Devil at Westease by V. Sackville-West. 1947 Doubleday, first edition, 219 pages. Rebecca Dinerstein Knight in The Paris Review starts a wonderful biographical essay on Sackville-West thusly: "How preposterous is it that Vita Sackville-West, the best-selling bisexual baroness who wrote over thirty-five books that made an ingenious mockery of twenties societal norms, should be remembered today merely as a smoocher of Virginia Woolf? The reductive canonization of her affair with Woolf has elbowed out a more luxurious, strange story: Vita loved several women with exceptional ardor; simultaneously adored her also-bisexual husband, Harold; ultimately came to prefer the company of flora over fauna of any gender; and committed herself to a life of prolific creation (written and planted) that redefined passion itself." Devil at Westease is perhaps Sackville-West's rarest novel and wasn't published in Britain at the time. According to a New York Times review "This new book by V. Sackville-West, poet, novelist, biographer, writer on travel and sundry other subjects, is a whodunit, complete with murder, police, unofficial detective and a romance. It is, as might be expected, very well-bred, with sustained suspense, a subtle and original turn of plot, and a fine literary flavor, qualities with which mysteries are not too often blessed."

Condition: Jacket in VG condition, some wear and small chips, book in VG condition, some rubbing away to boards, tanning to end papers, square and clean.

Eve’s Hollywood by Eve Babitz. 1975 first Dell Printing, 271 pages. Babitz has had a resurgence in recent years with the reissues of her titles. She was Joan Didion's contemporary in California, the wild child to Didion's school girl, the Lana Del Rey to Didion's Joni Mitchell. According to her Times obituary: "[Eve Babitz was]  the voluptuous bard of Los Angeles, who wrote with sharp wit and a connoisseur’s enthusiasm of its outsize characters and sensuous pleasures — from taquitos to LSD — and found critical acclaim and a new audience late in life..." Babitz chronicled being young and beautiful in Hollywood and had relationships with the likes of Harrison Ford and Annie Leibovitz. In the nineties she suffered from burns on most of her body, and subsequently retreated from life.  Eve's Hollywood was her first book.

Condition: VG. Scuffing and wear to cover, scratch down back cover, browning to inside covers and first page but spine uncracked, pages clean.

"The Academy of Arts and Sciences is so corny, they're the kiss of death."

The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir, 1969 Putnam, first US edition, 254 pages. The precursor to for Ferrante's Days of Abandonment.

Condition: Good+/VG. Chips and shelf wear to jacket, still bright, some wear to the boards, pencil mark on the end paper.

"Think of something else---anything else: think of yesterday, a calm, ordinary, easy-flowing day, in spite of the nervous tension of waiting."

The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy. 1964 Dutton, first edition, 255 pages, inscribed by author. Dundy was a novelist, actress, and biographer who gained acclaim with her debut The Dud Avocado in 1958, about young woman trying to make it in Paris, in which the heroine experiences an orgasm which Dundy credits as "an important first step toward the frank treatment of female sexuality in fiction." (NYT obituary). In her later years her memoirs depicted her bad marriage and life with celebrities. The Old Man and Me was her second novel, darker than the Dud Avocado but still witty, and takes place in the literary scene in Swinging London.

Condition: Jacket in VG condition, some wear, fading, and rubbing away but no tears, book in VG condition with slight lean. Inscribed by the author to Arthur Penn, renowned director of Bonnie and Clyde, on June 19, 1969 in Stockbridge, MA.

"And the irony was that I was in there suffering the poor only the highly improbable off-chance of running into the very rich!"

Clara: Thirteen Short Stories and a Novel by Luisa Valenzuela. 1976 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, first U.S. edition, 233 pages.  An award-winning author from Argentina, Valenzuela's work challenged power structures from a feminist perspective.

Condition: VG. Some shelf wear to boards.

"As you can imagine, I'm seeking total absolution of my sins."