Recent Catalogs from Johnson Rare Books & Archives

BANANAS! A List of Unique Food & Drink Material The Book Shop is pleased to offer a unique selection of culinary and mixology material. Highlights include an extensive early 20th century holographic cookbook, a Space Race-era educational piece on a different sort of rocket fuel (coffee), and a shipboard menu that is, well, bananas.

BREAKING ALL THE RULES: Social Commentary in Modern American Board Games Scholars have long recognized the link between games and learning. In this catalog we offer a wide variety of modern American board games that are unified by a common theme - they all carry some type of social commentary. Whether it was by accident or by design, these games are a reflection of cultural anxieties and changing social mores.

A Selection of Archives Letters, scrapbooks, diaries, photo albums and ephemera from the past are a gift from prior generations to the future. In history books and memoirs, we can read about important events, memorize dates and learn about the principle players. But to understand how it felt to live at a significant time and how it affected people of that time and place, their own accounts are the vehicle that will transport us.

A Selection of Poetry A selection of 35 volumes of poetry and verse. Highlights include a copy of Anne Sexton’s To Bedlam and Part Way Back that belonged to her confidant and lover, the psychiatrist Anne Wilder; the exquisite fine press printing of B.H. Fairchild’s poem Beauty by The Blackbird Press; a presentation copy of Robert Pinsky’s The Figured Wheel, inscribed to Farrar Straus, and Giroux publisher Jonathan Galassi; and the exceedingly scarce first book by Stella Knight Ruess, mother of the writer, artist, and explorer Everett Ruess and an accomplished poet and artist in her own right.

A Selection of Books from the Library of American Computer Pioneer Willis Ware Each of the books on this list come from the personal library of American computer pioneer Willis Ware (1920-2013). Some have his bookplate to the front pastedown, others may include an inscription or have items laid in that help further illuminate the advanced thinking of this leader in the technological revolution. In the late 1940s, Ware helped John von Neumann build a machine that would become a blueprint for computer design in the 20th century, and later played an important role in defining the importance of personal privacy in the information age.

METAL a selection of books, zines, vinyl, demos, photographs, fashion, posters, flyers, and other material documenting the history, influence, and enduring appeal of heavy metal over the past fifty years