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Remainders (Bargain Books)
What Are Remaindered Books?
Politics & Prose carries a fantastic variety of sale or bargain books. In publishers' terms these are "remainders," loosely defined as overstocked quantities of books that publishers make available at greatly reduced prices.
At Politics & Prose, we are particularly proud of the quality and selection of
our Remainder Room, located on the lower level of the store.
The unending flow of distinguished and unusual remainder books into Politics & Prose is an exciting dynamic. We are proud of these quality, diverse selections. Unfortunately, like significant but temporary apparitions, the books will quickly be consumed, and rarely can we get these titles again due to limited supply. Do make a point of browsing this section as often as possible -- we guarantee rich rewards!
These books are often only available for a short time,
and this online display is but a small sample of our current selection,
so visit us soon to find what you want!
$4.98
Model: x24498vagrantsSet in China
in 1979, Yiyun Li’s powerful and compelling first novel, THE VAGRANTS, charts the difficult life of
provincial Muddy River. The Cultural Revolution has
ended, a Democracy Wall is starting in Beijing,
but the privation and repression are going strong in the small town. Li’s cast of characters
ranges from the privileged party functionaries—awarded TV sets for cracking down on
counterrevolutionaries—to the disgraced parents of a recently executed
dissident, to a pair of itinerant ragpickers who also acquire abandoned infant
girls. The story concerns how the town divides around the recent execution.
Available in paperback.
$6.98
Model: x24698LittleManThe German novelist Hans Fallada was born
Rudolf Ditzen; he took his pseudonym from a Grimm Brothers story. Three of his
novels have recently been published in English translations. The best known of
them, LITTLE MAN, WHAT NOW?, was
written in 1932 during the difficult period that led to the rise of the Nazis.
It charts the economic and social uncertainties a young couple faces in the
waning days of the Weimar
Republic. Richly evoking
both the physical and psychic realities of the period, it was an international
bestseller in the early 1930s and was made into a film—which earned
Fallada the close attention of the Nazis. Available in paperback.
$6.98
Model: x24698DrinkerFallada wrote fast, almost maniacally, and
THE DRINKER, composed at breakneck
speed between September 6 and September 21, 1944, is a compelling novel
that’s almost literally impossible to put down. Fallada himself suffered
from alcoholism and substance abuse. He was committed to a mental asylum near
the end of World War II, and this story of a man struggling against his private
demons plays out against an equally turbulent public background. Available in
paperback.
$10.98
Model: x24109EveryManDiesFallada’s last novel, EVERY MAN DIES ALONE, set in the dark days
of Nazi Germany, recounts the struggle of Otto and Anna Quangel to avenge their
son’s death after he’s killed in battle. Based on actual events,
Fallada’s fiction is a fast-paced, suspenseful look at wartime Berlin. Available in
hardcover.
$14.98
Model: x24149FixingWorldWhat do Marc Chagall, Philip Guston, Ben Shahn, Ruth Mordecai, and
Alfred Stieglitz all have in common? These artists and dozens of others
are the subjects of Ori Z. Soltes's beautiful book, FIXING THE
WORLD: Jewish American Painters in the Twentieth Century. Soltes
argues that these diverse creative figures are all involved in tikkun
olam, or "fixing the world," whether they do it with realism or
abstraction, political or domestic themes. The argument is fascinating
and thought provoking, the images dazzling. Available in hardcover.
$5.98
Model: x24598SeaofPoppiesThe first in a projected trilogy of historical novels, SEA OF
POPPIES, by Amitav Ghosh, chronicles the
voyage of the Ibis, a former slave ship currently owned by a British
opium merchant. Bound for Canton with a cargo of coolies and opium, the
vessel is a microcosm of mid-nineteenth century social history. Ghosh's
diverse cast includes a fallen raja, half-Chinese convicts, a mulatto
mate passing for white, religious visionaries, and more. The writing is
as vibrant as the characters. Available in hardcover.
$5.98
Model: x24598TenDaysHillsFrom the multi-faceted Jane Smiley, TEN DAYS IN THE HILLS is both a
contemporary Hollywood novel and an imaginative
take on Boccaccio’s Decameron.
Max, a writer/director, and Elena, have a full house for the Academy Awards.
The various actors, producers, family, and hangers-on make up a rich cast, and
the discussions range from movies to gossip to politics. Available in
hardcover.
$7.98
Model: x24798AtLargeBack in stock: Anne Fadiman's graceful collection, AT LARGE
AND AT SMALL: Familiar Essays. Here the impeccable author of Ex
Libris, that perennial favorite of booklovers, discusses topics
ranging from ice cream to Balzac's taste for coffee, from insomnia to
the insanity of moving. In her hands the essay is a flexible and dynamic
genre, suited to intellectual breadth and miniaturist focus. Available
in hardcover.
$6.98
Model: X24698BinLadensA rags-to-riches story that also encapsulates
the clash of traditional and modern ways, Steve
Coll’s THE BIN LADENS: An Arabian
Family in the American Century, recounts the rise of a poor Yemeni
immigrant to Saudi Arabia who works hard and becomes a multi-millionaire. Among
the members of his large family, of course, is Osama bin Laden, and Coll’s
profile of the clan—many of whose members live extravagant, reckless, and short
lives—helps put the radical fundamentalist into perspective. Available in
hardcover.
$5.98
Model: x24598ToSiberiaTO
SIBERIA is another powerful,
evocative novel by Per Petterson, the author who
stole readers' hearts with Out Stealing Horses. Set
in a Danish town during the Second World War, the story centers on an
adolescent brother and sister. Neglected by their parents, they
feel doubly abandoned when their grandfather commits suicide. As her
brother becomes involved in resisting the Nazis, the sister dreams of going
somewhere else. Petterson again takes bleak material and makes literary magic of
it. Available in hardcover.
$5.98
Model: x24598SummerHummingbChristopher Benfey's A SUMMER OF HUMMINGBIRDS: Love, Art,
and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet
Beecher Stowe, & Martin Johnson Heade is, as the
subtitle hints, a wide-ranging exploration of 19th-century American arts and
letters, with some politics, humor, and whimsy thrown in. Benfey, a professor
of English at Mount
Holyoke College,
has been reading the works and studying the lives of his subjects for years.
His book interweaves an amazing amount of literary, historical, and
biographical information, all cohering around some surprising themes, such
as the hummingbird that repeatedly flits through the scenes. Available in
hardcover.
$4.98
Model: x24498CheatingCanastWilliam Trevor has been writing subtle, moving, psychologically-charged
fiction for decades, with no end in sight. His recent collection, CHEATING AT CANASTA: Stories, delves
into the intricacies of memory, aging, family, and small-town life. While the
action unfolds mainly in Ireland,
these stories are as universal as any classic literature, conveying an
emotional richness in even the most everyday occurences. Available in hardcover.
$4.98
Model: x24498FidelityGrace Paley’s straightforward, direct writing belies
the artistry of her fiction and poetry. Hers was an inimitable, instantly
recognizable voice, and it rings as strong as ever in FIDELITY, her last collection of poems
before her death in 2007. Here, as in much of her previous work, she writes
about the sights, sounds, and characters of her native New York City. A powerful blend of humor and
pathos flavors her work, whether she’s listening to a stranger tell a
story or updating the ghost of her sister on a new baby in the family.
Available in hardcover.
$6.98
Model: x24698MyMistressSparBACK IN STOCK, a rich sampler of great fiction: MY MISTRESS’S SPARROW IS DEAD: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro. Edited by Jeffrey Eugenides (author of Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides),
this anthology presents a wide range of authors—Faulkner, Nabokov,
Lorrie Moore—with diverse perspectives on love. Happy endings, unlovely
endings, surprises, it’s all here in a collection that, as Eugenides
says, allows us to “simultaneously partake of the ecstasy and agony of
being in love without paying a crippling emotional price.” Available in
hardcover
$7.98
Model: x24798ProspectorJ.M.G. Le Clézio was unknown to most American readers before he won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 2008. Cited for an art of “poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy,”
Le Clézio delivers just that in his hauntingly lyrical novel, THE
PROSPECTOR. After his family suffers
financial ruin in 1910, Alexis sets out for Rodrigues Island to find the
Corsair’s treasure his father has often spoken about. He discovers a tropical
paradise and first love, but is forced to return to France when World War I
begins. Available in hardcover.
$75.98
Model: x24759NatGeoAtlasThe index alone is 134 pages and that’s only one indication of the size and range of the stunning NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ATLAS OF THE WORLD, Eighth edition. Here are maps of cities, countries, and continents; 75 color, digitally-enhanced satellite images cover the continents, and along with the more familiar political and physical maps, this volume contains thematic maps graphically illustrating environmental conditions, tectonics, oceanography, and the concentrations of natural resources. Originally selling for $165, this beautiful large-format volume is available at $75.98.
$6.98
Model: x24698HowIBecameFamoAs Pete Tarslaw tells it in Steve Hely’s warm-hearted satire, HOW I BECAME A FAMOUS NOVELIST, life on the best-seller list is good, very good. Forget the garret, the writer’s block, the angst—successful novels have a formula, and Tarslaw has cracked it. His rewards include fame, wealth, women, revenge, and a lot of fun for readers.
Available in paperback.
$5.98
Model: x24598CometoThinkOne of the most familiar figures in the media,
first on TV and then on National Public Radio, Daniel Schorr has been an
incisive commentator for decades. COME TO THINK OF IT: Notes on the Turn of
the Millennium is a collection of his thoughts and observations on the
politics, wars, and major world events between1991 and 2007. From his piece
“The Mideast is a Mess and There is no New World Order,” to “The Truth is Hard
to Come by,” these essays remain as smart and relevant as when they were first
broadcast. Available in hardcover.
$9.98
Model: x24998ParadisoEach era updates the classics for its own tastes and needs, and in recent
years there have been several new translations of Dante’s masterpiece The Divine Comedy. The final book, PARADISO, charting the culmination of
Dante’s journey from hell and purgatory and into heaven, recently
appeared in an acclaimed rendering by Robert and Jean Hollander, a Dante
scholar and a poet, respectively. Paradiso offers
a luminous vision of divine truth and love, and whatever one’s religious
beliefs, is a wonderful and thought-provoking reading experience. The bilingual
edition, with commentaries on each canto, is available in hardcover
$5.98
Model: x24598StormingGatesRebecca
Solnit is a writer who refuses to be categorized. With books on Ireland;
getting lost; Muybridge, the movies, and railroads; and, most recently, the
unexpected community spirit that prevails in disasters, the
critically-acclaimed Paradise Built in Hell, she is an original and
penetrating thinker with a polished and accessible prose style. The forty
essays collected in STORMING THE GATES OF PARADISE: Landscapes for Politics
cover a broad range of Solnit’s concerns, from Native Americans and the West to
mining, prisons, feminism, the environment, and more. Available in hardcover.
$7.98
Model: x24798TroublesomeTROUBLESOME YOUNG MEN: The Rebels who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England, Lynne Olson’s account of the end of Chamberlain’s government in 1940, has been hailed for its vivid narrative and keen insights into a period most historians have overlooked. Far from being uneventful, the months between September 1939 and May 1940 were full of strategizing and debate, as a group of Tory MP upstarts—Harold Macmillan, Robert Boothby, Leo Amery, Ronald Cartland among them—turned against Chamberlain and backed Churchill. (Note: Olson’s new book, Citizens of London, will be out in early February. She’ll be speaking at P&P on February 22.) Available in hardcover.
$8.98
Model: x24898BewarePityStefan Zweig was so popular a writer that during the 1920s and ‘30s he had to hide from his fans in Salzburg. Primarily remembered for his memoir of growing up in Vienna, The World of Yesterday, he also wrote some wonderful novels. Part of the New York Review Books Classics series, his BEWARE OF PITY is set on the eve of the First World War and focuses on a young soldier in the Austro-Hungarian cavalry. Unsure of himself socially, Anton unwittingly insults his host’s daughter. As he tries to do right by her, he mires himself more deeply in obligations he can’t fulfill, and mistakes pity for love. This deeply psychological novel is also a stirring evocation of a bygone era. With an introduction by Joan Acocella. Available in paperback.
$6.98
Model: x24698RoadHomeAn excellent storyteller with a knack for taking a familiar plot,
dramatizing it with fully-realized characters, and coming up with
something new and affecting, Rose Tremain is at her best with THE ROAD HOME. The
story of a hard-working, lonely émigré to London from Eastern Europe,
the book explores questions of identity and alienation. Lev, a widower,
wants to help his mother and daughter but seemingly can do so only by
leaving them. Tremain makes a powerful narrative of his life of
homelessness, menial jobs, and tenuous connections to other immigrants.
Available in hardcover.
$7.98
Model: x24798AyaofYopCityFor graphic novel fans, we have AYA OF YOP CITY. The second of three Aya books
written by Marguerite Abouet and illustrated by Clément Oubrerie, this
warm, colorful story is set in the Ivory Coast of the 1970s, when
post-colonialism was fresh and anything seemed possible. Aya’s friend
Adjoua has just had a baby, but questions arise about his paternity.
Meanwhile, there’s romance, nightlife, and the struggles of daily
existence. The book includes a glossary of Ivorian terms and an
interview with Abouet and Oubrerie. Available in hardcover.
$5.98
Model: x24598GivingUpGhostIf you’re one of the many admirers of this year’s Man Booker prize-winning Wolf Hall, you’ll be interested in Hilary Mantel’s memoir, GIVING UP THE GHOST.
Mantel’s was a somewhat unconventional upbringing, and she never quite
understood the adult relationships around her. Nor could she make sense
of the strange visions she had as a child. Later, after law school, a
misdiagnosed illness, experimental medications, marriage, and long
sojourns abroad, she started writing. Her story is fascinating,
unusual, and deftly told. Available in hardcover.
$8.98
Model: x24898ShortcomingsThere are also some new graphic novels in the remainder section. Adrian Tomine’s SHORTCOMINGS is full of scene-stealing characters, sharp dialogue, and crisp black-and-white pictures. Set in San Francisco, it’s the story of the breakdown of Ben and Miko’s relationship. Underlying this plotline are questions of love and race; Tomine shows how love is both blind and not blind when it comes to social and ethnic distinctions. This book is a pleasure to read and it will keep you thinking long after you put it down. Available in hardcover.
$5.98
Model: x24598HomeMarilynne Robinson’s companion volume to Gilead, HOME
is a moving novel about family, faith, and the struggle to do right by
both your own values and those of the people you love. The Boughton
patriarch is dying, and his adult children, Glory and Jack, feel
duty-bound to come back - Glory to help cook and nurse, Jack, the ne’er
do well son, to try to ease a long rupture with his father. The novel
is built on the textures of everyday life: the meals, the chores, the
disappointments, and through these mundane events Robinson builds a
narrative of unnerving power. Available in hardcover.
$39.98
Model: x24399HiroshigeBirdsHIROSHIGE: BIRDS AND FLOWERS features 91 of the thousands of nature studies created by the great Japanese printmaker. Based on Chinese drawings and the miniaturist tradition, which Hiroshige (1797-1858) had been trained in, these large-scale prints are colorful, detailed images that reflect both the reality of the subject and the lyrical sensibility of the artist. Each image is accompanied by a poem in Japanese, translated into English, with a brief commentary by Israel Goldman.
$39.98
Model: x24399HiroshigeEisenThere's more of Hiroshige's wonderful work in THE SIXTY-NINE STATIONS OF THE KISOKAIDO. Dating from the mid-1830s, this collection of prints documenting life along the Kisokaido, a highway between Edo and Kyoto, was originally assigned to the artist and ribald poet Keisai Eisen. When Eisen abandoned the project after creating just 24 pictures, Hiroshige took over. This volume includes images by both artists, along with commentary on the men's different approaches and techniques by Sebastian Izzard.
$39.98
Model: x24399Hokusai100PoetHOKUSAI: ONE HUNDRED POETS is a collection of both color and black-and-white plates that Hokusai (1760-1849) created to go with the poetry anthology, One Hundred Poets. As close and careful a reader as he was a visual artist, Hokusai didn't merely illustrate the book but sought to capture the multi-layered nuances of the poetry's language and themes, as well as expressing his own feelings on the subjects. The poems and the images they inspired appear on facing pages, with brief commentary by Peter Morse.
These three books were published by Braziller in hardcover, all originally $80, and now are only $39.98.
$9.98
Model: x24998MakingItNewMAKING IT NEW: The Art and Style of
Sara and Gerald Murphy, edited by Deborah Rothschild, is the first
comprehensive history of the couple at the center of a circle of artists and
writers pivotal to the rise of Modernism. Counting Hemingway, Picasso, Man Ray, and Fitzgerald among their friends, the Murphys were collectors and
promotors of new art as well as being painters themselves. This oversize volume contains
essays by various critics on the Murphys, music, theatre, and literature -
and full color reproductions of the Murphys' works as well as those of Picasso,
Juan Gris, and Leger. Lots of great photos, too. Available in paperback.
$5.99
Model: x9780761152200I don’t know when teacher presents at
holiday time came into existence. I had never heard of them when I
was raising children in the ‘60s, but when Politics & Prose opened in
the mid 1980’s, a long parade of parents looking for just the right
gift for their children’s teachers became an annual phenomenon. This
year my suggestion for filling the teachers’ stockings without
breaking the bank is the 2010 Page-A-Day Book Lover’s Calendar featuring 365 days of good authors and good books, originally priced at $12.99, now $5.99.
$7.98
Model: x24798PeoplesHistoryAdapted from Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States by Zinn himself, along with historian Paul Buhle and cartoonist Mike Konopacki, A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF AMERICAN EMPIRE: A Graphic Adaptation starts with the events of 9/11 and works back to tell the story of the United States on the world stage. Along with chronicles of U.S. expansion and intervention in Central America, Vietnam, and Iraq, the book recounts Zinn’s family’s history as Jewish immigrants. The political, the personal, text, and pictures—it’s all here. Available in paperback.
$16.98
Model: x24169RothNovels
One of the few living writers to garner a berth in the Library of America series is Philip Roth. NOVELS AND OTHER NARRATIVES, 1986-1991 includes The Counterlife, The Facts, Deception, and Patrimony.
Together, these short novels show Roth’s inventiveness with character
and self, as fiction and autobiography mingle and change places.
Available in hardcover.
$18.98
Model: x24189AmericanEarthAMERICAN EARTH: Environmental
Writing since Thoreau is a true treasure. Edited by Bill
McKibben and with a foreword by Al Gore, this important, comprehensive
anthology contains essays and excerpts from larger works by John Muir, Aldo
Leopold, Rachel Carson, and dozens of others. All the classic works and
thinkers about nature and conservation are here, along with pieces by people, such as P.T. Barnum and Alice Walker, whom you may not have associated with ecology. A chronology starting circa 15,000 BCE traces the effect homo sapiens have
had on America. Available in hardcover.
$6.98
Model: x24698AvernoOne of this country’s
consistently strongest poets is Louise Glück, the former Poet Laureate. All her strengths are evident in AVERNO, a collection of linked lyrics that explore the myth of Persephone—and much else. While the
book has the weight of a spare narrative, each poem is a gem of perfectly
crafted lyricism. Glück weaves wit, humor, and poignancy tightly into the
language, making reading her work a rich, deeply rewarding experience. Available in
hardcover.
$5.98
Model: x24598Afloat
Guy
de Maupassant is known as one of THE masters of the short story, and he learned much
of what he knew from his mentor, Flaubert. However, he was also a journalist,
playwright, and memoirist; he could do almost anything with language. In AFLOAT
he took it
on a Mediterranean cruise. The book is a travelogue, but much more. Weaving
humor, dreams, fact, fiction, meditations, reminiscences, Maupassant produced a
journal, an impressionist painting, a prose poem—just a wonderful reading
experience. It comes with an introduction by Douglas Parmée. Available in
paperback.
$4.98
Model: x24498ISeeYouEverywhAnother compelling picture
of family, this time focused on two close, but very different sisters, is I
SEE YOU EVERYWHERE, the latest novel from Julia
Glass, author of the popular Three Junes. The elder sister, Louisa,
is conscientious and traditional, the younger, Clem, is a bit wilder, and
values her work more than she does her relationships with men. The novel lets
them both have their say, and through alternating chapters we get each sister's
view on their intertwining lives from 1980 through 2005. Available in paperback.