- This week's big news was a new lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild and other interest groups against HathiTrust and participating universities. Julie Bosman covered the suit for the NYTimes, and Jen Howard for the Chronicle. There were several angles to all this, one of which was HathiTrust's list of possibly orphaned works, rights-holders for some of which were quickly identified. Michigan said they would re-examine their process for including orphaned works. And Kevin Smith's open letter to one of the author identified as the rightsholder is certainly worth a read.
- Meanwhile, a status conference was held in the original Google Books lawsuit; judge Denny Chin has outlined a proposed schedule to bring the case to trial, although both sides say they continue to negotiate and hope to reach a settlement.
- Steve Ferguson's found a nifty 1872, "The Printer's Sheet of Miscellaneous Trade Receipts" - things like making fireproof paper, gilding edges of books, removing ink blotches from paper, &c.
- Over at the new Folger blog The Collation (which you should be reading if you're not already), Heather Wolfe posts on a new acquisition: a collection of deeds documenting the ownership of a Fleet Street property from 1543-1735. The deeds are notable because they offer up the precise location of Richard Tottel's printing house and provide evidence of the "evolution of this property into various other booksellers’ shops and coffeehouses in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries," as Heather writes.
- Also on The Collation this week, a Q&A with new Folger director Michael Witmore.
- JSTOR released the full list [PDF] of titles from which early content is now freely available. Some great stuff here; kudos to them for releasing it.
- At Booktryst, a short profile of the English binder Roger Payne, and a look at some early Poe titles coming up for auction at Sotheby's on 20 October (along with a whole bunch of other great things; I'll have a preview up of the sale up shortly).
- Jonathan Gharraie has an essay in the Paris Review on Meryn Peake's Gormenghast books.
Reviews
- David Reynolds' Mightier than the Sword; review by Drew Gilpin Faust in TNR.
- Catherine McKinley's Indigo; review by Alice Wyllie in the Scotsman.
- David Lodge's A Man of Parts; reviews by Christopher Benfey in the NYTimes and Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Jim Lehrer's Tension City; review by Jeff Shesol in the WaPo.
- David Roberts' Finding Everett Ruess; review by Jessica Gelt in the LATimes.
