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4 books match the query 'Rare'
Dancing on Blades
Rare and Exquisite Folktales from the Carpathian MountainsCsenge Virág Zalka
Parkhurst Brothers, Inc., 2018
Rare and Commonplace Flowers
The Story of Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo SoaresOliveira, Carmen
Rutgers University Press, 2003
Rare and Commonplace Flowers—a Brazilian bestseller—tells the story of two women. Elizabeth Bishop, the Pulitzer Prize–winning American poet, sought artistic inspiration in Brazil. There she met and fell in love with Lota de Macedo Soares, a self-trained Brazilian architect. This dual biography—brilliantly researched, and written in a lively, novelistic style—follows their relationship from 1951 to 1967, the time when the two lived together in Brazil. The fact that these two women had an intimate relationship caused an uproar when it first came to public notice.
The relationship started out happily, yet ended tragically. In 1961, Soares became increasingly obsessed with building and administering Flamengo Park, Rio de Janeiro’s equivalent to New York City’s Central Park. Though she had been the driving force behind the park’s inception, the ultimate credit that was due her was stripped away because of petty politics and chicanery. As Soares’s career declined and Bishop’s flourished, their relationship crumbled.
Rare and Commonplace Flowers is a tale of two artists and two cultures, offering unique perspectives on both women and their work. Carmen L. Oliveira provides an unparalleled level of detail and insight, due to both her familiarity with Brazil as well as her access to the country’s artistic elite, many of whom had a direct connection with Bishop and Soares. Rare pictures of the two artists and their home bring this unique story to life.
Rare and Used
Adventures of a Book Scout's ApprenticeDaniel Dietz
Oregon State University Press, 2026
Coming home to Oregon to reconnect with his aging parents, Daniel Dietz discovers the rhythms and relationships of a changing book world. As the internet pushes bibliophiles away from used bookstores and toward digital commerce, Dietz’s stepfather Michael, now nearing eighty, clings to the precarious trade of scouring thrift stores and library sales for rare books to sell. He explores the stacks, from garage sales in Eugene’s Whiteaker neighborhood to Portland’s Powell’s City of Books, for overlooked first editions and valuable rare books from the past.
With humor and tenderness, Rare and Used introduces us to Michael and to a dedicated and zealous community of book people, each with a grail book that they seek above all others. For Dietz, it’s Beat poet Diane di Prima’s debut collection This Kind of Bird Flies Backward—a book once owned by his stepfather. In his quest for the book, Dietz grapples with larger questions about possession, inheritance, and what we can hold onto. A tribute to books and booksellers as well as to family and place, Rare and Used explores what it means to return home to a community that shaped you.
Rare and Wonderful
Treasures from the Oxford University Museum of Natural HistoryKate Diston and Zoë Simmons
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2018
This lavishly illustrated book features highlights from the collections, ranging from David Livingstone’s tsetse fly specimens to Mary Anning’s ichthyosaur, and from crabs collected by Darwin during his voyage on the Beagle to the iconic Dodo, the only soft tissue specimen of the species in existence. Also featured are the first described dinosaur bones, found in a small Oxfordshire village, the Red Lady of Paviland (who was in fact a man who lived 29,000 years ago), and a meteorite from the planet Mars.
Each item tells a unique story about natural history, the history of science, collecting, or the museum itself. Rare & Wonderful offers unique insight into the extraordinary wealth of information and fascinating tales that can be gleaned from these collections.