- Rebecca Rego Barry writes for the Guardian about a bird book which once belonged to the "Birdman of Alcatraz" which will go on the auction block at Christie's in September (as part of their "Out of the Ordinary" sale, which always contains some fantastic things).
- María Palacio posts for the Jesuit Libraries Provenance Project about working with an 1836 manuscript library catalog of a Jesuit seminar in Missouri.
- A new report on digitizing orphan works is now available via Harvard's DASH portal.
- At meh.com, a history of intentionally blank pages, featuring Sarah Werner, Joe Howley, and others.
- The very long legal battle over Franz Kafka's manuscripts has ended, with Israel's supreme court ruling that Max Brod's heirs must turn over the manuscripts to the National Library of Israel.
- Last week I linked to a report that a box of rare comics had been stolen from the Tampa Bay Comic Con. The Tampa Bay Times updated this week that the dealer, Rick Whitelock, received a phone call on Monday from an anonymous man saying he had accidentally packed up the box with his materials from the show and would return them, but refusing to give his name or contact information. All's well that end's well, though: on Wednesday, the box arrived.
- Tom Kiser of Vivarium Books is profiled as part of the FB&C "Bright Young Booksellers" series.
- Peter Harrington staff have chosen their favorite items from the firm's Summer Catalogue.
- Paul Dingman posts at The Collation about how the transcriptions submitted as part of the Early Modern Manuscripts Online project will be aggregated and verified.
- The Harry Ransom Center is seeking a Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Curator of Early Printed Books and Manuscripts.
- Elaine Long posts on the Shakespeare's World blog about finding references to paper used in early modern cooking.
- Nearly 400 books donated to an English village after an American plane crashed there during WWII have been removed from the village library and destroyed.
Reviews
- Carols M. N. Eire's Reformations; reviewed by Michael Massing in the NYTimes.
- Winifred Gallagher's How the Post Office Shaped America; review by Emily Cataneo in the CSM.
- Richard Zacks' Chasing the Last Laugh; review by Debra Bruno in the WaPo.
