Sunday, May 02, 2010

Links & Reviews

- I was at the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair on Friday night and Saturday morning - crowds weren't the thronging hordes one likes to see at these smaller fairs, but there was certainly some buying going on. It was great to see some really amazing offerings and chat with the dealers.

- Paul Razzell at the FPBA notes a 6 May illustrated lecture at the BPL celebrating four decades of books from publisher David R. Godine.

- The May AE Monthly is out, for your edification and/or amusement.

- J.L. Bell has some questions about a new Thomas Paine controversy.

- A new exhibit at Yale of recycled manuscripts used in bindings - great stuff!

- Over at Literary Fraud & Folly, news of a new book that claims to answer the question of who wrote The Diary of a Public Man, an anonymous piece on the political leadup to the Civil War.

- Paul Collins has switched over to blogging at The Literary Detective, so change your bookmarks and RSS feeds accordingly. He's got a good post this week on a very odd campaign strategy in the CA gov's race.

Reviews

- Alberto Manguel's A Reader on Reading: review by Ian Sansom in the Guardian.

- Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America: review by Ron Charles in the WaPo.

- Hugh Raffles' Insectopedia: review by Philip Hoare in the NYTimes.

- Leo Damrosch's Tocqueville's Discovery of America: review by Sam Coale in the Providence Journal.

- James Shapiro's Contested Will: review by Jeremy McCarter in the NYTimes.

- E.O. Wilson's Anthill: review by Etelka Lehoczky in the LATimes.

- Evan Thomas' The War Lovers: review by James McGrath Morris in the WaPo.

- Sy Montgomery's Birdology: review by David Gessner in the WaPo.

- Daisy Hay's Young Romantics: review by James MacConnachie in the Sunday Times.

- Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ: review by David Plotz in Slate.