So many link-worthy things this week!
- A major forgery case is unfolding in Norway, where collector and film director Geir Ove Kvalheim has been indicted for forging documents in the hands of Knut Hamsun and Henrik Ibsen, among others. Among the pieces Kvalheim is accused of forging are notations by Hansum in a 1943 pocket almanac, and an entirely new play by Ibsen. The investigation has been going on since 2008, when suspicions were first raised about documents sold for Kvalheim by the Oslo bookshop Norlis and purchased by several institutions, including the National Library.
- The Charleston Library Society has announced a multi-year cataloging and conservation effort.
- Authorship, a new open-access journal, released its first issue.
- John Palfrey's recent talk "A Future for Libraries," is now available online.
- A major new British Library newspaper database went online this week.
- New (or at least new to me) from the Image Permanance Institute: Graphics Atlas.
- There's a great "Landmarks in Book History: The Future of the Discipline" lecture series on tap in London this winter.
- Scott Sherman's The Nation piece "Upheaval at the New York Public Library" is a must-read.
- UVA book conservator Eliza Gilligan talks about researching and restoring a copy of Hooke's Micrographia.
- The Casanova exhibit at the BNF is reviewed in the NYTimes.
- The December AE Monthly is out; it includes a look at the Library of America along with several pieces on book auctions, &c.
- From The Public Domain Review, a look at the fascinating book The Mysteries of Nature and Art.
- Oscar Wilde's tomb in Paris now has a new glass barrier, to stop people from kissing the stone.
- Yale announced this week that the Voynich Manuscript is now available online.
- Brown University has purchased a rare copy of the first European book on Chinese medicine, Philippe Charvys' 1671 text Les secrets de le medecine des Chinois.
- Adam Gopnik writes in The New Yorker about fantasy writing for young adult readers, taking the old line about Tolkien as "our Ossian" and extending it to other writers (Paolini as Chatterton, for example).
- At Echoes from the Vault, a profile of 17th-century book collector William Guild.
- A new exhibit at Boston College, The Golden Age of Massachusetts Law Publishing. See also the BC newspaper story about the display.
- The National Library of Wales has come under fire for accepting papers and a £300,000 bequest from Louis Feutren, who reportedly collaborated with the Nazis.
- From BibliOdyssey, toucans!
- Over at Fine Books Blog, the "Bright Young Things" series continues as Nate Pedersen interviews Jonathan Smalter of Yesterday's Muse.
- Sam Weller's Bookstore will be moving in January, and opening under a new name: Weller Book Works.
- Julie Bosman writes in the NYTimes about publishers designing books with "special effects" (i.e. nice paper, jackets, &c.) as a pushback against e-books.
Reviews
- Tim Jeal's Explorers of the Nile; review by Diana Preston in the Washington Post.
- David Gilmour's The Pursuit of Italy; review by Brooke Allen in the NYTimes.
- Rosamond Bartlett's Tolstoy: A Russian Life; review by Thomas L. Jeffers in the Washington Post.
- Peter Ackroyd's The Death of King Arthur; review by Christopher Benfey in the NYTimes.
