- Over on the Smithsonian's Unbound blog, a really excellent post about the marginalia in a 1491 copy of Pliny's Naturalis Historia.
- Police have released some CCTV footage and appealed for information relating to the theft of rare books from a Norfolk bookshop's warehouse on 9 January. More.
- For "The Biblio File," Nigel Beale talked to David Esslemont about the Gregynog and Solmentes presses.
- Laura Wasowicz writes for Past is Present about her "Thirty Years Adventure with the McLoughlin Brothers" (see also the current Grolier Club exhibition, which I'm looking forward to viewing later this week).
- At The Collation, Abbie Weinberg looks at early book reviews in the Philosophical Transactions.
- A 1523 Hebrew-Latin grammar was returned to the Jewish Museum in Prague after its most recent owner agreed to withdraw it from auction. The volume had belonged to Prague's Jewish community prior to World War II. The anonymous owner, identified as a scholar in Jerusalem, said was returning the book because not to do so would be "an active continuity of those terrible thefts committed against Jewish property and cultural treasures perpetrated by the German Nazis."
- The first volume of George Washington's copy of the Massachusetts Magazine (1789) will be offered for sale on 27 January.
- Henry Bradshaw is the topic over at Medieval Manuscripts Provenance.
- Rare Stephen King books and typescripts were damaged from flooding from a water main break in Bangor, Maine. Updates after initial recovery efforts revealed that a few of the rarer items were undamaged, which is very good news indeed.
- The Seattle Times has an obituary for bookseller Louis Collins.
- Hobby Lobby have returned more looted artifacts to federal authorities.
Reviews
- The new Penguin Classics edition of the 1818 text of Frankenstein; review by Genevieve Valentine for NPR.
- Robin Sloan's Sourdough; review by Suzy Feay for the Guardian.
- Martin Puchner's The Written World; review by Daisy Dunn in the TLS.
Upcoming Auctions
- Americana - Travel & Exploration - Cartography at PBA Galleries on 25 January.
- Fine Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 25 January.
- Historic Winter Fine Art and Antiques at Case Antiques, Inc. on 27 January (see the Washington book noted above).
- Fine Books & Manuscripts at Potter & Potter on 27 January.
