- As Ed points out, the Poe Wars resumed this week with a story in the NYTimes. Great stuff. Ed and Poe House curator Jeff Jerome are set to square off in a 13 January debate in Philly which promises to be impressive - I hope they'll webcast it.
- The Somerville (MA) Public Library has received a $2,500 grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners to fund a conservatorial study of its collections. From the way things are described in a Globe profile today, it sounds like it's high time for that.
- The online vote for the "Oddest Book Title" resulted in a victory for Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers, which garnered 13% of the vote. Coming in second with 11% was People Who Don't Know They're Dead, and How to Avoid Huge Ships took third with 10%.
- Ian Kahn found a nice first edition of Dibdin's Bibliomania at the Baltimore book fair. I'm still looking.
- Michael Lieberman notes what looks like a really hauntingly beautiful book of photographs, The Library of Dust.
- There's a lovely digital exhibit of flower photography, Herbarium Amoris: A Tribute to Carl Linnaeus. [h/t: VSL:Science]
- In noting the photo-blog Shorpy, Laura offers up a wonderful picture of Boston's Old Corner Bookstore, which is currently (and sacreligiously) a jewelry store.
- The AHA Today blog notes a new digital project from the University of Richmond, Voting America: United States Politics 1840-2008.
Reviews
- In the NYSun, Caleb Crain reviews Henry Hitchings' The Secret Life of Words. Caleb also notes that he has an essay on Wilkie Collins in the 11 September London Review of Books.
- Chelsea Cain reviews Kathleen Kent's The Heretic's Daughter for the NYTimes.
- Also in the Times, Blake Wilson reviews Christopher Buckley's Supreme Courtship.
- Michael Dirda reviews Neal Stephenson's Anathem in the WaPo, which he calls "much anticipated, in places quite brilliant, but ultimately grandiose, overwrought and pretty damn dull."
- Joyce Carol Oates has an essay review of Christopher Benfey's and A Summer of Hummingbirds and Brenda Wineapple's White Heat in the NYRB.
- In the Times, Renée Winegarten's Germaine de Staël and Benjamin Constant: A Dual Biography and Angelica Godden's Madame de Staël.
