We Can Build You and (written with Zelazny) Deus Irae. Apart from the books shown we’ve also included Dr Bloodmoney Or How We Got Along After The Bomb, Dr Futurity/ The Unteleported Man (an Ace Double), Eye In The Sky, Solar Lottery,The Variable Man, The Zap Gun and Vulcan’s Hammer. Most of these titles are 1st PB.

Books Update: The Return Of Doc Savage

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*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: A big hit when first published in pulps in the 1930s, Kenneth Robeson’s Doc Savage gained new fans when he appeared in a series of novelisations of the pulp stories in the 1960s/70s and in a 1970s film. Now, it seems that he will be featured in a new film next year. To mark this we’ve put out more of his novels (all 1st PB), including the original story The Man Of Bronze. In addition to the three pictured we also have Land Of Always Night, Meteor Menace, The Green Eagle and The Sargasso Ogre. Join Clark Savage Jr. and his team Monk, Ham, Renny, Johnny and Long Tom as they pit their brilliant brains and colossal brawn against a succession of nefarious villains.

Books Update: Smeg! More TV / Film Books

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*TV / Film Tie-Ins: A mixed bag of TV and Film books join the ranks, all UK PB and mainly with a Science Fiction theme, but see if you can spot the odd one out. We’re particularly pleased to have our first Red Dwarf book, Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, but we also have Alien and Aliens, The Prisoner, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Joe 90 in Revenge, Till Death Us Do Part and Edge of Darkness. Many are 1st PB editions and nearly all have TV or movie images.

Books Update: Arthur C Clarke Replenished

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: A dozen of Clarke’s novels join the bookshelves, ranging from A (A Fall Of Moondust) to V (Voices From The Sky; non-fiction) and published from the 1950s to the 1980s. Apart from the titles pictured we also have Earthlight, Imperial Earth, Islands In The Sky, Reach For Tomorrow, Rendezvous With Rama and 2010 Odyssey Two. Widely admired for both his scientific and literary ability, this set of novels and short stories amply display the range of his talents.

 

Books Update: No Zzzzzz’s With Zelazny

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: We’re delighted to have a large influx of books by one of our favourite Science Fiction authors, Roger Zelazny. A winner of multiple Hugos, Nebulas and other awards, with such stellar talent that he could probably get an award nomination simply by writing a shopping list, his name is not as well recognised now as other authors such as Asimov, Clarke or Dick. If he’s not an author you’ve read before, we’d recommend you start with A Rose For Ecclesiastes, Four For The Future or The Doors Of His Face, The Lamps Of His Mouth, all collections of short stories, or a book from the Amber series (Sign Of The Unicorn, The Guns Of Avalon or The Hand Of Oberon). After that you’re spoilt for choice: Changeling, Creatures Of Light And Darkness, Damnation Alley, Eye Of Cat, Isle Of The Dead, Jack Of Shadows, Madwand, My Name Is Legion, Roadmarks, The Dream Master, This Immortal, To Die In Italbar and Today We Choose Faces. Nearly all of the books are 1st UK PB or 1st US PB, dating from the 1960s to early 1980s.

Books Update: Famous Five Back Again – Bring Your Own Ginger Beer!

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*Childrens’ Books: We’re delighted to welcome back George, Dick, Anne, Julian and Timmy, in ten titles from Enid Blyton’s most fondly remembered group of children, including several duplicates. Some books have had adventures almost as exciting as those of the Five; grades range from VF to FA, and all have dust jackets, in grades ranging from FA/GD to VG/FN (one book has a photocopy of the original dust jacket; Five Have Plenty Of Fun). Another clearly loved and well-read copy, Five Go To Demon’s Rocks, has at least two sets of loose pages. The other titles are Five Get Into Trouble, Five Go Adventuring Again, Five Go Off In A Caravan, Five Go To Mystery Moor, Five Go To Smuggler’s Top, Five Have A Wonderful Time, Five On A Secret Trail and Five Run Away Together. We can’t promise cake and lashings of ginger beer, but we can offer plenty of adventures down Memory Lane.

 

Books Update: Tuck Into Billy Bunter (With Added Bessie)

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*Children’s Books: A Bunter-sized number of HC books about the Fat Owl of the Remove (and his sister) have just been added to our section, including several  first editions (Billy Bunter’s Bodyguard, Big Chief Bunter and Bunter The Stowaway). Later editions, published in the 1950s and 1960s feature Billy Bunter’s Benefit, Billy Bunter’s First Case, Bunter Comes For Christmas, Lord Billy Bunter and Billy Bunter’s Double. On the distaff side we’ve added Bessie Bunter Of Cliff House School, in first edition HC. All books have dust jackets, with all but one (a former library book) protected by removable archival film.

Books Update: Five Five Finder-Outers And An Extra Mystery

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*Childrens’ Books: Somewhat confusingly we ‘ve just added five titles from Enid Blyton’s Five Finder-Outer series to our Childrens’ Books section, comprising of #1, #3, #6, # 7 and #13. Larry, Fatty, Daisy, Pip and Bets, aided and abetted by Buster the Scottie dog, pit themselves against various nefarious characters and ‘Clear-Orf’, the local constable, to solve a range of mysteries: to wit The Mysteries Of The Burnt Cottage, The Hidden House, The Missing Man, The Pantomime Cat and The Secret Room. We’ve also added Ring O’Bells Mystery, in which Roger, Diana, Snubby, Barney and Miranda (a monkey), aided and abetted by Loony the mad black spaniel, pit themselves against various nefarious characters to solve a mystery.

Books Update: A NEL of an update!

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: An octet of titles join the shelves, all published by the New English Library. First up is Bradbury’s The October Country, with a stunning wraparound cover by Josh Kirby, closely followed by Campbell’s The Moon Is Hell and Davis’ (ed.) The Old Masters. We have two titles by Terry Greenhough, The Wandering Worlds and Time And Timothy Grenville, the latter with Bruce Pennington cover art. Frank Herbert’s classic, Dune, is also graced by a Pennington cover. Finally we have Ward Moore’s Bring The Jubilee and Pohl’s Slave Ship.

Books Update: All Corgis Big And Small

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: This time we’ve added eight Corgi SF books, all from the 1950s or 1960s. The five earliest editions are all the slightly shorter and squarer Pocket book size, while the later three are the standard (for their time) size. The earlier set consists of The Silver Locusts (Bradbury), Space On My Hands (Brown), The Big Eye (Ehrlich), World Out Of Mind (McIntosh) and Timeliner (Maine). Several of these have cover art by John Richards, although the cover art on Space On My Hands is by Charles Binger. Of the standard size Corgis we have another Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes with a Bruce Pennington cover, New Writings in SF-13 (Carnell ed.) with a Josh Kirby cover and an unusual edition of Miller’s classic A Canticle For Leibowitz.

Books Update: Shhhhhhhh…. Secret Seven!

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*Childrens’ Books: Although we already have a range of Enid Blyton books we have a few of her iconic series missing, which we start to rectify with this update. We’re adding three HC Secret Seven books, all later printings of the 1st editions. Starting with #3 in the series, Well Done Secret Seven, then proceeding to #6, Good Work Secret Seven and ending with #9, Secret Seven Mystery. Consisting of Peter, Janet, Jack, Barbara, George, Pam and Colin, the Secret Seven also includes the obligatory canine (but unofficial) member, Scamper the golden spaniel. Their adventures include a discovery in a tree-house, a stolen car and a search for a runaway.

Books Update: Science Fiction Classics Added

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: A fine selection of classic Science Fiction novels and short story collections here, in editions ranging from the 1960s to 2000s. Greybeard and Space, Time And Nathaniel from Aldiss, Dandelion Wine and The October Country (an unusual Ace UK edition) from Bradbury, Babel-17 and Nova from Delany, plus the brilliantly titled Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? (Dick) and we’ve only got to D so far! The Radio Beasts (Farley), I Am Legend (Matheson) and A Canticle For Leibowitz (Miller) take us up to M. We have both the 1st UK PB and US PB of Sellings’ Telepath/The Silent Speakers, and to round off we have More Than Human (Sturgeon). If you haven’t read these, then we recommend that you do. As an additional inducement many of these editions have fine cover art by the likes of Bruce Pennington and Richard Powers.

 

Books Update: Conan Confusion!

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: You just can’t trust minions! Dr Evilla’s been very preoccupied in her Evilla Cave (conveniently situated below her secret alter ego’s stately residence), with her latest plan for world domination. Due to this she tasked her assistant, Greebo, with sorting out more Conan books to sell. Greebo’s pair of neurones weren’t able to cope and Dr Evilla was surprised to find an update consisting of Conan The Usurper and The Conan Doyle Stories! Greebo has now been assigned more menial minion duties, but the books remain enticingly on the shelves. The Conan Doyle stories, selected by John Dickson Carr, range over several genres and include Tales of the Ring, the Camp, Pirates, Blue Water, Terror, Mystery, Twilight and the Unseen, Adventure, Medical Life and Tales of Long Ago. Conan The Usurper has its eponymous hero battling deadly magic, murderous demons and incredible monsters – all in a day’s work for the mighty barbarian.

Books Update: Howard’s Way

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: Robert E Howard packed an impressive amount of writing into his short life (committing suicide at just 30 years old). His influence can be gauged by the continuing interest in his work and his life. We’ve gathered together six non-fiction works that, through a mixture of biography and selected work by the great man, explore his achievements and lasting appeal. Titles consist of Dark Valley Destiny: The Life Of Robert E. Howard (de Camp et al), The Dark Barbarian: The Writings Of Robert E Howard: A Critical Anthology (Herron ed), Robert E Howard: Starmont Reader’s Guide 35 (Cerasini & Hoffman), Conan’s World And Robert E Howard (Schweitzer), Literary Swordsmen And Sorcerors: The Makers Of Heroic Fantasy (de Camp) and The Last Celt (Lord ed). Nearly all are 1st editions, and they can all be found just after the R E Howard listing in our catalogue.

 

 

 

Books Update: Jennings In Hardcover

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*Childrens’ Books: Originally a radio series, Anthony Buckeridge’s tales about Jennings were so popular that a succession of books about his exploits were published. We have four hardcover novels, to wit: Jennings’ Little Hut, wherein we discover why Jennings shouldn’t consider a career in the construction industry, Jennings And Darbishire, which reveals why Jennings is unsuited to a career in journalism, According to Jennings, in which we discover why Jennings is unlikely to become an astronaut and finally Jennings, Of Course! in which Jennings tries to be helpful, generally with hilariously unhelpful results. Three of these pictured below; all four have dustjackets, protected by removable archival film, as with all the dustjackets of our hardcover books.

 

Books Update: A Bear, A Wolfe And Two Cherryhs

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: Not a meal suggestion, but four books that will definitely leave you satisfied. First up, Greg Bear’s Infinity Concerto, a quite different look at a trip to ‘Fairyland’, then two books by C J Cherryh. Heavy Time deals with the early period of human expansion into the space, while Hunter Of Worlds explores the effect of human alien contact as she does so well (fans of the Foreigner series may recognise some traits of the Atevi in the iduve). Finally Gene Wolfe’s Operation Ares looks at a different type of Martian invasion.

Books Update: The Doctors Are In!

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*TV/Film Tie-Ins: A multiplicity of Doctor Whos in this week’s update as we feature 10 Target novelisations new into stock, featuring all seven regenerations of classic Doctor Who. The First Doctor: The Daleks & The Romans; the Second Doctor: The Dominators; The Third Doctor: Death To The Daleks & The Daemons; the Fourth Doctor: Full Circle, the Fifth Doctor: The Caves Of Androzani; the Sixth Doctor: Timelash; the Seventh Doctor: Remembrance Of The Daleks and all first five Doctors in… (you guessed it) The Five Doctors! All are in grades ranging from GD to VF (except the Five Doctors is only FA with a large cover scuff and watermark on lower part of pages (see scan below). Many classic stories now included in our inventory  — I’m sure our shop must be bigger on the inside… 

Books Update: Can You (S)take It? Horror All The Way

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: This update is brimming over with terrifying tales. Shiver with Lovecraft’s Library double Sinister House/Cold Harbour (Leland Hall and Francis Brett Young), while from Lovecraft himself there’s The Dunwich Horror And Others (in a prestigious Arkham House HC edition) and from Lovecraft and August Derleth there’s The Lurker At The Threshold. Tremble as you read The Horror Stories Of Robert E Howard, a collection of tales by Jerome K Jerome, City Of The Sea And Other Ghost Stories (a special limited edition), or Lair Of The Dreamer: A Cthulhu Mythos Omnibus by Franklin Searight. Finally, if your nerves are up to it there are two novels by Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives, The Novel of the Black Seal by Arthur Machen and a perennial favourite, Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

 

 

Books Update: Pan, Peff & Peter Cheyney – A Great Combination

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*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: Three Great Pan editions of Peter Cheyney’s detective / Secret Service novels, all adorned with wonderful Peff (S J Peffer) cover art. Dames Don’t Care features Lemmy Caution, Dark Duet has Michael Kane (!) involved in counter-espionage while Dark Wanton features Quayle, Head of A Secret Service department setting a group of agents to hunt down a pair of Nazi war criminals.

 

Books Update: Out Of Their Comfort Zones

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror / Crime, Spies & Sleaze: This update features a set of books where authors have crossed from established genres to explore new horizons. Jack London, Hank Janson and Edgar Wallace, best known for Crime have Science Fiction novels with The Star Rover, The Unseen Assassin and The Green Rust respectively. In fact, cognoscenti of Hank Janson’s Reginald Heade cover art will find the distressed damsel on the cover of The Unseen Assassin very similar in pose and dishevelled clothing to those adorning the detective fiction (although the background art is by Ron Turner).  J B Priestley, now best known as a playwright has a Crime novel – Salt Is Leaving. The last three publications defy easy classification, but we’ve put them in our Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror category: The Starcomber, originally a novella by Alfred Bester, Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) is it Fantasy? Horror? a Polymesmeric Bestseller? and finally Dragaonflame And Other Nightmares by Don McGregor, who’s best known as a comics writer.

 

Books Update: A Fine Fantasy Selection

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: An update showcasing the broad range that fantasy encompasses. The Beckoning Fair One (Oliver Onions) is a classic with more than a tinge of horror.  The great nineteenth-century innovator of modern fantasy, George MacDonald is featured twice, in The Golden Key, suitable for children, and in Lilith, which is considered to be his darkest work. The Forgotten Beasts Of Eld (Patricia McKillip) is more elegaic in manner, while The Castle Of Iron (L Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt) and The Disappearing Dwarf (James P Blaylock) take a humorous approach.

Books Update: Five Classic SF Authors

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: This release consists of a set of novels originally published between 1950 and 1965, mainly by authors who first achieved recognition in pulp fiction, but also Stanislaw Lem, represented here by The Cyberiad (1977 edition), but perhaps best known for Solaris. The reinvented pulp authors are Asimov (The Stars Like Dust, 1958 edition), Budrys (Who?, 1960 Badger edition), Chandler (Space Mercenaries, 1960s edition) and E E ‘Doc’ Smith (First Lensman, 1973 edition).

Books Update: Pyrimadal Perfidy – Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu

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*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: Dr Fu Manchu’s evil empire has expanded with the addition of three stylish Pyramid (US) editions of his adventures. The Island Of Fu Manchu dates from 1963, The Mask Of Fu Manchu from 1966 and the (comparatively) modern The Return OF Dr. Fu Manchu dates from 1970. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD

The London Bookshop Crawl Starts Today

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We’re looking forward to meeting Bookshop Crawlers! This event runs from today till Sunday (11th February), when we will be open especially for book lovers. Don’t forget to visit the London Bookshop Crawl page to find out more and to get your ID. For these 3 days only we’re offering 10% off all items bought from the Books section and a selection of free books (maximum 5 per customer).

 

Books Update: Looking For Lovecraft

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*Science Fiction, Horror & Fantasy: H P Lovecraft’s influence can be judged from the large number of works written about him, exploring his background and his relationship to other influential writers of his day. We’ve added six titles, several rare, which aim to explore the man behind the macabre. Two take the form of literary criticism, Burleson’s H P Lovecraft: A Critical Study and St Armand’s The Roots Of Horror In The Fiction Of H P Lovecraft, one is autobiographical, Lord Of A Visible World: An Autobiography In Letters (Lovecraft, Joshi, & Schultz), and one a biography, Lovecraft At Last (Lovecraft & Conover). The remaining two cover Lovecraft in film, Lurker In The Lobby: A Guide To The Cinema Of H P Lovecraft (Migliore & Strysik) and a circle of his friends that formed the Kalem Club, Lovecraft’s New York Circle (Hart & Joshi). Giving you a chance to learn far more about Lovecraft than can be gleaned from his fiction, all of these are listed just after the author himself in the catalogue to make them easy to find.

Books Update: H P Lovecraft, Master Of Horror

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*Science Fiction, Horror & Fantasy: H P Lovecraft is now seen as a natural successor to Edgar Allan Poe, but his life followed the tragic arc typically expected of artists. The bulk of his work was originally published in pulp fiction, most notably Weird Tales, so it was usually considered not be ‘literature’. Lovecraft is most famous for his Cthulhu stories, and the literary group that gathered around him, notably Robert E Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth and E Hoffman Price all contributed to that mythos. During the 1960s Lovecraft’s work was revived and re-evaluated, becoming far more popular, and granting him cult status as a highly influential author. This is why we’re very pleased to announce a large addition to our selection of Lovecraft’s work, including not only fiction such as At The Mountains Of Madness, Dagon, Tales Of The Cthulhu Mythos, The Horror In The Burying Ground, The Horror In The Museum (in the prestigious Arkham House edition), The Tomb, More Annotated H P Lovecraft  and The Ancient Track (Poetic works), but also non-fiction: Collected Essays and Letters To James F Morton.

Books Update: Perfumed And Pampered With Frazetta Art

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*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: Perfumed / Pampered, a pair of novels published bound together by Midwood (Tower) are typical  sleaze novels from this publisher, but they are elevated by the inclusion of ten full-page black and white illustrations by Frank Frazetta. This is an extremely rare book with high collector interest, in VG/FN grade on sale for £150. There is minor creasing at the spine and very slight binding separation towards the rear, but no loose pages.

Although we normally only use images from our own copies, in this case, to avoid damage, we’ve used stock images to show a sample of the illustrations. Front and back cover images are of the actual copy of the book. 

 

 

 

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Books Update: The Bookshop Crawl Cometh!!!

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This year we’re very excited (maybe the !!! gives it away?) to be taking part in the London Bookshop Crawl, which will be happening over the weekend of 9th – 11th February. The Bookshop Crawl, as you might imagine is like a pub crawl, only with books, and is an opportunity for booklovers to visit lots of (mainly) independent booksellers and be rewarded in the process.

We’ll be offering 10% off all purchases from our Books section, and a selection of free books (up to 5 per customer). In addition, for this Sunday (11th) only, we’ll be open from 10:30 to 18:00.

If you want to join in, or just find out more, just click here.

Books Update: More Moorcock (Elric and the Eternal Champion)

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: Four more Moorcocks (apart from being a bit of a tongue-twister) are always welcome on our shelves. This time we’ve added Phoenix In Obsidian with the Eternal Champion, an early US version of Stormbringer (with a Jack Gaughan cover), The Singing Citadel and The Stealer Of Souls (two more early Mayflower Elrics with other characters). Join Elric as he agonises eternally, the Eternal Champion in his agonies and numerous other characters in the struggle between Order and Chaos that only Moorcock could conjure up.

What’s Old: The Art of Reginald Heade

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Nestled away in the Crime, Spies and Sleaze category of our Book Department are several volumes featuring the distinctive art of Reginald Heade, described by some American afficiandos of the ‘gangster pulp digest’ genre as ‘England’s finest artist’ and indeed his finely detailed paintings that adorned the covers of hardbacks and paperbacks in the mid 20th Century were a cut above the illustrations featured on the vast majority of similar fare. Although his work ranged through many genres and subject matters, he is best remembered perhaps for the voluptuous women (often in a state of distress/undress) who graced the covers of books by Hank Janson, Paul Renin, Michael Storme, Roland Vane and countless others. Heade himself was a man of mystery about whom little is known, other than he worked in London; there are no photos of him, nor does anyone claim to remember meeting him. Fortunately, he left behind a large body of wonderful work, the legacy by which he will be remembered. Here are a few examples from our stock; although some Heade cover books turn up quite often, others are very rare indeed and command huge prices if and when they come up for sale (some it seems never do!).

Books Update: Sixties Stunners – More Vintage Crime

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*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: A small update of 1960s editions that introduces two new authors to our shelves, in addition to some old favourites. New to our listings are Behold Here’s Poison (Georgette Heyer) and Above Suspicion (Helen MacInnes). We’ve also added John Buchan’s classic The Thirty-Nine Steps, Death In The Clouds by Agatha Christie and Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey – all entertaining reads in great vintage editions.

Books Update: A Handful Of Horror

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: The Horror level has just gone up several notches as five more titles lurch into the category. This time we’ve added a rarity, Dark Menace by Charles Birkin, three classics – The King In Yellow (Robert W Chambers), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) and The (original) Pan Book Of Horror Stories (ed. Herbert Van Thal) – and a not so fantastic voyage on The Uncharted Seas (Dennis Wheatley).

Books Update: TV Books – New Avengers, Men From U.N.C.L.E. And The Prisoner

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*TV/Film Tie-Ins: Fresh into our ever popular TV/Film Tie-In section are the New Avengers in The Eagle’s Nest, the Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s Radioactive Camel Affair and The Prisoner’s A Day In The Life, all featuring TV covers. Best of all, for anyone considering a new career for the New Year, is the ABC Of Espionage, compiled under the auspices of the Men From U.N.C.L.E.

Books Update: Lashings Of Modesty

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*Crime, Spies & Sleaze:  At long last we replenish our stocks of Modesty Blaise paperback novels, including A Taste For Death, Last Day In Limbo, Modesty Blaise, Sabre-Tooth & The Impossible Virgin. Often compared to her contemporary James Bond, we have always found Modesty to be superior! If you haven’t tried Modesty, she really is the best policy, and at prices between £3-£8, an excellent choice!  

Books Update: Big Crimes!

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*Crime, Spies & Sleaze:  … by which we mean crime adventures published in the currently fashionable larger size, rather than the classic 7 1/16″ x 4 3/8″ format. Dating from the 1980s and 2000s, we have Double Indemnity (Cain, the novel that led to the classic film), The Hollow Man (Carr, generally regarded as the finest locked room mystery ever written), Cobra Trap (O’Donnell, the last Modesty Blaise book) and Kiss For A Killer (Fickling, a Honey West adventure, the character that had her own stylish TV series in the 1960s). Perhaps most interesting of all is The Black Gang (Sapper, featuring classic British hero Bulldog Drummond and friends).

Books Update: A Fistful Of Digits

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: Just over a handful of fresh Digit books have arrived on the bookshelves: Bulmer’s The Fatal Fire and The Secret Of Zi, Cooper’s Voices In The Dark (short stories), a Kornbluth & Pohl collaboration, Search The Sky and Lan Wright’s Assignment Luther. Saving the best for last, despite coming first alphabetically, we have Aldiss’ Non-stop, the 1st UK PB for this novel, celebrated with a splendid Emshwiller cover.

Books Update: Something Nasty On The Bookshelf

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*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: Three very different forms of horror writing have arrived, perfect for anyone who thinks Halloween is over too soon. Something Nasty In The Woodshed (Bonfiglioli) has a very unheroic hero, Tales Of Horror And The Supernatural Volume 2 (Machen) features a selection of chilling tales and Dracula (Stoker) has Something Very Nasty In The Coffin.