- Two theft notices from the ABAA: a Thomas Jefferson autograph note and a 1610 folio volume, A Display of Heraldry.
- NEH Chairman William Adams resigned from his post last week. The agency is targeted for elimination under the president's FY18 budget (call your representatives). See their FAQ on where things go from here.
- On the proposed budget cuts (which reach far beyond NEH), see Bethany Nowviskie's post to a Digital Library Federation list.
- Alcoholics Anonymous has filed suit for the return of the printers' copy of the organization's "Big Book," scheduled to be sold at auction on 8 June by Profiles in History. The annotated typescript was previously sold at auction in 2004 and 2007.
- Honey & Wax Booksellers have announced a new book-collecting prize open to women book collectors in the U.S. under 30 years old.
- Aaron Pratt has been appointed the new Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Center.
- Carla Giaimo writes for Atlas Obscura on "The Lost Typefaces of W.A. Dwiggins."
- Rob Rulon-Miller provides an overview of this summer's Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar.
- Elizabeth Savage posted a new update to her census of early modern frisket sheets (project homepage) and has a post at The Conveyor about a recent related find.
- Rare Book School's summer lecture schedule is out.
-Book curses on the BL's medieval manuscripts blog.
- Kate Mitas has begun a series on archival cataloging for booksellers.
- A new exhibition at the National Library of New Zealand, He Tohu, highlights three important founding documents in the country's history.
- From James Ascher on the UVA Scholars' Lab blog, "Visualizing Paper Evidence Using Digital Reproductions."
- At Echoes from the Vault, a look at some interesting finds from the St Andrews Burgh records.
- Mary Bendel-Simso talked to The Academic Minute about her work using digital newspaper archives to find early American detective fiction.
- At Notes from Under Grounds, Nora Benedict Frye posts about her current UVA Special Collections exhibition on Borges and bibliography.
- Rebecca Mead reports on the recent identification of a "lost" Edith Wharton play.
- Will Gore writes for the Spectator on "Why rare books are thriving in the digital age."
- Danuta Kean reports for the Guardian about Peter Steinberg and Gail Crowther's recent identification of unpublished Sylvia Plath poems found by examining a sheet of carbon paper in Plath's papers at the Lilly Library.
- Miranda Cooper writes for Tablet Magazine about "500 Years of Treasures from Oxford," an exhibition now on display at the Center for Jewish History.
- Tom Hyry highlights the current Houghton Library exhibition, "Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select."
- A few early bookplates from Princeton's collections are featured on the Graphic Arts blog.
- At Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, notes on an NYPL breviary fragment.
- Abbie Weinberg marked the 400th birthday of Elias Ashmole with a Collation post.
- Thirty-three books stolen from Jewish communities were donated to the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Warsaw last week.
Book Reviews
- Charlie English's The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu; review by Justin Marozzi in the Spectator.
- Holger Hoock's Scars of Independence; review by Jane Kamensky in the NYTimes.
- James Barron's The One-Cent Magenta; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at the Fine Books Blog.
- John Grisham's Camino Island; review by Jocelyn McClurg in USA Today (apparently it's about rare book and manuscript collecting ... )
- Beth Underdown's The Witchfinder's Sister; review by Helen Castor in the NYTimes.
- Rüdiger Safranski's Goethe: Life as a Work of Art; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Stephen Fry's new audiobook edition of the Sherlock Holmes stories; review by Simon Callow in the NYTimes.
Upcoming Auctions
- The Richard Beagle Collection of Angling and Sporting Books, Part I on 1 June at PBA Galleries.
- Arader Galleries Summer 2017 Sale on 3 June.
- Books and Ephemera at National Book Auctions on 3 June.
