- In yesterday's NYTimes, Jennifer Schuessler covers Matt Kirschenbaum's research on the history of word processing (to be published in 2013 as "Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing").
- From the 14 December New Republic, a profile of accused document thief Barry Landau. Some new details here, including that some 2,000 items seized from Landau's apartment are now believed to have been stolen.
- A number of rare books and manuscripts were destroyed when the Institute of Egypt building was burned during protests. Police have already arrested one man for trying to sell manuscripts stolen from the library.
- There are a couple good pieces relating to print history in the year-end Economist, including a profile of Albrecht Dürer as entrepeneur and "How Luther Went Viral."
- John Overholt reports that a volume of proceedings from the fantastic 2009 conference on Samuel Johnson has now been published as Johnson After Three Centuries: New Light on Texts and Contexts (Harvard University Press). Five papers from the conference are included, as well as a bibliography of research on the Dictionary published between 1955 and 2009 (compiled by Jack Lynch).
- In an 8-part YouTube series, Michael Suarez talks about Oxford Scholarly Editions Online. Part 1 begins here.
- From Echoes from the Vault, a fantastic manicule from the incunabula collection of Archbishop William Schreves.
- In the Guardian, Wayne Gooderham writes about interesting inscriptions he's discovered in secondhand books.
- Writing in the NYTimes, Marilynne Robinson discusses the influence of the Bible on literature.
- New from the Internet Archive, a live status board showing recently-scanned books.
- From The Age newspaper, an interesting story about carbon-dating some elm leaves found in a 1540 Great Bible.
- David Weinberger talked to the CBC about ShelfLife and LibraryCloud, two projects of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab.
- Over at the Collation, a look at "reduce, reuse, recycle" in early modern books. If you're not already reading this great new blog, start immediately.
- Michael Sims talked to NPR about his recently-edited The Dead Witness: A Connoiseuer's Collection of Victorian Detective Stories.
- Randall Stross writes in the NYTimes about the state of the "tug-of-war" between publishers and librarians over e-book purchases.
- The Fine Books Blog's "Bright Young Things" series continues, with Nate Pedersen interviewing David Eilenberger of Eilenberger Rare Books.
Reviews
- Jonathan Israel's Democratic Enlightenment; review by Darrin M. McMahon in the NYTimes.
- Anthony Horowitz's The House of Silk (and other Holmesian novels and t.v./film adaptations); review by D.J. Taylor in the WSJ.
- Stella Tillyard's Tides of War; review by Charles McGrath in the NYTimes.
- Grolier Club exhibition "Printing for Kingdom, Empire & Republic: Treasures from the Archives of the Imprimerie Nationale"; review by David Dunlap in the NYTimes.
