- Caleb Crain posted a version of a talk he gave at the In Re Books conference on 26 October. It's a thoughtful discussion of the pitfalls of over-reliance on digitization, and very much worth a close read.
- Another must-read (and they're not unrelated, in fact) for this week is William Cronon's November presidential column in Perspectives in History, "Recollecting My Library ... And My Self."
- Over at Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie this week, Lew Jaffe posted a three-part series of posts highlighting bookplates with rabbits on them: Part One, Part Two, Part Three.
- President Clinton sent virtual greetings to the American Antiquarian Society on the occasion of their bicentennial celebration. And NPR ran a short piece too!
- Some key documents relating to the Board of Trade's inspections of the Titanic will be up for auction on 24 November.
- From the Public Domain Review, John Glassie's "Athanasius, Underground" examines Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus and Kircher's own journey into the mouth of Vesuvius.
- The November AE Monthly is up.
- There's also a new Common-place this week.
- An interesting crowd-sourcing project: scientists are working with old ship logs to chart climate change in the Arctic.
- From Houghton's "You've Got Mail" series this week, Heather Cole highlights a TR letter written to his son just five days after the incident where he was shot in the chest and proceeded to give his speech anyway.
- Ruth Graham previewed this week's Take Note conference for the Boston Globe. If you missed the conference (or the live-stream) the videos will be posted in a few weeks.
- New this week, The 18th-Century Common: A Public Humanities Website for Enthusiasts of 18th-Century Studies.
Reviews
- Jon Meacham's Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power; review by Jill Abramson in the NYTimes.
- Vin Carretta's Phillis Wheatley: Portrait of a Genius in Bondage; review by Tara Bynum in Common-place.
- Amy S. Greenberg's A Wicked War; review by Robert W. Merry in the WSJ.
- Tom Reiss' The Black Count; review by Joanna Scutts in the Washington Post.
- Sasha Issenberg's The Victory Lab; review by Jeff Greenfield in the Washington Post.
- Joe Mozingo's The Fiddler on Pantico Run; review by J.C. Gabel in the LATimes.
- Nicholson Baker's The Way the World Works; review by John Jeremiah Sullivan in the NYTimes.
- H.W. Brands' The Man Who Saved the Union; review by Eric Foner in the Washington Post.
- David Skinner's The Story of Ain't; review by Patricia T. O'Connor in NYTimes.
- Lawrence Norfolk's John Saturnall's Feast; review by Wendy Smith in the Washington Post.
- Emma Donoghue's Astray; reviews by Brooke Allen in the NYTimes and Heller McAlpin in the Washington Post.
