David Esterly

“A beautiful, intricate meditation on creativity and discovery, on fire and rebirth.” —Elizabeth Gilbert Awestruck at the sight of a Grinling Gibbons carving in a London church, David Esterly chose to dedicate his life to woodcarving—its physical rhythms, intricate beauty, and intellectual demands. Forty years later, he is the foremost practitioner of Gibbons’s forgotten technique, which revolutionized ornamental sculpture in the late 1600s with its spectacular cascades of flowers, fruits, and foliage.After a disastrous fire at Henry VIII’s Hampton Court Palace, Esterly was asked to replace the Gibbons masterpiece destroyed by the flames. It turned out to be the most challenging year in Esterly’s life, forcing him to question his abilities and delve deeply into what it means to make a thing well. Written with a philosopher’s intellect and a poet’s grace, The Lost Carving explores the connection between creativity and physical work and illuminates the passionate pursuit of a vocation that unites head and hand and heart.

Very Good Hardcover New Harry N. Abrams, 1998. First American edition, 1998. Illustrated throughout in both color and in black and white. Dark brown hardcover with dustjacket. The book has very light edge rubbing, good hinges, firm text block, clean pages, no names or other markings. The mylar protected dustjacket is not priceclipped [49.50] and has a bit of light soil to the white background along the front joint, otherwise about fine with no chips or tears.. First US Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall.

Kentucky-born Clay meets Roads, a beatnik college drop-out with pretensions of being the next Kerouac. Suddenly Clay doesn’t want to stay in Owensboro, become a mechanic and marry a hick girl from town. He wants to be like Allen Ginsberg, Coltrane, Miles Davis. Clay finds himself in New York City trying to make it. But America is hit by a string of horrifying events – the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK’s assassination, the Vietnam War. Is there a place for a literary life in times of political unrest? Any Day Now is an absorbing story of love, war and experimentation in ’60s America.