- Coming up this week on the Fine Books Blog, previews of the book fairs and auctions coming up in New York City next weekend, including the ABAA's New York Antiquarian Book Fair. Very excited to actually be going to the NYC fair this year for the first time!
- Jennifer Howard's at the ACRL meeting in Philadelphia, and reports in on discussions there about the Google Books Settlement, orphan works, and associated topics. Ursula LeGuin posted some thoughts on GBS, copyright and the differences between "out of print" and "out of copyright" on her blog this week, and the NYTimes editorial board weighed in as well. Another good piece on this appeared this week from Ivy Anderson. Robert Darnton posted on the NYRB blog six reasons why the settlement failed and offers some possible ways forward.
- Another reminder, from David Barnett in the Guardian, of how not to respond to a negative review of your book.
- In Slate, Nathan Heller asks why Simon Winchester's books are so popular.
- A rare book of cloth samples collected by Captain Cook has been sold at auction in Devon, making a whopping £130,000.
- From Laura at The Cataloguer's Desk, an excellent primer on why people collect first editions.
- Ralph Luker has a good roundup of links related to the William Cronon email story, or as he calls it, L'Affaire Cronon.
- Typefoundry looks at Claude Garamont and his typefaces (currently known as Garamond).
- J.L. Bell examines Michiko Kakutani's review of Edward Lengel's Inventing George Washington
- Over at Nigel Beale, an audio interview with Rare Book School Director Michael Suarez on the importance of open-shop antiquarian bookstores.
Reviews
- Philipp Blom's Wicked Company; review by Suzi Feay in the Independent.
- Sarah Vowell's Unfamiliar Fishes; reviews by Kaui Hart Hemmings in the NYTimes and Allegra Goodman in the WaPo.
- Jonathan Steinberg's Bismarck: A Life; review by Henry Kissinger in the NYTimes.
