- At Antipodean Footnotes, a look at what's been identified as the earliest English binding in New Zealand, an Oxford binding from 1482 (with fragments of Caxton-printed indulgences used as sewing guards).
- The SEA's updated list of recent and forthcoming books on early American topics has been posted.
- The New York Society Library announced the completion of their effort to catalog their Hammond Collection, part of a Newport, RI circulating library. To view the books, search by author for "James Hammond's Circulating Library" here.
- Over at Boston 1775, a trivia contest about early American politics.
- Harvard Book Store marked its eightieth birthday this week. Here's to many, many more.
- The effort to crack the shorthand notations made by Roger Williams in a book now at the John Carter Brown Library is highlighted in a new AP article on the effort.
- Over at Bookplate Junkie, fingerprints on bookplates.
- From The Appendix Blog, Ben Breen writes on "Cabinets of Curiosity: the Web as Wunderkammer." The Appendix journal is now open for subscriptions, too, and it looks like it's going to be a really fascinating publication. I've subscribed.
- At The Collation, Goran Proot uses Powerball fever as a good chance to highlight some early modern lotteries, and Deborah Leslie offers a primer on cataloging at the Folger.
- In the CHE, Jennifer Howard examines the concept of social reading, with some neat examples of recent projects in this area.
- The folks at American Book Collecting have posted some pictures of A.S.W. Rosenbach, including one of him with what is now the Yale copy of the 1640 Bay Psalm Book (more on which here).
- There's an interview with Nick Basbanes on WGBH here.
- A coded letter from Napoleon containing plans to burn the Kremlin is up for auction in France.
- There was quite a kerfuffle this week over news that a former OED editor reportedly "deleted" words from the dictionary (although it seems to be more the case that he didn't include them in later supplements, which does not amount to the same thing). Coverage: Guardian, LATimes, NYTimes, with a nice pushback piece by Jesse Sheidlower in The New Yorker: "[it] was not deletion, it was editing."
- Speaking of kerfuffles at Oxford: Inside Higher Ed reported this week on a series of changes at the Bodleian Libraries that have many fuming.
Reviews
- Three ongoing exhibitions of Jewish texts (at the Jewish Museum, Columbia, and the Library of Congress); review by Diane Cole in the WSJ.
- Lawrence Principe's The Secrets of Alchemy; review by Colin Dickey in the LARB.
- Philip Pullman's Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version; review by Marjorie Ingall in the NYTimes.
- Kevin Phillips' 1775: A Good Year for Revolution; review by Gordon S. Wood in the NYRB (mostly being paywall, sadly)
- Larry McMurtry's Custer; review by Timothy Egan in the NYTimes.
- Sheila Hale's Titian; review by Mark Archer in the WSJ.
- Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve; review by Jim Hench in LARB. Don't miss this one, it's a classic.
