Ham on Rye - Softcover
In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, woman, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D.H. Lawrence, Ham on Rye offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an outcast's coming-of-age during the desperate days of the Great Depression.
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About the Author:
Review:
Charles Bukowski is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in 1920 in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother, and brought to the United States at the age of two. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for over fifty years. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp.
'Very funny, very sad, and despite its self-congratulatory tone, honest in most of the right places. In many ways, Bukowski may have been the perfect writer to describe post-war southern California - a land of wide, flat spaces with nothing worth seeing, so you might as well vanish into yourself. In an age of conformity, Bukowski wrote about the people nobody wanted to be: the ugly, the selfish, the lonely, the mad.' - The Observer
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- PublisherBlack Sparrow
- Publication date2000
- ISBN 10 086241993X
- ISBN 13 9780862419936
- BindingPaperback
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Ham on Rye
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Black Sparrow
(2000)
ISBN 10: 086241993X
ISBN 13: 9780862419936
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Book Description Condition: Good. SHIPS FROM USA. Used books have different signs of use and do not include supplemental materials such as CDs, Dvds, Access Codes, charts or any other extra material. All used books might have various degrees of writing, highliting and wear and tear and possibly be an ex-library with the usual stickers and stamps. Dust Jackets are not guaranteed and when still present, they will have various degrees of tear and damage. All images are Stock Photos, not of the actual item. book. Seller Inventory # 10-086241993x-G
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Ham on Rye ("Rebel Inc" S.)
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ISBN 13: 9780862419936
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR001298162
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Ham on Rye ("Rebel Inc" S.)
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. The book has been read but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact and the cover is intact. Some minor wear to the spine. Seller Inventory # GOR001434265
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Ham on Rye ("Rebel Inc" S.)
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ISBN 13: 9780862419936
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Fair. A readable copy of the book which may include some defects such as highlighting and notes. Cover and pages may be creased and show discolouration. Seller Inventory # GOR002184537
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Ham on Rye
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ISBN 10: 086241993X
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Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Good. Mild wear to edges, with small bump to back cover near top edge. Date written to back endpaper. Otherwise, clean, sound, copy. 318 pgs. Thiis edition published in Great Britain in 2000. Seller Inventory # 2900rye
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Ham on Rye
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Rebel Inc Canongate Books Ltd, Edinburgh
(2000)
ISBN 10: 086241993X
ISBN 13: 9780862419936
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Book Description Original Wraps. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Paperback Original. First UK edition. Six page introduction by Roddy Doyle. Originally published in the US by Black Sparrow Press in 1982. Reading creasing down the centre of the spine. Edge rubbing to the covers with a little browning around the edges of the rear cover. Small creases to the top corners of a few pages but the pages are otherwise unmarked. First printing. Seller Inventory # 017767
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HAM ON RYE [First UK edition - PBO]
Published by
Rebel Inc. [An imprint of Canongate Books], Edinburgh
(2000)
ISBN 10: 086241993X
ISBN 13: 9780862419936
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Book Description Original Wraps. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket, as Issued. First UK Edition. First impression of the first UK paperback edition - a PBO. With a six page introduction by Roddy Doyle specially written for this edition. The book was originally published in the USA by Black Sparrow Press in 1982. ***Very good in colour-illustrated card covers. Edges of wrappers slightly rubbed. No creases or tears. Corners sharp. Covers clean. There is a small indentation to the back cover edge, affecting the last few pages. There are reading creases to the spine which is slightly curved from reading. Internally also very good with no inscriptions. Spine tight. ***318 pages. 215 mm x 130 mm. ***'"Ham on Rye" follows the path of legendary barfly Charles Bukowski's alter-ego Henry Chinaski through the turbulent years of high school and college and into the beginning of a long and successful career in alcoholism. "Ham on Rye" is Charles Bukowski's fourth novel and the most moving of all his books, dealing with his early years in Los Angeles, and in particular with his difficult relationship with his father. The novel begins against the backdrop of an America devastated by the Depression and takes the Chinaski legend up to the bombing of Pearl Harbour. ***"This Rebel Inc edition marks the first UK publication of what is arguably Bukowski's finest work and has a specially commissioned introduction by Roddy Doyle." ***"A scorching account of a childhood, an adolescence, a life of ugliness, pain, escape, alcohol, loneliness. Often it's funny - often it's disturbing - Ham on Rye is a powerful book." Roddy Doyle [Quote and review taken from the back cover] ***'Henry Charles Bukowski [Aug 16, 1920 - Mar 9, 1994] was a German-born American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles. His work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over 60 books. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column Notes of a Dirty Old Man in the LA underground newspaper Open City. Bukowski published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses beginning in the early 1940s and continuing on through the early 1990s. As noted by one reviewer, "Bukowski continued to be, thanks to his antics and deliberate clownish performances, the king of the underground and the epitome of the littles in the ensuing decades, stressing his loyalty to those small press editors who had first championed his work and consolidating his presence in new ventures such as the New York Quarterly, Chiron Review, or Slipstream." Some of these works include his "Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window", published by his friend and fellow poet Charles Potts, and better known works such as "Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame". These poems and stories were later republished by John Martin's Black Sparrow Pres as collected volumes of his work. Regarding Bukowski's enduring popular appeal, Adam Kirsch of The New Yorker wrote, "the secret of Bukowski's appeal [is that] he combines the confessional poet's promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero." Since his death in March 1994, Bukowski has been the subject of a number of critical articles and books about both his life and writings, despite his work having received relatively little attention from academic critics in the United States during his lifetime. In contrast, Bukowski enjoyed extraordinary fame in Europe. ***A nice copy of the first UK edition of this classic work by Bukowski - published as a paperback original. Surprisingly uncommon. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc. Seller Inventory # PB192a
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