- The second installment of the Boston Globe series on the history and future of reading is out today; this one focuses on the "transition" from paper to screen for some readers, and makes some interesting observations about people reading electronically and then buying hard copies, &c. Worth a read.
- Some more news has come out about historian Barry Landau's arrest at the Maryland Historical Society earlier this month. From the NYT, word that Landau and his accomplice visited the Historical Society of Pennsylvania seventeen times between December and May (staff there are carefully checking the materials they viewed), and from the WSJ the seeds of a defense (aka throw the accomplice under the bus: Landau's lawyer told the paper "He has no idea what, if anything, the person with him was doing"). Laughable. At this point so far as I can tell no bail has been set, and hopefully it'll stay that way.
- Mike Widener notes (and illustrates) a short piece in the Yale Alumni Magazine about a copy of Edward Coke's First Part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England heavily annotated by a series of readers, including the author Samuel Butler.
- The Irish Times reports that an auction of the personal library of the late Dublin bookseller Fred Hanna could fetch up to 300,000 EUR when it's auctioned on Tuesday.
- The Guardian notes a free exhibition of Mervyn Peake's artwork at the British Library. Also in BL news, the library has launched a £9 million appeal to purchase the St. Cuthbert Gospel.
- Over at Anchora, a guest-post by Rachel Stevenson on an intentionally mutilated copy of The catalogue of honor (1610).
- Echoes from the Vault, the new rare books blog from the University of St. Andrews, has a great post on deciphering a "coded" poem pasted onto the front endleaf of a copy of Walter Ralegh's History of the World.
- J.L. Bell has the most well-thought-out thoughts I've seen on the news that the Old Corner Bookstore building in Boston (once the home of Ticknor & Fields), will be turned into a Chipotle restaurant.
- From the Book Bench, Jenny Hendrix suggests some "New Reads on Reading."
Review
- Richard White's Railroaded; review by Michael Kazin in the NYTimes.
