Sunday, September 02, 2012

Links & Reviews

- Your must-view series this week is Lew Jaffe's "American Name Labels": Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six.

- From the ABAA security blog, a list of rare science fiction titles reported stolen from Temple University Libraries.

- The Colebrook Book Barn is profiled in the Litchfield County Times.

- Michael Dirda writes for The American Scholar about book-shopping in Charlottesville (he missed the best places, I'm sorry to say), but it's a fun post anyway.

- Steve Ferguson posts a provenance conundrum involving John Bunyan, and a neat piracy warning found on the front pastedown of a copy of The Universal Directory for Taking Alive and Destroying Rats ... (1768).

- Arthur Souza, 52, was indicted this week for the thefts of books from several Cape Cod libraries.

- You can now watch the "American Artifacts" segment on the Eliot Indian Bible at AAS, and there's a preview of today's segment on early political memorabilia.

- Over at Letterology, a preview clip from the upcoming Linotype documentary, about which I am incredibly excited. [h/t @PHrarebooks]

- Juliet Barker talked to NPR this week about the updated edition of her family biography, The Brontës.

- Jason Novak revisits George Bickham, offering an "updated" version of The Universal Penman.

- From the Beehive, a look at some of Harbottle Dorr's "idiosyncratic index subjects" ("Pimps and Cooks appointed to places in America"; "Printers on their bad spelling"; &c.).

Reviews

- Lawrence Norfolk's John Saturnall's Feast; review by Judith Flanders in the WSJ.

- Katherine Frank's Crusoe; review by Randy Boyagoda in the NYTimes.

- William Souder's On a Farther Shore; review by James P. Sterba in the WSJ.