A somewhat quiet news week given the holidays:
- The newly-constituted Harvard Library Board named Helen Shenton the Executive Director of Harvard Library this week. Shenton had previously been deputy director of Harvard University Library, under Robert Darnton (since January 2010).
- UK viewers were treated to a new adaptation of M.R. James' story "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" (with a great cast), which aired on Christmas Eve. Here's hoping it'll reach this side of the pond soon!
- Also from the Economist, a bit more on Google's Ngram viewer, a topic on which Dan Cohen also posted his thoughts this week (a very useful summation, in my view).
- The Society of Early Americanists list of recent and forthcoming books on early America has been updated.
- The Society of Early Americanists list of recent and forthcoming books on early America has been updated.
- Among the bills signed by President Obama this week was the official name change for Longfellow National Historic Site; it will now be known as Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site.
- Mike Widener has a very touching tribute to law librarian and bibliographer Morris L. Cohen, who died on 18 December.
Reviews
- Malcolm Thick's Sir Hugh Plat; review by Bee Wilson in the TLS.
- New Galileo biographies by David Wootton and J.L. Heilbron; review by Claudio Vita-Finzi in the TLS and Owen Gingerich in the NYTimes.
- Edmund Morris' Colonel Roosevelt; review by Craig Fehrman in the Boston Globe.
- Susan Cheever's Louisa May Alcott; review by Hillary Kelly in TNR (this is precisely the sort of review of this book that I expected to see, to be honest).
- Michael Korda's Hero; review by Ben Macintyre in the NYTimes.
- Pauline Maier's Ratification; reviews by David Sehat at U.S. Intellectual History and Jack Rakove in the Harvard Magazine.
