SHOP UPDATE: Literary Finds

I'm a total bibliophile, no doubt about it. I love books and lots of them. I am particularly enchanted with vintage titles that have stunning covers. Decorative cloth covers are something I almost always spring for when I see them. I love the visual effect of these stunning books sitting alone on a table or shelf, or propped next to a matching vintage find. Enchanting. But of course, aside from the design of the book, I am also intrigued by the stories they hold. I love doing research on the books and the authors who wrote them, and am always delighted when I find an obscure book or author. 

Here are some of my interesting finds for this week, available in the shop.

The Trees by Conrad Richter

Synopsis: The Trees is a moving novel of the beginning of the American trek to the west. Toward the close of the eighteenth century, the land west of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio River was an unbroken sea of trees. Beneath them the forest trails were dark, silent, and lonely, brightened only by a few lost beams of sunlight. Here, in the first novel of Conrad Richter's Awakening Land trilogy, the Lucketts, a wild, woods-faring family, lived their roaming life, pushing ever westward as the frontier advanced and as new settlements threatened their isolation. This novel gives an excellent feel for America's lost woods culture, which was created when most of the eastern Midwest was a vast hardwood forest---virtually a jungle. The Trees conveys settler life, including conflicts with Native Americans, illness, hunting, family dynamics, and marriage.

M/F by Anthony Burgess (First Edition)

 Synopsis: Kicked out of college and harassed by his lawyer, Miles Faber abandons New York and embarks on a defiant pilgrimage across the Caribbean to find the shrine of Sib Legeru, an obscure poet and painter. But in the streets of Castita's capital, where a wild religious festival is in full swing, a series of bizarre encounters - including his own repulsive doppelganger (the son of a circus bird-woman) - and disturbing family revelations await Miles, who soon finds himself a willing victim of dynastic destiny. A darkly surreal comedy of dazzling linguistic inventiveness, MF is an outrageous tale of blood, lust and the machinations of fate.

Our Bessie by Rosa N. Carey

 Synopsis: Our Bessie by Rosa N. Carey was written in 1895, and revolves around the life of Bessie, the daughter of a poor country doctor. She meets and befriends another young woman named Edna, who counts herself a modern woman that thinks Bessie is sweet and naive. She makes it her goal to help Bessie become more wordly, but eventually leads herself into trouble. Through prayer and council from the well-raised Bessie, Edna's life is brought back around. A nostalgic stroll through a more pleasantly innocent time. A morality play.

Barbara Heathcote's Trial by Rosa N. Carey

Synopsis: Barbara Heathcote's Trial by Rosa N. Carey was written in 1871, and was hailed in The Literary World Journal (1883) to be "a novel of a sort which does not appear too often in any one season, and which it would be a real loss to miss." No synopsis available.