Sunday, February 06, 2011

Links & Reviews

- I know where I'll be on the morning of 24 February: the contents of the now-shuttered Boston municipal print shop are going to be auctioned off. Will certainly be fascinating to watch.

- As protests continued to rock Egypt, Bibliotheca Alexandrina director Ismail Serageldin reported that the library was being protected by the city's young people. And in Slate, Simon Schama writes on the necessity of protecting Egypt's cultural heritage.

- The Utica Observer-Dispatch highlights strategies some upstate NY used booksellers are using to adapt to the internet age.

- Kindle Singles rolled out this week, and Husna Haq asks in the CSM if they will "revolutionize reading".

- SkyRiver has responded [PDF] to OCLC's motion to dismiss the anti-trust suit filed against it.

- I honestly don't understand why this story is being hailed as some huge discovery; was there any question that salacious poetry sold well in the 18th century?

- A new auction record for Thomas Malthus' Essay on the Principles of Population (1798) was set at Dominic Winter this week; the copy made £61,100.

- In Lyndhurst, Hampshire, a 65-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of forging Winston Churchill's signature on books and memorabilia he then sold on eBay.

Review

- Jed Rubenfeld's The Death Instinct; review by Susannah Meadows in the NYTimes.

- Two recent books on the Wars of the Roses; review by Helen Castor in the TLS.