- Your must-read for today, and I mean that, is Lorne Blair's post from this week, "Why the New York Book Fair Matters - To You, Me, and Everyone We Know."
- Big news this week from Britain: the British Library has paid £9 million for the St. Cuthbert Gospel, called Europe's oldest intact book.
- Brown University's Richard Noble talked to NPR this week about the recent (re)discovery of a rare Paul Revere engraving inside an old medical text.
- Michael Sims has a piece in the NYTimes about the 60th anniversary of the publication of Charlotte's Web. Sims' book, The Story of Charlotte's Web, is a wonderful read.
- Via Bryan Waterman, news that students at the University of Maine at Machias are preparing a new edition of Julia and the Illuminated Baron, one of the first American gothic novels. It'll be published as part of the Library of Early Maine Literature later this spring.
- Mike Widener's posted on the Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog about his additions of dealer descriptions to book catalog records.
- Matthew Heintzelman of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library writes about the challenges of cataloging books without title pages.
- The BBC covered the sale of the first part of the Birmingham Medical Institute's rare book library.
- The latest bookseller profiled in FB&C's "Bright Young Things" series is Zoe Mindell of Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts.
- Clunes, Australia has been designated the first "book town" in the southern hemisphere.
- Jordan Goffin's made a neat find in a George Washington book at the Providence Public Library.
- At The Browser, Ann Blair recommends five books on the history of information.
- Some previously unexhibited Poe letters and a manuscript poem will go on display at Richmond's Poe House Museum this week.
Reviews
- Christopher Benfey's Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay; review by Adam Goodheart in the NYTimes.
- Katherine Frank's Crusoe; review by Claude Rawson in the WSJ.
- John D'Agata and Jim Fingal's The Lifespan of a Fact; review by Justin Moyer in the Washington Post.
- Paul French's Midnight in Peking; review by Fergus Bordewich in the WSJ.
