Alan Watts. 
 
Thames and Hudson: 1958. Second impression. Hardcover in a jacket. Octavo. Jacket has deep tears across its edges, light fading on the top's inside, and small folds on its corners. Dings from shelfwear are on the heel of the spine and the bottoms of the boards. Fading across the top of the boards and a fold on the crown of the spine. Textblock has foxing on the top-edge, less on the fore-edge, and barely any on the tail. A little soiling on the endpapers and a lot on the half-title page because of an old clipping of Watts left in the book. From the table of contents to the index the leaves, browned by time, are clean. 236 pages. Book is very good. Jacket is good. 
 
When you hold this book you hold the moment right before Zen was cool. Watts was the man who made it so. 
 
"Zen has a directness, verve, and humor, and a sense of both beauty and nonsense at once exasperating and delightful. But above all it has a way of being able to turn one's mind inside out, and dissolving what seemed to be the most oppressive human problems into questions like 'Why is a mouse when it spins?' At its heart there is a strong but completely unsentimental compassion for human beings suffering and perishing from their very attempts to save themselves."