After a few days away I'm pretty far behind, so I've got loads of things piled up to pass along:
- J.L. Bell at Boston 1775 points out a Marcus Rediker piece in a recent Boston Globe which makes for fascinating reading. Rediker, who's written several provocative and important books on pirate culture, has a new book coming out soon, The Slave Ship: A Human History. Amazon recently sent me an ad for that ... they do know me well. Rediker's Globe essay centers around this document, which is one of the most disturbing satires I have ever read.
- Ed has some more of his always-excellent bibliaudio offerings, including a radio play of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus." Ed also recently commented on "Robinsonades" - literary spinoffs of a sort.
- Scott Brown reports on a very small and intricate Koran being sold at auction this week.
- From BibliOdyssey, fish engravings by Adriaen Collaert, and an eye-popping collection of advertising trade cards.
- Jim Watts at Iconic Books notes the display of the "Devil's Bible" in Prague.
- The LibraryThing folks are mulling a data-merge with Google . The debate over there on this question has been really enlightening.
- The NBCC's retrospective on W. Jackson Bate's Samuel Johnson continues with a short essay by Jack Lynch.
- From the Telegraph, a John Sutherland column on Jasper Fforde (which I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys Fforde's works) and a review of Andrew Lycett's new biography of Arthur Conan Doyle.
- To lighten the mood, Colonel over at Mutterings has a few sure-to-be-bestsellers, as ripped from the headlines.
- Michael Lieberman passes along a video tribute to Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrumb Tinies.
- NPR recently noted that a complete set of signed Harry Potter books is being auctioned off for charity. You've still got a couple days to bid!
