- Rebecca Romney has "13 Secrets of Rare Book Dealers" for Mental Floss.
- Noah Sheola's got a great post up on the Houghton blog about the importance of good cataloging.
- The November Rare Book Monthly includes Marc Sena Carrel on "Exiting the Bookseller Business," Michael Stillman on an upcoming auction of an early Declaration of Independence broadside, and a Bruce McKinney note about bookseller William Reese being honored by the AAS this week with the Christopher Columbus Baldwin medal (a well-deserved honor, to be sure).
- Hewlett-Packard's extensive archives were destroyed in the recent California wildfires.
- Cynthia Zarin writes for the New Yorker about "The Original Master of Ghost Stories" (M.R. James, of course).
- The manuscript of John Donne's "Courtier's Library" has been identified in the Westminster Abbey archives.
- Kurt Zimmerman is on "The Hunt for Early American Women Bibliographers" at American Book Collecting.
- MITH has launched Books.Files, a Mellon-funded project to "assess the potential for the archival collection and scholarly study of digital assets associated with today’s trade publishing and bookmaking."
- The Folger has launched Miranda, a new platform for the library's digital content. See the blog post for lots of good background.
- Tim Carmody writes for Kottke.org about "Card catalogs and the secret history of modernity."
- Several more panel overviews from the recent APHA conference in "The Process of Innovation."
- A Titanic letter (one of the last known to be written on the ship) sold at auction this week for £126,000.
- Booktryst will publish a fine-press book celebrating the late Martin Stone.
- A Thomas Bewick sketchbook has been identified and purchased by Bewick collector David Bolam.
Reviews
- Alison Weir's Queens of the Conquest; review by Dan Jones in the WaPo.
- Russell Shorto's Revolution Song; review by Lynne Cheney in the NYTimes.
- Walter Isaacson's Leonardo da Vinci; review by Jennifer Senior in the NYTimes.
- Noah Feldman's The Three Lives of James Madison; review by Susan Dunn in the NYTimes.
- Gordon S. Wood's Friends Divided; review by Richard Brookhiser in the NYTimes.
Upcoming Auctions
- The Library of an English Bibliophile, Part VII at Sotheby's London on 7 November.
- Autographs at Swann Galleries on 7 November.
- Rare Books, Autographs & Maps at Doyle New York on 7 November.
- Fine Golf Books at PBA Galleries on 12 November.
- Fine Books & Manuscripts at Skinner, Inc. on 12 November.
- Travel, Atlases, Maps & Natural History at Sotheby's London on 14 November.
- 19th & 20th Century Literature at Swann Galleries on 14 November.
- Fine Books, Atlases, Manuscripts, and Photographs at Bonhams London on 15 November.
