A gift from a retired NYU professor has enriched our philosophy section with a wide selection of German philosophy: Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger & Frankfurt School. Included are both primary texts  as well as selections of secondary studies. Some of titles are tattered, annotated & underlined volumes, as to be expected of scholars' work copies,  others are in cleaner form, more than a few in beautiful, scarce and sought after editions. Here are some highlights:

Immanuel Kant's Metaphysical system  is represented by the First and Third Critiques as well as by additional texts in the fields of politics, ethics, morals, religion etc.  Kant's own works are mostly through the Cambridge, Hackett and Palgrave editions, as well as a few older publishers, from older Harper to later university presses. among the readings in Kant:  Hannah Arendt's Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, Norman Kemp Smith's Comments to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Gilles Deleuze's Kant's Critical Philosophy, Donald W. Craford's Kant's Aesthetic Theory and Rudolf A. Makkereel's Imagination and Interpretation in Kant.

The owl of Minerva begins its flight above the Hegel shelf which has expanded significantly and at present includes  several seminal and rare items: two of the three volumes of Hegel's Philosophy of Subjective Spirit edited by M.J. Petry,  The Philosophical Propaedeutic,  celebrated readings of The Phenomenology of Spirit by Alexander Kojeve and by Jean Hyppolite (French texts), a leftist reading by Lucio Colletti, Marxism and Hegel and two scarce studies by Hegelian authority H.S. Harris, Hegel's Development: Night Thoughts (Jena 1801-1806) and Hegel's Ladder: A Commentary on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. I: The Pilgrimage of reason.

Nietzsche is represented by a good selection of his writing in various editions: Penguin, Modern Library, Cambridge and Vintage. Besides the ubiquitous Kaufmann & Hollingdale are present some less common  translations: James W. Hillsheim, Schopenhauer as Educator, Shaun Whiteside, The Birth of Tragedy , a selection from Oscar Levy's translations and Thomas Common, Thus Spake Zarathustra. Among the Nietzsche studies the items  of interest are some issues of New Nietzsche Studies published annually by the Nietzsche Society and a 1978 issue of Semiotexte titled Nietzsche's Return with articles by Bataille, Klossowsky, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Lyotard, John Cage, Denis Hollier, John Rajchman and others.

Among Heidegger's works stand out three volumes published by Indiana University Press, part of the series Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy: Holderlin's Humn "The Ister", The Metaphysical Foundation of Logic and The Basic problems of Phenomenology. Among the large selection of Heidegger studies we'll mention Victor Farias seminal documentation of Heidegger's problemtic history Heidegger and Nazism, Reiner Schurmann's study of the relation between thought and praxis in the philosopher's system Heidegger. On Being and Acting: from Principles to anarchy, an anthology edited by David C. Jacobs The Presocratics after Heidegger, and David Farrell Krell exploration of Heidgger's philosophy in its  ontological, political, ethical and cosmic horizons and its relation to later French adaptations Daimon Life: Heidegger and Life-Philosophy

An unexpected windfall brought us a boxful of thrillers and mysteries with delightful pulpy covers. Included was a hefty selection of John Dickson Carr (both under that name and that of Carter Dickson); Margery Allingham in the classic, elegant green-and-white Penguin designs; a collection of stories from "Black Mask" magazine by Hammett, Chandler, and Gardner; and a handful of Lew Archers by Ross Macdonald. The treasure of this collection is a British 1959 paperback edition of "The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars," recently republished by Melville House, who called it "one of the biggest bestsellers of all time, and one of the first and most influential spy novels of the twentieth century." 

As distinctive -- if not as full of blood, bosoms and sharp suits -- are these covers from Black Sparrow Press, founded by John Martin expressly to publish the works of Bukowski and other then-outsider writers. (Martin sold his collection of D.H. Lawrence first editions in order to start the company.) From 1966-2002, all Black Sparrow books were designed by Barbara Martin, his wife. Her designs are simple, geometrical, and in keeping with its outlaw ethos, lacking any reviewer's blurs or ISBNs.