Okay, one last gigantic links roundup and then with any luck at all I'll be back to a (slightly-more) regular schedule. I'm back at home now after the summer at Rare Book School, which was wonderful but very busy (hence the lack of posts). I had the great pleasure of taking Jan Storm van Leeuwen's Introduction to the History of Bookbinding course this year, and enjoyed the experience immensely (add it to your list, if it's not on there already). But that was just one of many highlights of the summer.
- Speaking of Rare Book School, Rebecca Rego Barry's "Letter from Rare Book School" is a must-read.
- One of the other students from my RBS class, James Capobianco, has begun posting images of neat bindings from the Houghton collections here.
- Gregory S. Girolami, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois, is conducting a census of the first edition of Robert Boyle's Sceptical Chymist (1661), and is looking for information on extant copies. Contact details are listed on Girolamni's website (and I've written often, I am a huge proponent of book censuses, so I encourage you to help if you can).
- The excellent Community Libraries project has issued a call for papers for three two-day colloquia in 2014 and 2015, which I suspect many readers will be interested in. Please do take a look and distribute widely.
- Via Mitch Fraas, a list of the books Lincoln checked out of the Library of Congress while president.
- Over at Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie, Lew Jaffe explores the question of just what is the earliest American bookplate?
- An absolutely stupendous discovery was made this summer in the collections of Houghton Library: cataloger Karen Nipps found eight original 1767 subscription sheets signed by some 650 Bostonians pledging support of a boycott of British goods in response to the Townshend Acts. J.L. Bell comments on the find here.
- The FBI has posted images of 28 rare books and maps stolen by E. Forbes Smiley and not yet returned to their owners. Do you know where these belong?
- There was a well-worth-reading Reed Johnson piece on the Voynich Manuscript in the New Yorker back in July. Paul Romaine's response to the article shouldn't be missed, either. Johnson talked to NPR about the manuscript as well.
- Stephen Moss of The Guardian talked with Arnold (A.D.) Harvey, the man responsible for creating a fictitious meeting between Dickens and Dostoyevsky that was accepted as fact for years (exposed by Eric Naiman in the TLS in April). Fascinating article.
- The criminal conspiracy trial of Marino Massimo de Caro and his co-conspirators has been delayed until October.
- The ABAA blog noted the discovery of a Pearl Buck manuscript novel in a Texas storage locker.
- Ann Blair's 31 January talk at Columbia, "Methods of Collaboration Among Early Modern Humanists," is now available on YouTube.
- The Harry Ransom Center has acquired the McSweeney's archive.
- The John Carter Brown Library has uploaded its 5000th book to the Internet Archive (theirs is one of the best uses of the Archive I've seen).
- Pop star Kelly Clarkson was the winning bidder on the Jane Austen ring which sold last year at auction for better than £150,000, but the British government is seeking to stop the ring's removal from the country. UK buyers have until 30 September to raise the funds to match Clarkson's bid.
- Information on recent thefts of maps, posted on Ex-Libris in July: "The Chicago Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the theft of historical topographical maps from various educational institutions. The maps are mostly from Central and Eastern Europe, including: Poland, Germany, Austria, and western Russia and their scales vary between 1:25,000 to 1:100,000. The maps are considered to be Interwar, meaning they were published between 1919 and 1939. Of particular interest are maps published by the Wojskowy Instytut Geograficzny Instytut (Poland). The investigation has also revealed the theft of 19th century Austro-Hungarian topographical maps. The thefts have occurred as far back as 2008 and as recently as the spring of 2013. The FBI would like to identify as many victims as possible, and would like to interview individuals who may have been in contact with the individual or individuals responsible for these thefts. If you have information or believe your institution may have been the victim of a similar theft, please contact Special Agent Luigi Mondini at 312 829-5526 or luigi.mondini@ic.fbi.gov."
- Two books stolen from the National Library of Sweden by former librarian Anders Burius were returned to the library in late July, after the Baltimore dealer who purchased them at a German auction in 2008 bought them back from the clients to whom he had subsequently sold them.
- The investigation into the 2007 murder of book collector Rolland Comstock remains open, investigators say, even after the recent death of Comstock's ex-wife, found liable for his death in a civil suit. Greene County, MO sheriff Jim Arnott said that charges are still forthcoming related to the case.
- The Onion recently ran an obituary for print.
- From the Cambridge Incunabula Project blog, some unidentified provenance marks discovered in English incunables.
- Mount Vernon and the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington purchased the eight volumes from George Washington's library up for sale in June.
- Richard Luscombe reported for the Guardian on the sale of the Harrisburg collection of memorabilia. Normally I'd be completely appalled at a sale like this, but in this particular case, it seems to have been acquired haphazardly and without much thought, so better for the material to find more appropriate homes.
- Over on the Royal Society's blog, Rebecca Easey writes on the "crossroads between science and art," scientific illustration.
- The winners of the 2013 National Collegiate Book Collecting contest have been announced. Congratulations to all!
- From Matthew Green at the Public Domain Review, "The Lost World of the London Coffeehouse."
- There are Q&As with new Folger Director of Digital Access Eric Johnson and Research and Outreach Librarian Melanie Dyer at The Collation. And at Wynken de Worde, Sarah Werner discusses her new role as the Folger's Digital Media Strategist, which sounds tremendously exciting and awesome.
- A Poe manuscript sold for $300,000 at a small Rhode Island auction on 30 July.
- Over at Boston 1775, J.L. Bell takes a look at Alexander Gilles' editing of his copy of Isaac Watts' Psalms and edited out the British bits.
- John K. Hale, co-editor of a new edition of Milton's De Doctrina Christiana, reflects on the experience for the OSEO blog.
- At Mapping Books, Mitch Fraas posts about his research into print/book circulation between late 18th-century India and Europe, with some great visualizations. In a separate post, Mitch maps the current locations of 15-century books, with some very surprising results.
- The Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog has a new URL: http://library.law.yale.edu/blogs/rare-books.
- Back in July, the NYTimes covered (somewhat anecdotally, by necessity) Amazon's price-shifting practices.
- I almost can't believe that it's been more than four years now since John Quincy Adams started tweeting. The MHS blog has a look back. Thanks to Nancy Heywood and all the others at MHS who have kept the project going!
- Historian Edmund S. Morgan died in early July at the age of 97. The NYTimes ran a thorough obituary. The Junto ran a weeklong roundtable discussion on Morgan's life and legacy.
- From Res Obscura, a beginner's guide to reading early modern texts.
- The British Library has announced plans to bring together all four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta in 2015, to mark the charter's 800th anniversary.
- The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada are now (save the last three years) freely available online.
- William Blake's cottage in Felpham, West Sussex, is for sale.
- Some interesting background on the linguistic unmasking of J.K. Rowling as Robert Galbraith, the author of The Cuckoo's Calling: WSJ blog, Language Log (Patrick Juola).
- In the Boston Globe this weekend, Christine Woodside writes about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane's intentional crafting of the Little House books to enhance a libertarian political philosophy.
Reviews
- Anthony Pagden's The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters; review by Noel Malcolm in the Telegraph.
- Scott Anderson's Lawrence in Arabia; review by Alex von Tunzelmann in the NYTimes.
- Royce Prouty's Stoker's Manuscript; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at Fine Books Blog.
- Robert Wilson's Matthew Brady; reviews by Caleb Crain in the NYTimes; Dwight Garner in the NYTimes.
- Boris Kachka's Hothouse; review by Heller McAlpin in the LATimes.
- Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season; review by Helen Brown in the Telegraph.
- Travis McDade's Thieves of Book Row; review by Stephen J. Gertz at Booktryst.
- Brenda Wineapple's Ecstatic Nation; reviews by Scott Martelle in the LATimes; David Reynolds in the NYTimes.
- Caleb Crain's Necessary Errors; review by Aaron Hamburger in the NYTimes.
Showing posts with label Rolland Comstock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rolland Comstock. Show all posts
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Sunday, August 05, 2012
Links & Reviews
- Another $150,000 grant from Caleb Loring, Jr. will fund a second phase of the Boston Athenaeum's project to catalog, conserve, and digitize its Confederate imprints collection.
- In a Collation post, Sarah Werner offers a Q&A with Goran Proot, the new Curator of Rare Books at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Sarah also posted the August crocodile this week.
- Collen O'Connor's article in the Denver Post "E-reader generation gets a kick out of hunt for rare, unusual volumes" annoyed me on several levels (it's not just young people using e-readers, for one). But, as a piece to highlight the importance of regional book fairs, I'll take it.
- Houghton Library has acquired the newspaper Trotsky was reading when he was mortally wounded by an ice-pick-wielding attacker.
- Over at the Financial Times, Peter Temple highlights map and atlas sales.
- Some additional coverage over the ongoing saga of the possible breakup of the Mendham Collection by the Law Society: Diarmaid MacCulloch has weighed in, calling the proposed sale "vandalism."
- Anne Trubek writes on the Economist's Prospero blog about the Bronte family copy of Audubon's Birds of America, now in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
- Mills Kelly's Lying About the Past course, which caused such a ruckus this spring, was profiled/reviewed in the THE by Jon Marcus.
- Writing in Slate, Jacob Silverman asks if the online literary world isn't just a little too chummy. Ron Charles responds.
- In China Daily, book restorers at Nanjing University are profiled.
- Five years on, the murder of book collector Rolland Comstock remains technically unsolved. The local sheriff said this week that the case is still open and they still hope to be able to bring charges.
- On the SHARP blog, Edmund G C King reports on a recent seminar presentation by David Finkelstein, "Assessing Don McKenzie's Legacy in the Digital Age: A Case Study."
- Launched this week, Scripto, an open-source system for crowd-sourced transcriptions.
- J.L. Bell notes an article in Colonial Williamsburg, "The Use of Myth in History."
- The Harvard metaLAB released a video animation this week highlighting the spread of print by displaying the publication dates of books in Harvard's libraries.
- The CBC reported this week on Library and Archives Canada's preparations to move into a new facility next year.
- In the You've Got Mail installment this week: a letter from libettist Lorenzo Da Ponte to Anthony Panizzi about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (drawn from an autograph album compiled by Charles Sumner).
- Craig Mod has posted a Readlist on the Future of Books & Publishing which is well worth exploring. [h/t @B00KE]
- In case you missed, a Periodic Table of Typefaces debuted this week; it's meant to promote the paperback release of Simon Garfield's Just My Type.
- The August AE Monthly includes pieces by Michael Stillman on the recovery of an atlas stolen from the Royal Library of Sweden; Bruce McKinney on the upcoming auction at Leslie Hindman, and Susan Netzorg Halas on what she calls the "booksellers' lifestyle" (featuring Portland's own Ian Kahn).
- There's a new Common-place up, here. A series of articles on the War of 1812 bicentennial are included.
Reviews
- Jacques Bonnet's Phantoms on the Bookshelves; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at the Fine Books Blog.
- Jonathan Gottschall's The Storytelling Animal; review by David Eagleman in the NYTimes.
- Ken Perenyi's Caveat Emptor; review by Jonathan Lopez in the WSJ.
- Richard Slotkin's The Long Road to Antietam; review by John Swansburg in the Slate Book Review.
- Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Prisoner of Heaven; review by Yvonne Zipp in the WaPo.
- In a Collation post, Sarah Werner offers a Q&A with Goran Proot, the new Curator of Rare Books at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Sarah also posted the August crocodile this week.
- Collen O'Connor's article in the Denver Post "E-reader generation gets a kick out of hunt for rare, unusual volumes" annoyed me on several levels (it's not just young people using e-readers, for one). But, as a piece to highlight the importance of regional book fairs, I'll take it.
- Houghton Library has acquired the newspaper Trotsky was reading when he was mortally wounded by an ice-pick-wielding attacker.
- Over at the Financial Times, Peter Temple highlights map and atlas sales.
- Some additional coverage over the ongoing saga of the possible breakup of the Mendham Collection by the Law Society: Diarmaid MacCulloch has weighed in, calling the proposed sale "vandalism."
- Anne Trubek writes on the Economist's Prospero blog about the Bronte family copy of Audubon's Birds of America, now in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
- Mills Kelly's Lying About the Past course, which caused such a ruckus this spring, was profiled/reviewed in the THE by Jon Marcus.
- Writing in Slate, Jacob Silverman asks if the online literary world isn't just a little too chummy. Ron Charles responds.
- In China Daily, book restorers at Nanjing University are profiled.
- Five years on, the murder of book collector Rolland Comstock remains technically unsolved. The local sheriff said this week that the case is still open and they still hope to be able to bring charges.
- On the SHARP blog, Edmund G C King reports on a recent seminar presentation by David Finkelstein, "Assessing Don McKenzie's Legacy in the Digital Age: A Case Study."
- Launched this week, Scripto, an open-source system for crowd-sourced transcriptions.
- J.L. Bell notes an article in Colonial Williamsburg, "The Use of Myth in History."
- The Harvard metaLAB released a video animation this week highlighting the spread of print by displaying the publication dates of books in Harvard's libraries.
- The CBC reported this week on Library and Archives Canada's preparations to move into a new facility next year.
- In the You've Got Mail installment this week: a letter from libettist Lorenzo Da Ponte to Anthony Panizzi about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (drawn from an autograph album compiled by Charles Sumner).
- Craig Mod has posted a Readlist on the Future of Books & Publishing which is well worth exploring. [h/t @B00KE]
- In case you missed, a Periodic Table of Typefaces debuted this week; it's meant to promote the paperback release of Simon Garfield's Just My Type.
- The August AE Monthly includes pieces by Michael Stillman on the recovery of an atlas stolen from the Royal Library of Sweden; Bruce McKinney on the upcoming auction at Leslie Hindman, and Susan Netzorg Halas on what she calls the "booksellers' lifestyle" (featuring Portland's own Ian Kahn).
- There's a new Common-place up, here. A series of articles on the War of 1812 bicentennial are included.
Reviews
- Jacques Bonnet's Phantoms on the Bookshelves; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at the Fine Books Blog.
- Jonathan Gottschall's The Storytelling Animal; review by David Eagleman in the NYTimes.
- Ken Perenyi's Caveat Emptor; review by Jonathan Lopez in the WSJ.
- Richard Slotkin's The Long Road to Antietam; review by John Swansburg in the Slate Book Review.
- Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Prisoner of Heaven; review by Yvonne Zipp in the WaPo.
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Links & Reviews
- During the first RBS session in June a Virginia Public Radio reporter visited and recorded a feature about the school and its people. The seven-minute segment is now available online (mp3).
- In the San Diego Reader, Jeannine Schinto has a retrospective on the four sales Sotheby's sales of the James S. Copley library, summing it up quite well: "[Bidders] paid big money for a few choice items, underpaid for others, and sat on their hands for far too much of the rest."
- Don't miss Monica Porter's Telegraph piece "'84 Charing Cross Road' Revisited" - it's well worth a read.
- After a week of testimony and deliberation, a civil jury determined that Alberta Comstock, the ex-wife of murdered book collector Rolland Comstock, was responsible for his death. They awarded $125,000 to Faith Stocker, the daughter of Alberta Comstock who had brought the civil suit. The criminal investigation continues.
- From McSweeney's this week, Ben Shattuck reports in from a Civil War reenactment.
- PW highlighted the Book Inscription Project (which seems less active than it might be, but is still quite interesting).
- California book dealer Michael Hollander, contacted by a Hawaiian man offering to sell rare books, ended up assisting in the arrest of the man and the return of the books to the library of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, from which the 23-year-old had stolen them.
- Molly Peacock previews her new book The Paper Garden (on botanical collage-maker Mary Granville Delany), in The Telegraph.
- The Lehman Collection of music manuscripts, currently on deposit at the Morgan Library, is up for sale, NPR reports.
- John Overholt alerted me to a newly-cataloged collection at Houghton, researcher Hans Kasten's collection of records and documents related to the case of Johann Georg Heinrich Tinius (1764-1846), a Prussian bibliophile convicted of murder in 1813.
- The July AE Monthly is out; it includes news that the reclusive half-sister of William Andrews Clark, Jr. (Huguette Marcelle Clark) left funds at her death to turn her Santa Barbara, CA mansion into a museum for her art and rare book collections.
Reviews
- Thomas Schaeper's Edward Bancroft; review by Jack Rakove in TNR.
- Amanda Foreman's A World on Fire; review by Geoffrey Wheatcroft in the NYTimes. Foreman also has an essay in the WSJ, "Turning Messy History Into a Tale."
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Links & Reviews
- Some fantastic news this week: the University of Cambridge has begun the digitization of Charles Darwin's scientific library, with 330 of 1480 titles available digitally along with transcriptions of Darwin's marginalia.
- The National Library of Medicine released Medicine in the Americas, a digital library of more than 350 works of early American medicine.
- I mentioned it on Twitter this week, but in case you missed it, there's a profile of Morgan Library curator John Bidwell in the NYTimes.
- Ian Crouch reports on The Book Bench about a Dutch political group's planned burning of Lawrence Hill's novel Someone Knows My Name (published originally as The Book of Negroes and in Holland as Het Negerboek).
- While I'm quite sure "indepthly" is not in fact a word, KSPR's report on the civil wrongful death suit in the Rolland Comstock case is worth watching and reading. Jury selection is expected to begin on Monday, and both sides are claiming they'll bring new evidence to the case. An earlier report is here.
- Applications for this year's New Scholars program at the Bibliographical Society of America are due by 31 July. Info here.
- I haven't had a chance to listen yet, but I've downloaded and am looking forward to Digital Humanities and the Future of Libraries, a talk at the NYPL.
- Quite a good deal on the Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, available through 31 August. Save up your pennies!
- At Anchora, a look at provenance notes and marks of readership in early printed copies of Chaucer.
- Chris at Book Hunter's Holiday has found some amusing little anecdotes on book collecting in a private library catalog from 1885.
- A book believed stolen from a Greek university library in 2003 was found in a stairwell last week.
- In the NYTimes, Fernanda Santos writes about the increasingly common trend of schools eliminating librarian positions to cut costs.
- CHNM's new project PressForward got lots of buzz on Twitter this week, and also a short writeup in the NYTimes' ArtsBeat blog.
- Booktryst highlights a new exhibit at the Folger: Fame, Fortune, & Theft: The Shakespeare First Folio. Looks like the catalog's a goodie too, I'm going to have to hunt up a copy. Rebecca Rego Barry also comments on the exhibit (and the catalog!) at the Fine Books Blog.
- From the WSJ this week, a piece on the complex logistics of the imminent move of the Barnes Foundation's art into Philadelphia.
- Don't miss Alexis Madrigal's piece "What Big Media Can Learn from the New York Public Library."
- British book thief Sean Cowie was sentenced to six months in jail after his tale of being ill with cancer turned out to have been entirely fabricated.
- On the Telegraph book blog, Mark Mason asks how many books you'll read in your lifetime.
- News from ESTC: links to Proquest's Early English Books Online (EEBO) and Gale/Cengage's Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) are now available through the ESTC public access site via the British Library: http://estc.bl.uk. Links to ESTC titles in Google Books are going to be added, apparently (no word on Internet Archive titles, but hopefully those will be added as well). Subscriptions are required to view the EEBO and ECCO titles.
- Kaivan Mangouri writes in the Boston Globe on how some Boston-area bookshops are "coping" with the new normal.
- From Bookride, a discussion of booksellers' descriptions and some dubious uses of the descriptor "fine" (among other oft-used terms).
Reviews
- David Reynolds' Mightier than the Sword; review by Andrew Delbanco in the NYTimes.
- David Pearson's Books as History; review by Stephen J. Gertz at Booktryst.
- Paul Lockhart's The Whites of Their Eyes; review by David Shribman in the Boston Globe.
- Michael Sims' The Story of Charlotte's Web; review by Valerie Sayers in the Washington Post.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Links & Reviews
Pardon the brevity this week: he second RBS session begins tonight, so there's much to be done.
- The British Library launched a 19th Century Books app this week.
- From Mercurius Politicus, a neat look into the parish record research process.
- The second THATCamp New England will be held on 22 October at Brandeis University.
- From Houghton, some newly-digitized goodies, including the printer's copy for the Aldine edition of Aristotle's works.
- An interesting piece by Brewster Kahle on the Internet Archive's physical archive of books, which he sees as something akin to a "seed bank."
- There was no indictment this week in the Rolland Comstock case. The Greene County, MO grand jury took no action related to the still-unsolved murder.
- A new issue of "Republics of Letters" is up, featuring an essay by Roger Chartier, among others.
Reviews
- Christopher Krebs' A Most Dangerous Book; review by Cullen Murphy in the NYTimes.
- Jane Brown's The Omnipotent Magician; review by John Barrell in the TLS.
- John Sayles' A Moment in the Sun; review by Tom LeClair in the NYTimes.
- Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts; review by Dorothy Gallagher in the NYTimes.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Links & Reviews
- Parts of Jane Austen's unfinished manuscript of her novel The Watsons will be sold at Sotheby's London on 14 July, with estimates of £200,000-300,000.
- Last September I noted that book thief Sean Cowie had skipped bail and was on the lam; this week the Stirling Observer reported that Cowie (now back in police custody) has told police he has cancer, but his former girlfriend says he's simply lying.
- The University of Pennsylvania libraries have received a $300,000 NEH grant to digitize approximately 1,000 European and American manuscripts from 1601-1800. The digitized manuscripts will be added to the Penn in Hand: Selected Manuscripts site.
- Google Books announced this week that it's making available a selection of 16th and 17th-century books in full color: and they're quite nice, actually.
- Art book collector Arthur Jaffe is profiled in the Orlando Sun-Sentinel.
- The LATimes has a "summer reading guide" out today, with recommendations from a wide variety of genres.
- Since 2007 this blog has followed the murder case of Missouri book collector Rolland Comstock. This week reports emerged that the case was before a Greene County grand jury, but that no indictments were handed down. The Columbia News-Leader ran a retrospective and update on the Comstock story as well.
- John Hendel covers the 125th anniversary of Linotype, writing for The Atlantic (it includes the trailer for Doug Wilson's "Linotype: The Film," which looks tremendously interesting.
- At Salon, Paul Shaw looks at "Fonts that could have been great."
- Amazon announced that Kindle book sales have surpassed sales of print books for the first time. Michael Lieberman at Book Patrol has the best take on this I've seen yet.
- From the Fine Books Blog, Rebecca Rego Barry looks at some recent auction consignments by historical societies.
Reviews
- Jacqueline Yallop's Magpies, Squirrels and Thieves: How the Victorians Collected the World; review by Mary Crockett in the Scotsman.
- Michael Parker's The Watery Part of the World; review by Emily Barton in the New York Times.
- Frank McLynn's Captain Cook, Master of the Seas; review by Roger Hutchinson in the Scotsman.
- Revolutionary Founders (ed. Alfred F. Young, Gary Nash and Ray Raphael); review by Mary Beth Norton in the New York Times.
- Daniel Richter's Before the Revolution; review by J.H. Elliot in the NYRB.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Links & Reviews
- KSPR reported that there seems to be some movement in the Rolland Comstock murder case: detectives have recently examined media coverage of the case "to see if a person of interest knew details about the killing that were not previously released to the public," and a grand jury called to deliberate on unsolved cases may be considering the Comstock case. The civil case brought against Comstock's ex-wife by his adopted daughter is also proceedings; a hearing is set for 3 November.
- From CNBC this week, John Moore writes on books as financial investments.
- The Caxton Club will host a symposium on association copies in March 2011, to coincide with the opening of their new exhibit "Other People's Books: Association Copies and the Stories They Tell."
- Here's a blast from the past: in a story first noted here way back in 2006, book thieves Peter Mason King and Nora Ann Thompson are now accused of stealing more than $500,000 of goods in Canada by pilfering items from homes they entered by posing as potential buyers. The duo are still wanted by Westport, CT police for stealing some $60,000 worth of art and rare books from a store there.
- From the Book Bench this week, a look at a steampunkish early typewriter.
- The Dr. Seuss manuscript at auction this week ended up selling for $40,800 (including premiums).
- A James Madison University professor has donated a 7,000-book collection, including some rarities, to the university's library.
- Israel will be cooperating with Google to mount a digital exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls, with the first images set to go up within months.
Review
- Joseph Ellis' First Family; review by Jay Strafford in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
- Ron Chernow's Washington; review by T.J. Stiles in the WaPo.
- Simon Winchester's Atlantic; review by Ben Wilson in the Telegraph.
- Pauline Maier's Ratification; review by Michael McConnell in the WSJ.
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Links & Reviews
- Ed Pettit launched the George Lippard Society this week, "a literary organization dedicated to the life and works of George Lippard and other writers of Philadelphia Gothic." Sign up or find out more at his post.
- Big congratulations to Princeton's rare books and special collections team - their exhibition catalog Liberty and the American Revolution: Selections from the Collection of Sid Lapidus won the RBMS' Leab award this year. I reviewed the catalog (here), and agree entirely that this award is well deserved.
- Sotheby's has a preview video up of their 15 July Literature sale (previewed here).
- The University of Alabama will acquire a large collection of rare books and photographs relating to Southern history, including Confederate imprints. UA alumnus Steve Williams' library contains more than 20,000 books and 12,000 images, and will be partially donated to the university (plus a $3.5 million payment).
- From Smithsonian, a look at major archival collections that will open to researchers in the next forty-five years.
- The winners of the 2010 Bulwer-Lytton contest for worst first line have been announced. Prepare to groan.
- The commissioner for the Chicago Public Library has issued a strong rebuttal to a local Fox News piece questioning investment in public libraries.
- Pratt Libraries have mounted their bookplate collection on flickr - more than 1,200 images of personal and institutional bookplates!
- Fore-edge painting gets the Booktryst treatment this week.
- It's now been three years since the murder of book collector Rolland Comstock, and Missouri police say they're still building a case. In a longer piece in the News-Leader, Comstock friend Becky Frakes discusses the case, and there is word that the civil suit filed against Comstock's ex-wife Alberta by her daughter Faith Stocker was supposed to go to trial this month, but has been delayed.
- A fascinating and absorbing new site launched this week: Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900) offers core documents related to the history of copyright in Italy, Germany, France, Britain, and the United States.
- The June Fine Books Notes is out (and rumor has it that the summer issue is in the mail!)
- Another new biblio-blog to announce: Non Solus, from the University of Illinois. I've added a link, and subscribed.
- A fascinating and absorbing new site launched this week: Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900) offers core documents related to the history of copyright in Italy, Germany, France, Britain, and the United States.
- The June Fine Books Notes is out (and rumor has it that the summer issue is in the mail!)
- Another new biblio-blog to announce: Non Solus, from the University of Illinois. I've added a link, and subscribed.
- Bruce McKinney announced in the July Americana Exchange that he's organizing another sale of materials from his collection: The American Experience, 1626-1850. Bonhams New York will host the auction, which will be be modeled after McKinney's De Orbe Novo sale at Bloomsbury last December (lot descriptions will include purchase dates and prices paid).
- Over at the SEA site, a list of new and forthcoming books on early American topics.
- Over at the SEA site, a list of new and forthcoming books on early American topics.
Reviews
- Martha Miller's Betsy Ross and the Making of America; reviews by Marjoleine Kars in the WaPo, Ruth Graham in Slate.
- Andrew Graham-Dixon's Caravaggio; review by Christopher Bray in the Independent.
- Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks; review by Rosamund Unwin in the Scotsman.
- Gary Nash's The Liberty Bell; review by Jack Rakove in TNR.
- Adrian Johns' Piracy; review by Jeffrey Rosen in the WaPo.
- Nathaniel Philbrick's The Last Stand; review by Clive Sinclair in the Independent.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Links & Reviews
- As expected, the Google Books Settlement hearing has been indefinitely postponed. Judge Denny Chin wrote in part "Under all the circumstances, it makes no sense to conduct a hearing on the fairness and reasonableness of the current settlement agreement, as it does not appear the the current settlement will be the operative one." A status conference will be held on 7 October.
- Inside Higher Ed reports on a meeting this week at Baruch College, where University of California administrator Daniel Greenstein spoke about the future of university libraries. Many of his comments seemed to go over like a lead balloon (see the response in the comments section for more).
- An update on the John Sisto story: more than 1,140 Italian artifacts from his collection, including books and manuscripts, are being returned to Italy. Authorities there have determined that the items were "stolen from town archives, libraries and churches in the southern regions of Puglia, Sicily and Molise, and exported illegally."
- Some movement in the Rolland Comstock case: word that a Missouri judge has scheduled the wrongful death civil suit to begin on 7 June 2010. The criminal case is still pending.
- William Noel and Reviel Netz's The Archimedes Codex (my review here) has won the first Neumann Prize of the British Society for the History of Mathematics. The award, to be given every two years, is for the best book in the history of mathematics which is aimed at a broad audience.
- Timothy Barrett, book artist, RBS faculty member and director of the papermaking center at the University of Iowa's Center for the Book, has been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (aka "Genius Grant"). Excellent news!
- In the WSJ, Alexandra Alter writes on the trend of releasing posthumous works: "Works by Vladimir Nabokov, William Styron, Graham Greene, Carl Jung and Kurt Vonnegut will hit bookstores this fall. Ralph Ellison and the late thriller writer Donald E. Westlake have posthumous novels due out in 2010."
Review
- Adam Gopnik reviews Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol in The New Yorker.
- In the San Francisco Chronicle, Jonathan Lopez reviews Allison Hoover Bartlett's The Man Who Loved Books Too Much. Dennis Drabelle offers a short review in the WaPo.
- Jenny Uglow's A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration is reviewed by Frances Wilson in the Sunday Times.
- Wes Davis reviews A New Literary History of America (ed. Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors) in the WSJ.
- In the NYTimes, Susann Cokal reviews Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry.
- Christoph Irmscher reviews Douglas Brinkley's The Wilderness Warrior in the LATimes.
- In the WaPo, Jonathan Yardley reviews Robert Edsel's The Monuments Men.
- Inside Higher Ed reports on a meeting this week at Baruch College, where University of California administrator Daniel Greenstein spoke about the future of university libraries. Many of his comments seemed to go over like a lead balloon (see the response in the comments section for more).
- An update on the John Sisto story: more than 1,140 Italian artifacts from his collection, including books and manuscripts, are being returned to Italy. Authorities there have determined that the items were "stolen from town archives, libraries and churches in the southern regions of Puglia, Sicily and Molise, and exported illegally."
- Some movement in the Rolland Comstock case: word that a Missouri judge has scheduled the wrongful death civil suit to begin on 7 June 2010. The criminal case is still pending.
- William Noel and Reviel Netz's The Archimedes Codex (my review here) has won the first Neumann Prize of the British Society for the History of Mathematics. The award, to be given every two years, is for the best book in the history of mathematics which is aimed at a broad audience.
- Timothy Barrett, book artist, RBS faculty member and director of the papermaking center at the University of Iowa's Center for the Book, has been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (aka "Genius Grant"). Excellent news!
- In the WSJ, Alexandra Alter writes on the trend of releasing posthumous works: "Works by Vladimir Nabokov, William Styron, Graham Greene, Carl Jung and Kurt Vonnegut will hit bookstores this fall. Ralph Ellison and the late thriller writer Donald E. Westlake have posthumous novels due out in 2010."
Review
- Adam Gopnik reviews Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol in The New Yorker.
- In the San Francisco Chronicle, Jonathan Lopez reviews Allison Hoover Bartlett's The Man Who Loved Books Too Much. Dennis Drabelle offers a short review in the WaPo.
- Jenny Uglow's A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration is reviewed by Frances Wilson in the Sunday Times.
- Wes Davis reviews A New Literary History of America (ed. Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors) in the WSJ.
- In the NYTimes, Susann Cokal reviews Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry.
- Christoph Irmscher reviews Douglas Brinkley's The Wilderness Warrior in the LATimes.
- In the WaPo, Jonathan Yardley reviews Robert Edsel's The Monuments Men.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Links & Reviews
- Police say that the investigation into the murder of book collector Rolland Comstock (July, 2007) is continuing. Green County, Missouri sheriff Jim Arnott said that authorities are still awaiting lab results and re-analysis of certain evidence related to the case. One detective is devoted solely to solving Comstock's murder, Arnott said. More via KSPR.
- In Slate, Paul Collins examines the life and legacy of Wycliffe A. Hill, "the man who invented
the Hollywood schlock machine."
- A British bookselling newsletters, Sheppard's Confidential, solicited suggestions this week for a collective noun for a group of booksellers. The Bookfinder.com blog passes along the list. This is a bit of a spin-off from the group of librarians list posted here back in 2008.
- The obscure Jefferson reference of the week goes to Jeff Pasley's correspondent at Publick Occurrences, for this.
- Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of John Quincy Adams' 42d birthday. In a post at The Beehive, I highlight his diary entry from that day, and offer a sneak peek to JQA's next adventure.
Reviews
- In the WaPo, Ron Charles reviews Laurie Scheck's A Monster's Notes.
- Hobson Woodward's A Brave Vessel gets top billing in the Boston Globe "Shelf Life" column today, and is reviewed by Patricia Hagen in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
- In Slate, Paul Collins examines the life and legacy of Wycliffe A. Hill, "the man who invented
the Hollywood schlock machine."
- A British bookselling newsletters, Sheppard's Confidential, solicited suggestions this week for a collective noun for a group of booksellers. The Bookfinder.com blog passes along the list. This is a bit of a spin-off from the group of librarians list posted here back in 2008.
- The obscure Jefferson reference of the week goes to Jeff Pasley's correspondent at Publick Occurrences, for this.
- Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of John Quincy Adams' 42d birthday. In a post at The Beehive, I highlight his diary entry from that day, and offer a sneak peek to JQA's next adventure.
Reviews
- In the WaPo, Ron Charles reviews Laurie Scheck's A Monster's Notes.
- Hobson Woodward's A Brave Vessel gets top billing in the Boston Globe "Shelf Life" column today, and is reviewed by Patricia Hagen in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Links & Reviews
- Sign of the times watch: Virginia Tech said this week it would be cutting $900,000 worth of journal subscriptions for the 2009-10 year ($500,000 to make budget cuts, and $400,000 to meet cost increases). The dean of university libraries is asking for input from VTech professors and researchers about which titles are most important to them in their work. In other academic library news, Emory University's libraries have cut $200,000 this fiscal year by not filling vacant positions and not hiring for other open jobs. Other measures may be put in place shortly.
- Much of Rolland Comstock's collection has now been acquired by Dick Rofritch of The Woodlands, TX, who opened a bookstore (Good Books in the Woods) to sell the books. The Houston Chronicle has the story of how Rofritch came to own the collection and get started with bookselling.
- Rare Book Review notes that the "Library of the Religious Society of Friends has completed the cataloguing of all its Pre-1801 printed materials, with an additional 7,400 Quaker titles now available for research purposes." The catalog is here. I tested it on on some very rare Thomas Maule titles I knew were supposed to be in the library, and there they were.
- Nick Basbanes has a piece on booking along Maine's Route 1. He's right, Maine's a wonderfully-bookish place.
- In the TLS, Thomas Keymer examines the first American edition of Samuel Johnson's Rasselas; the essay is taken from his introduction to the forthcoming Oxford World's Classics edition of the work.
- Staff for the National Trust for Scotland have found a copy of A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, co-edited by Robert Burns, which Burns signed and presented to a Miss Graham, the daughter of his boss. The book will be displayed in a new Burns museum in the near future.
- An utterly amazing (and disturbing) look at "essay mills" was published in the 20 March Chronicle of Higher Ed. Highly recommended. [h/t Literary Fraud & Folly]
- Laura's off on what sounds like a fantastic trip to Germany and Egypt - I know I'm looking forward to pictures and tales!
- Caleb Crain has an essay in the NYT book review about the hilarious 1857 book The Physiology of New York Boarding-Houses, available in a new reprint from Rutgers University Press or in facsmile from Cornell University Press (or digitally via the Internet Archive or Google Books).
- Literary agent Lynn Chu argues in the WSJ that the Google Books settlement is a very bad deal for authors [h/t LISNews]
- The NYT covered the results of the Bookseller/Diagram Oddest Book Title contest, the winner this year being The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais (Baboon Metaphysics took second place). The beauty of the Times piece is the quotes from the runner-up authors and past winners, which are very enjoyable. More from Alison Flood at the Guardian, who points out that the author of the winning book is a professor of management science at French business school Insead who says he has "published" more than 200,000 titles (print-on-demand econometrics reports, basically).
Reviews
- In the WSJ, Mark Teaford reviews Ruth Richardson's The Making of Mr. Gray's Anatomy.
- Richard Cox reviews John Ridener's From Polders to Postmodernism: A Concise History of Archival Theory, which is high on my "to read" list as well.
- At Book Patrol, Charles Seluzicki reviews Leanne Sharpton's novel-as-auction-catalog.
- Much of Rolland Comstock's collection has now been acquired by Dick Rofritch of The Woodlands, TX, who opened a bookstore (Good Books in the Woods) to sell the books. The Houston Chronicle has the story of how Rofritch came to own the collection and get started with bookselling.
- Rare Book Review notes that the "Library of the Religious Society of Friends has completed the cataloguing of all its Pre-1801 printed materials, with an additional 7,400 Quaker titles now available for research purposes." The catalog is here. I tested it on on some very rare Thomas Maule titles I knew were supposed to be in the library, and there they were.
- Nick Basbanes has a piece on booking along Maine's Route 1. He's right, Maine's a wonderfully-bookish place.
- In the TLS, Thomas Keymer examines the first American edition of Samuel Johnson's Rasselas; the essay is taken from his introduction to the forthcoming Oxford World's Classics edition of the work.
- Staff for the National Trust for Scotland have found a copy of A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, co-edited by Robert Burns, which Burns signed and presented to a Miss Graham, the daughter of his boss. The book will be displayed in a new Burns museum in the near future.
- An utterly amazing (and disturbing) look at "essay mills" was published in the 20 March Chronicle of Higher Ed. Highly recommended. [h/t Literary Fraud & Folly]
- Laura's off on what sounds like a fantastic trip to Germany and Egypt - I know I'm looking forward to pictures and tales!
- Caleb Crain has an essay in the NYT book review about the hilarious 1857 book The Physiology of New York Boarding-Houses, available in a new reprint from Rutgers University Press or in facsmile from Cornell University Press (or digitally via the Internet Archive or Google Books).
- Literary agent Lynn Chu argues in the WSJ that the Google Books settlement is a very bad deal for authors [h/t LISNews]
- The NYT covered the results of the Bookseller/Diagram Oddest Book Title contest, the winner this year being The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais (Baboon Metaphysics took second place). The beauty of the Times piece is the quotes from the runner-up authors and past winners, which are very enjoyable. More from Alison Flood at the Guardian, who points out that the author of the winning book is a professor of management science at French business school Insead who says he has "published" more than 200,000 titles (print-on-demand econometrics reports, basically).
Reviews
- In the WSJ, Mark Teaford reviews Ruth Richardson's The Making of Mr. Gray's Anatomy.
- Richard Cox reviews John Ridener's From Polders to Postmodernism: A Concise History of Archival Theory, which is high on my "to read" list as well.
- At Book Patrol, Charles Seluzicki reviews Leanne Sharpton's novel-as-auction-catalog.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Judge Rules Comstock Civil Suit Can Proceed
Murdered book collector Rolland Comstock's adopted daughter can proceed with a civil suit against her mother - Comstock's ex-wife - a Missouri judge ruled on Thursday. While Alberta Comstock's attorney argued that the civil suit should not proceed until (and if) criminal charges are filed against his client, judge Michael Cordonnier said that the civil suit could move forward even in the absence of criminal charges.
The attorney for Faith Stocker, who filed the civil suit, said he believes they have enough evidence to proceed with the civil case, even as Green County sheriff Jim Arnott continues his investigation.
The attorney for Faith Stocker, who filed the civil suit, said he believes they have enough evidence to proceed with the civil case, even as Green County sheriff Jim Arnott continues his investigation.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Links & Reviews
- Two upcoming auction catalogues are now online: Bloomsbury New York's 10 December sale of Important Books, Manuscripts, Literature and Americana (in Flash, very snazzy), plus Sotheby's Fine Books and Manuscripts sale for 11 December. These are both going to be really interesting sales to watch: I'll post some highlights from each soon. The Bloomsbury sale, remember, is where we'll see that unpublished Poe manuscript.
- An update in the Rolland Comstock case: the murdered book collector's ex-wife wants the wrongful death suit filed against her by Comstock's daughter delayed until criminal charges are filed. Greene County Chief Deputy Jim Arnott said prosecutors "have at least one suspect in the case, but are still fine-tuning a final report." A motion hearing related to the civil suit is scheduled for 8 January 2009.
- In the NYTimes, Laura Miller has a nice essay on the culling of one's personal library.
- Everyone's already commented on the heavy and expensive new book on Michelangelo's life and work, which weighs 62 pounds and costs $100,000.
- Twenty Penguin authors have shared the lists of the books they plan to give as holiday gifts and the ones they hope to receive. Interesting selections. Authors include Nathaniel Philbrick, Geraldine Brooks, Jasper Fforde, and Khaled Hosseini. [h/t Jacket Copy]
- From the Times Archives Blog, the hilarious "20 Things to do with a Haggis."
- An update in the Rolland Comstock case: the murdered book collector's ex-wife wants the wrongful death suit filed against her by Comstock's daughter delayed until criminal charges are filed. Greene County Chief Deputy Jim Arnott said prosecutors "have at least one suspect in the case, but are still fine-tuning a final report." A motion hearing related to the civil suit is scheduled for 8 January 2009.
- In the NYTimes, Laura Miller has a nice essay on the culling of one's personal library.
- Everyone's already commented on the heavy and expensive new book on Michelangelo's life and work, which weighs 62 pounds and costs $100,000.
- Twenty Penguin authors have shared the lists of the books they plan to give as holiday gifts and the ones they hope to receive. Interesting selections. Authors include Nathaniel Philbrick, Geraldine Brooks, Jasper Fforde, and Khaled Hosseini. [h/t Jacket Copy]
- From the Times Archives Blog, the hilarious "20 Things to do with a Haggis."
- Rob Lopresti, who we all remember for his role in breaking open the Brubaker case, has copies of a list of the 800 books Brubaker stole from libraries across the west. Librarians can request copies of the list by sending a request on library letterhead to Lopresti's attention at Wilson Library, Western Washington University; Bellingham, WA 98225-9103. Please include a self-addressed envelope and postage for 59 cents.
- Peter features the pirated Plath edition he found at the Boston Book Fair.
- Over at Historianness, Rebecca has uploaded the reading list for her course "Readings in North American History, 1500-1800." It's a whopper, but the selections are excellent.
- Chris has a very useful essay, "Researching Your Books: The Importance of Good Bibliographic Skill." Highly recommended.
- Paul Collins looks at some timely (and not-so-timely) book releases.
- The Toronto Centre for the Book is posting podcasts of lectures held there: so far these include Robert Gross on reading in the early republic, and Richard Landon on bibliography and humanities scholarship.
- Tim's seeking the ultimate LCSH insult.
- Rare Book Review notes that the Morgan Library will be displaying the manuscript copy of Milton's Paradise Lost through 4 January 2009.
- Laura's got some photos up of her adventures across the pond.
- The end-of-year list season is upon us. The Telegraph highlights biography and history; the NYTimes has Notable Children's Books plus the 100 Notable Books of 2008 (of which I have read exactly two). The Times has its Books of the Year 2008 list up.
Reviews
- David Liss' The Whiskey Rebels is reviewed by Kevin Baker in the Washington Post.
- Virginia Heffernen reviews Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates in the NYTimes.
- Also in the Times, David Gates reviews Toni Morrison's new novel, A Mercy.
- Richard Cox comments on Lawrence Lessig's new book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.
- Rick Ring reviews Sheila Markham's A Book of Booksellers: Conversations with the Antiquarian Book Trade.
- Peter features the pirated Plath edition he found at the Boston Book Fair.
- Over at Historianness, Rebecca has uploaded the reading list for her course "Readings in North American History, 1500-1800." It's a whopper, but the selections are excellent.
- Chris has a very useful essay, "Researching Your Books: The Importance of Good Bibliographic Skill." Highly recommended.
- Paul Collins looks at some timely (and not-so-timely) book releases.
- The Toronto Centre for the Book is posting podcasts of lectures held there: so far these include Robert Gross on reading in the early republic, and Richard Landon on bibliography and humanities scholarship.
- Tim's seeking the ultimate LCSH insult.
- Rare Book Review notes that the Morgan Library will be displaying the manuscript copy of Milton's Paradise Lost through 4 January 2009.
- Laura's got some photos up of her adventures across the pond.
- The end-of-year list season is upon us. The Telegraph highlights biography and history; the NYTimes has Notable Children's Books plus the 100 Notable Books of 2008 (of which I have read exactly two). The Times has its Books of the Year 2008 list up.
Reviews
- David Liss' The Whiskey Rebels is reviewed by Kevin Baker in the Washington Post.
- Virginia Heffernen reviews Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates in the NYTimes.
- Also in the Times, David Gates reviews Toni Morrison's new novel, A Mercy.
- Richard Cox comments on Lawrence Lessig's new book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.
- Rick Ring reviews Sheila Markham's A Book of Booksellers: Conversations with the Antiquarian Book Trade.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Links & Reviews
- After a theft at his bookstore this week, Scott Brown comments on thefts from libraries and bookstores in general. I admire him for his resolution to "stay focused on the honest folks, while keeping in mind that there are people who will steal me blind if given the chance," but I'm afraid it's not enough. Scott adds "Like many shopkeepers, a lot of librarians feel under pressure to improve security. But I think we have to be cognizant that many efforts to deter theft also deter legitimate visitors. The safest store or library is one that allows no one inside."
While I deplore thefts from bookstores just as strongly as I do those from libraries, they are two very different things. Librarians have a mandate, a responsibility, to make the books and manuscripts in our care available to not only today's researchers, but to tomorrow's as well. If any theft-prevention measures deter legitimate visitors, that's their problem. I've been to no library (or bookstore, for that matter) where security measures are anything but understandable and minimally burdensome (and we've seen too many examples lately where the security was far, far, far too lax).
- Robert and Michelle Wilhelm have donated their collection of books relating to Greek and Roman history, language and literature to St. Michael's College, the Burlington Free Press reports. The 4,000 books were appraised at $207,000.
- The Mississippi Museum of Art's fall exhibit is "John James Audubon: American Artist and Naturalist." The exhibit will run through 4 January 2009, and includes sixty-four images from the Birds of America, plus "rare books, photographs, and other personal items belonging to the artist" from the collections of the Audubon Museum in Henderson, KY.
- Over at the Huntington Library, the exhibit is "Darwin's Garden: An Evolutionary Adventure," which was first showed at the New York Botanical Garden. The show runs there through 5 January.
- More on the Poe Wars from Ed, who's really looking forward to the Great Poe Debate coming up in January.
- Paul Collins points out some of the excellent Palin-linguistics humor which appeared this week. And Michael has a pretty amusing rare book joke.
- The ex-wife of murdered book collector Rolland Comstock wants the civil suit for wrongful death against her dismissed. A report in the Springfield News-Leader notes: "In documents filed with the Greene County Circuit Court on Thursday, Alberta Comstock claims a wrongful death suit filed against her in July lacks sufficient facts for the case to be considered." Another motion requests that Faith Stocker (Comstock's daughter, who filed the wrongful death suit), file a "more detailed pleading." Attorneys for Stocker and Alberta Comstock will argue their case before a court in the weeks to come. Police investigators also say that their investigation into Comstock's murder is "nearing finality."
- Ian at Lux Mentis, Lux Orbis has a great literary poem, "The Book of my Enemy Has Been Remaindered".
Book Reviews
- Eric Foner reviews Annette Gordon-Reed's The Hemingses of Monticello for the NYTimes.
- Rick Ring reviews Donald C. O'Brien's Amos Doolittle: Engraver of the Early Republic at Notes for Bibliophiles (it will also appear in College & Research Libraries).
- For The Scotsman, Andrew Crumey reviews Richard Holmes' The Age of Wonder.
- Andrew McKie reviews Neal Stephenson's Anathem for The Telegraph.
- Justin Marozzi's The Man Who Invented History: Travels with Herodotus is reviewed by Allan Massie in The Scotsman.
While I deplore thefts from bookstores just as strongly as I do those from libraries, they are two very different things. Librarians have a mandate, a responsibility, to make the books and manuscripts in our care available to not only today's researchers, but to tomorrow's as well. If any theft-prevention measures deter legitimate visitors, that's their problem. I've been to no library (or bookstore, for that matter) where security measures are anything but understandable and minimally burdensome (and we've seen too many examples lately where the security was far, far, far too lax).
- Robert and Michelle Wilhelm have donated their collection of books relating to Greek and Roman history, language and literature to St. Michael's College, the Burlington Free Press reports. The 4,000 books were appraised at $207,000.
- The Mississippi Museum of Art's fall exhibit is "John James Audubon: American Artist and Naturalist." The exhibit will run through 4 January 2009, and includes sixty-four images from the Birds of America, plus "rare books, photographs, and other personal items belonging to the artist" from the collections of the Audubon Museum in Henderson, KY.
- Over at the Huntington Library, the exhibit is "Darwin's Garden: An Evolutionary Adventure," which was first showed at the New York Botanical Garden. The show runs there through 5 January.
- More on the Poe Wars from Ed, who's really looking forward to the Great Poe Debate coming up in January.
- Paul Collins points out some of the excellent Palin-linguistics humor which appeared this week. And Michael has a pretty amusing rare book joke.
- The ex-wife of murdered book collector Rolland Comstock wants the civil suit for wrongful death against her dismissed. A report in the Springfield News-Leader notes: "In documents filed with the Greene County Circuit Court on Thursday, Alberta Comstock claims a wrongful death suit filed against her in July lacks sufficient facts for the case to be considered." Another motion requests that Faith Stocker (Comstock's daughter, who filed the wrongful death suit), file a "more detailed pleading." Attorneys for Stocker and Alberta Comstock will argue their case before a court in the weeks to come. Police investigators also say that their investigation into Comstock's murder is "nearing finality."
- Ian at Lux Mentis, Lux Orbis has a great literary poem, "The Book of my Enemy Has Been Remaindered".
Book Reviews
- Eric Foner reviews Annette Gordon-Reed's The Hemingses of Monticello for the NYTimes.
- Rick Ring reviews Donald C. O'Brien's Amos Doolittle: Engraver of the Early Republic at Notes for Bibliophiles (it will also appear in College & Research Libraries).
- For The Scotsman, Andrew Crumey reviews Richard Holmes' The Age of Wonder.
- Andrew McKie reviews Neal Stephenson's Anathem for The Telegraph.
- Justin Marozzi's The Man Who Invented History: Travels with Herodotus is reviewed by Allan Massie in The Scotsman.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Wrongful Death Suit Filed in Comstock Case
Missouri police are still waiting for the results of DNA testing before they file charges for the murder of Springfield lawyer/book collector Rolland Comstock. But Comstock's adopted daughter, Faith Stocker, is sick of waiting; she's filed a wrongful death suit against Comstock's ex-wife Alberta, the News-Leader reports. Alberta Comstock and her son Michael are widely considered the main suspects in the case.
Stocker's suit seeks "unspecified damages for funeral costs and the 'mental anguish' caused by Rolland Comstock's untimely demise. It also requests punitive damages 'for aggravating circumstances sufficient to punish Defendant and to deter others similarly situated from like conduct in the future ...'."
Police officials say that the case is still active, and that they continue to await test results.
Read the whole story here.
Stocker's suit seeks "unspecified damages for funeral costs and the 'mental anguish' caused by Rolland Comstock's untimely demise. It also requests punitive damages 'for aggravating circumstances sufficient to punish Defendant and to deter others similarly situated from like conduct in the future ...'."
Police officials say that the case is still active, and that they continue to await test results.
Read the whole story here.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Police Seek DNA Samples in Comstock Case
The Springfield News-Leader (MO) reports today that Greene County deputies sought DNA samples from Rolland Comstock's ex-wife and estranged son while investigating the suspected homicide" of the well-known lawyer and book collector. "Search warrant return documents show deputies collected saliva samples last month from both Alberta M. Comstock and Michael R. Comstock. The samples were sought after items found in Rolland Comstock's home -- including a cigarette butt and personal papers -- indicated the two may have been there at times they told detectives they weren't, the documents suggest."
Other court documents suggest that Alberta Comstock purchased a .38-caliber revolver the day before her ex-husband was killed. "Among items found at the scene of Rolland Comstock's death were spent .38 rounds, though no empty shell casings were located, '... which would indicate either the assailant picked up the spent (casings) or the weapon in question was a revolver.'" Also new from these documents is news that "a gunshot residue test taken after Rolland Comstock's death showed Alberta Comstock had 'a partial positive hit,'" and an attache case containing documents belonging to Alberta Comstock.
Michael Comstock, Alberta's biological son who was adopted by Rolland Comstock but "disowned approx. 10 years ago" (as he told police) reportedly said that "if his DNA was located at the crime scene, he had been set up!" Police say that DNA from a cigarette butt recovered at the scene of Comstock's death was a preliminary match to Michael Comstock, and that they are awaiting confirmation of that match. An affidavit filed in the case reports that Michael Comstock asked an acquaintance to "wash all his clothes" soon after his father's body had been discovered.
Comstock was found dead in his home last 3 July; "he'd been shot three times in the head and once in the abdomen, according to court documents."
Detectives told the News-Leader on Monday that charges would be filed soon, and that they are "now waiting on the Missouri Highway Patrol Crime Lab in Jefferson City to return DNA profiles of the mother and son. They will compare the profiles with other evidence found at the scene."
Other court documents suggest that Alberta Comstock purchased a .38-caliber revolver the day before her ex-husband was killed. "Among items found at the scene of Rolland Comstock's death were spent .38 rounds, though no empty shell casings were located, '... which would indicate either the assailant picked up the spent (casings) or the weapon in question was a revolver.'" Also new from these documents is news that "a gunshot residue test taken after Rolland Comstock's death showed Alberta Comstock had 'a partial positive hit,'" and an attache case containing documents belonging to Alberta Comstock.
Michael Comstock, Alberta's biological son who was adopted by Rolland Comstock but "disowned approx. 10 years ago" (as he told police) reportedly said that "if his DNA was located at the crime scene, he had been set up!" Police say that DNA from a cigarette butt recovered at the scene of Comstock's death was a preliminary match to Michael Comstock, and that they are awaiting confirmation of that match. An affidavit filed in the case reports that Michael Comstock asked an acquaintance to "wash all his clothes" soon after his father's body had been discovered.
Comstock was found dead in his home last 3 July; "he'd been shot three times in the head and once in the abdomen, according to court documents."
Detectives told the News-Leader on Monday that charges would be filed soon, and that they are "now waiting on the Missouri Highway Patrol Crime Lab in Jefferson City to return DNA profiles of the mother and son. They will compare the profiles with other evidence found at the scene."
Monday, May 12, 2008
Authorities Say Comstock Case (Almost) Closed
The investigation into the murder of book collector Rolland Comstock last July may finally be winding up, the Springfield News-Leader (MO) reported over the weekend: "Chief Deputy Jim Arnott said Friday that most of the evidence sent for testing has come back and detectives have narrowed in on 'one or more suspects.'
'We have received several items of forensic evidence that have helped us go in a specific direction,' he said. 'We have narrowed our focus on the investigation and we are proceeding forward. ... We do feel that we're headed the right way ... We believe we have a motive and some physical evidence.'"
The length of the investigation has been largely due to lab-testing of evidence, Arnott said.
Television station KY3 adds that "charges could be filed within a month."
'We have received several items of forensic evidence that have helped us go in a specific direction,' he said. 'We have narrowed our focus on the investigation and we are proceeding forward. ... We do feel that we're headed the right way ... We believe we have a motive and some physical evidence.'"
The length of the investigation has been largely due to lab-testing of evidence, Arnott said.
Television station KY3 adds that "charges could be filed within a month."
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Links & Reviews
Some weeks are full of noteworthy biblio-news. This was one.
- Ed Koster, the owner of David's Books (Ann Arbor, MI) has been charged along with three other men in a "book-selling scheme that involved hundreds of stolen textbooks from a nearby store." Police say Koster provided a "shopping list" of medical textbooks to be nabbed from Ulrich's Bookstore and several other local shops near the University of Michigan; the three suspects then allegedly stole the books and sold them to Koster "for cash to feed a heroin habit.""Koster, an Ann Arbor resident, faces up to 10 years in prison and/or a $25,000 fine if convicted. The others face the same potential sentences, along with a possible five-year prison sentence and/or $10,000 fine for the retail fraud charges." (h/t Shelf:Life)
- Travis comments on the charges brought against Mariners' Museum curator Lester Weber and his wife, Lori Child. Two posts: here and here.
- Simon Charles of the EEBO Text Creation Partnership reports that the partnership (between the Universities of Oxford and Michigan) is "is planning to extend its existing work to transcribe another 50,000 texts to add to the 25,000 full, searchable texts that will be online by next year." He writes: " In order to develop funding applications, the Oxford team of the EEBO-TCP is putting together a body of evidence to present to various funding bodies in the UK to demonstrate the importance of the full-text resource to the academic community. If you would like to show your support for these funding applications, please tell us whether you think the availability of additional texts would benefit the research community. Have you found the full texts useful in your work, in teaching or in research? Have you used them for any publications or projects? We are interested in how the EEBO full texts enrich the learning and research experience and would like to hear the views of users of the texts at all stages of study." Statements can be submitted here.
- At long last, Google Books has announced a feature by which users can flag unreadable pages. Dan Abbe reports "You'll now find a link next to all book pages on Google Book Search which allows you to submit an unreadable page to our team for review. There's no need to fill anything out – when you click this link, we'll detect the issue with the page you're looking at and get on the case." (h/t Dan Cohen)
- fade theory reports that Wayne Wiegand has received a fellowship to write A People’s History of the American Public Library, 1850-2000. Excellent news: good works on library history are few and far between.
- The Chicago Tribune notes that a "6-foot-high, 150-pound contemporary sculpture" known as Umanita (which has been in place outside the Newberry Library since 2005) was stolen last weekend. Police are investigating. (h/t NIUSC&RB)
- Scott Brown notes that Tim Toone's collection of 553 Harry Potter books (including translations into 63 languages) will sell in several lots at Bloomsbury on 28 February. More on Toone's collection here. Scott also has some thoughts on Ken Karmiole's shop in Santa Monica, CA, which he got to visit while in LA for the fair there. Ken's one of my favorite dealers to visit with at the Boston fair every year: great to talk to, excellent stock - a credit to the book-world. Scott also requests help in identifying a childrens' book artist, so contact him if you recognize the illustrations here.
- And one more Scott Brown bulletin: he has word that Quill and Brush has released a catalog [PDF] of some of the Rolland Comstock books they acquired after the collector's murder (which remains unsolved). The catalog includes an introduction by Nick Basbanes, who calls Comstock "easily one of the most unforgettable bibliophiles I have ever had the good fortune to meet."
- A copy of the death warrant for Mary, Queen of Scots will remain in England after the library of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace mustered up £72,485 in grants and donations to prevent its export. A private buyer had applied for permission to export the document in November, but was blocked by the government. Lambeth Palace librarian Richard Palmer said "The library is delighted to have played its part in saving this document for the nation. The warrant is now reunited with the papers with which it belongs and accessible for the benefit of all."
- Fragments of what is believed to be the "earliest dated Christian literary manuscript have been found at Deir al-Surian, an ancient monastery in the Egyptian desert," The Art Newspaper reports. The pieces are from the final page of "a codex written in Syriac (an Eastern Aramaic language) which was acquired by the British Museum library in the 19th century [ADD 12-150]." The document is a list of early Christian martyrs in Persia, and was written by a scribe in Edessa (in what is now Turkey). These new fragments were discovered along with hundreds of others "under a collapsed floor of a ninth-century tower." Much more background here. The Independent also wrote up the find this week, calling the fragments "the world's oldest missing page."
- The Philadelphia Bulletin profiles Katy Rawdon, archivist at the Barnes Foundation, which was founded in 1922 to "promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts."
- Rick Ring made a fabulous find in the stacks this week, discovering some volumes of Romeyn Beck Hough's The American Woods, a thirteen-volume compilation "designed to contain specimens (in transverse, radial, and tangential sections) of all the native and naturalized species of woods in the united States and Canada." He also links to a digital version of Hough's work hosted by North Carolina State University.
- Ian Kahn has a first dispatch and a second dispatch from the Greenwich Village Book Fair ... more to come, surely.
- The Guardian profiles Colin St. John Wilson, the architect of the new British Library building, who died last year. (h/t Iconic Books)
- Edinburgh-based publisher Itchy Coo (how about that for a name?) wants to translate the Harry Potter canon into the Scots dialect, according to a report in The Scotsman. J.K. Rowling "has not yet been approached for the go-ahead."
- The Times prints an extract from Frances Wilson's The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, to be published in the UK by Faber & Faber in March.
- Staff at the the New York Public Library have started a blog. I've added a link. (h/t Jessamyn West)
Reviews
- In the TLS Kelly Grovier reviews a new edition of an 1821 edition of Goethe's Faust, published anonymously but now attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge by scholars Frederick Burwick and James C. McKusick (building off a case begun by Paul Zall in the 1970s). A fascinating backstory to this one.
- In the Boston Globe, Michael Kenney has a joint review of Edward Lengel's new edition of This Glorious Struggle: George Washington's Revolutionary War Letters and Mark Puls' Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution. J.L. Bell add his comments to Kenney's review here. I'm anxious to read both of these books.
- Richard Cox comments on another new title I'm keen to read as well: Bill Hayes' The Anatomist: A True Story of Gray’s Anatomy. Cox writes "Those interested in archives will be interested in the book because of the author’s exploration into the modest amount of material left behind by Gray contrasted with the extraordinary evidence about Gray in the extensive pile of letters and diaries provided by [H.V.] Carter [Gray's illustrator]. As it turns out, Carter’s archives have been little tapped by historians of medicine and other scholars, and Hayes provides considerable commentary on his observations about the nature of diary writing."
- Stacy Schiff reviews Jerome Charyn's Johnny One-Eye for the New York Times, concluding "Charyn hasn’t woven a taut narrative from a lurching plot. What he has done is to create a rollicking tale in which — true to the dictates of the genre [the picaresque] — our hapless rogue makes good."
- In the Washington Post, Thomas Ryan reviews How the South Could Have Won the Civil War, a new alternative history by Bevin Alexander. From the review, this sounds more like a paean to Stonewall Jackson than anything else, and this sentence is enough to keep me away from the book: "Alexander's opinions are firmly stated, but his assertions are not always well documented."
- Also in the Post, Stephen Budiansky reviews Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering, which has become a minor sensation as a scholarly book which seems to be selling well.
- For the Boston Glode, Matthew Price reviews Joseph Wheelan's Mr. Adams' Last Crusade, about JQA's post-presidential career in the House.
- Nick Basbanes' new collection of essays, Editions and Impressions, is reviewed by Martin Rubin in the LATimes. Rubin enjoyed the book: "The essays are radiant with [Basbanes'] joy in discovering and exploring the byways of the book world. And what a world it is, full of fascinating characters and interesting tales, which Basbanes, with his experience covering 'every imaginable kind of story as a newspaper reporter,' is perfectly fitted to evoke."
- In The Scotsman, Emma Crichton-Miller reviews Peter Ackroyd's Poe: A Life Cut Short.
- Marjorie Kehe reviews Thomas DeWolf's Inheriting the Trade for the Christian Science Monitor. DeWolf's relative James was "the head of the most successful slave-trading family in American history," and features prominently in Marcus Rediker's recent The Slave Ship. DeWolf's book complements a recent documentary film, "Tracing the Trade," made by another family member.
- Ed Koster, the owner of David's Books (Ann Arbor, MI) has been charged along with three other men in a "book-selling scheme that involved hundreds of stolen textbooks from a nearby store." Police say Koster provided a "shopping list" of medical textbooks to be nabbed from Ulrich's Bookstore and several other local shops near the University of Michigan; the three suspects then allegedly stole the books and sold them to Koster "for cash to feed a heroin habit.""Koster, an Ann Arbor resident, faces up to 10 years in prison and/or a $25,000 fine if convicted. The others face the same potential sentences, along with a possible five-year prison sentence and/or $10,000 fine for the retail fraud charges." (h/t Shelf:Life)
- Travis comments on the charges brought against Mariners' Museum curator Lester Weber and his wife, Lori Child. Two posts: here and here.
- Simon Charles of the EEBO Text Creation Partnership reports that the partnership (between the Universities of Oxford and Michigan) is "is planning to extend its existing work to transcribe another 50,000 texts to add to the 25,000 full, searchable texts that will be online by next year." He writes: " In order to develop funding applications, the Oxford team of the EEBO-TCP is putting together a body of evidence to present to various funding bodies in the UK to demonstrate the importance of the full-text resource to the academic community. If you would like to show your support for these funding applications, please tell us whether you think the availability of additional texts would benefit the research community. Have you found the full texts useful in your work, in teaching or in research? Have you used them for any publications or projects? We are interested in how the EEBO full texts enrich the learning and research experience and would like to hear the views of users of the texts at all stages of study." Statements can be submitted here.
- At long last, Google Books has announced a feature by which users can flag unreadable pages. Dan Abbe reports "You'll now find a link next to all book pages on Google Book Search which allows you to submit an unreadable page to our team for review. There's no need to fill anything out – when you click this link, we'll detect the issue with the page you're looking at and get on the case." (h/t Dan Cohen)
- fade theory reports that Wayne Wiegand has received a fellowship to write A People’s History of the American Public Library, 1850-2000. Excellent news: good works on library history are few and far between.
- The Chicago Tribune notes that a "6-foot-high, 150-pound contemporary sculpture" known as Umanita (which has been in place outside the Newberry Library since 2005) was stolen last weekend. Police are investigating. (h/t NIUSC&RB)
- Scott Brown notes that Tim Toone's collection of 553 Harry Potter books (including translations into 63 languages) will sell in several lots at Bloomsbury on 28 February. More on Toone's collection here. Scott also has some thoughts on Ken Karmiole's shop in Santa Monica, CA, which he got to visit while in LA for the fair there. Ken's one of my favorite dealers to visit with at the Boston fair every year: great to talk to, excellent stock - a credit to the book-world. Scott also requests help in identifying a childrens' book artist, so contact him if you recognize the illustrations here.
- And one more Scott Brown bulletin: he has word that Quill and Brush has released a catalog [PDF] of some of the Rolland Comstock books they acquired after the collector's murder (which remains unsolved). The catalog includes an introduction by Nick Basbanes, who calls Comstock "easily one of the most unforgettable bibliophiles I have ever had the good fortune to meet."
- A copy of the death warrant for Mary, Queen of Scots will remain in England after the library of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace mustered up £72,485 in grants and donations to prevent its export. A private buyer had applied for permission to export the document in November, but was blocked by the government. Lambeth Palace librarian Richard Palmer said "The library is delighted to have played its part in saving this document for the nation. The warrant is now reunited with the papers with which it belongs and accessible for the benefit of all."
- Fragments of what is believed to be the "earliest dated Christian literary manuscript have been found at Deir al-Surian, an ancient monastery in the Egyptian desert," The Art Newspaper reports. The pieces are from the final page of "a codex written in Syriac (an Eastern Aramaic language) which was acquired by the British Museum library in the 19th century [ADD 12-150]." The document is a list of early Christian martyrs in Persia, and was written by a scribe in Edessa (in what is now Turkey). These new fragments were discovered along with hundreds of others "under a collapsed floor of a ninth-century tower." Much more background here. The Independent also wrote up the find this week, calling the fragments "the world's oldest missing page."
- The Philadelphia Bulletin profiles Katy Rawdon, archivist at the Barnes Foundation, which was founded in 1922 to "promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts."
- Rick Ring made a fabulous find in the stacks this week, discovering some volumes of Romeyn Beck Hough's The American Woods, a thirteen-volume compilation "designed to contain specimens (in transverse, radial, and tangential sections) of all the native and naturalized species of woods in the united States and Canada." He also links to a digital version of Hough's work hosted by North Carolina State University.
- Ian Kahn has a first dispatch and a second dispatch from the Greenwich Village Book Fair ... more to come, surely.
- The Guardian profiles Colin St. John Wilson, the architect of the new British Library building, who died last year. (h/t Iconic Books)
- Edinburgh-based publisher Itchy Coo (how about that for a name?) wants to translate the Harry Potter canon into the Scots dialect, according to a report in The Scotsman. J.K. Rowling "has not yet been approached for the go-ahead."
- The Times prints an extract from Frances Wilson's The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, to be published in the UK by Faber & Faber in March.
- Staff at the the New York Public Library have started a blog. I've added a link. (h/t Jessamyn West)
Reviews
- In the TLS Kelly Grovier reviews a new edition of an 1821 edition of Goethe's Faust, published anonymously but now attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge by scholars Frederick Burwick and James C. McKusick (building off a case begun by Paul Zall in the 1970s). A fascinating backstory to this one.
- In the Boston Globe, Michael Kenney has a joint review of Edward Lengel's new edition of This Glorious Struggle: George Washington's Revolutionary War Letters and Mark Puls' Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution. J.L. Bell add his comments to Kenney's review here. I'm anxious to read both of these books.
- Richard Cox comments on another new title I'm keen to read as well: Bill Hayes' The Anatomist: A True Story of Gray’s Anatomy. Cox writes "Those interested in archives will be interested in the book because of the author’s exploration into the modest amount of material left behind by Gray contrasted with the extraordinary evidence about Gray in the extensive pile of letters and diaries provided by [H.V.] Carter [Gray's illustrator]. As it turns out, Carter’s archives have been little tapped by historians of medicine and other scholars, and Hayes provides considerable commentary on his observations about the nature of diary writing."
- Stacy Schiff reviews Jerome Charyn's Johnny One-Eye for the New York Times, concluding "Charyn hasn’t woven a taut narrative from a lurching plot. What he has done is to create a rollicking tale in which — true to the dictates of the genre [the picaresque] — our hapless rogue makes good."
- In the Washington Post, Thomas Ryan reviews How the South Could Have Won the Civil War, a new alternative history by Bevin Alexander. From the review, this sounds more like a paean to Stonewall Jackson than anything else, and this sentence is enough to keep me away from the book: "Alexander's opinions are firmly stated, but his assertions are not always well documented."
- Also in the Post, Stephen Budiansky reviews Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering, which has become a minor sensation as a scholarly book which seems to be selling well.
- For the Boston Glode, Matthew Price reviews Joseph Wheelan's Mr. Adams' Last Crusade, about JQA's post-presidential career in the House.
- Nick Basbanes' new collection of essays, Editions and Impressions, is reviewed by Martin Rubin in the LATimes. Rubin enjoyed the book: "The essays are radiant with [Basbanes'] joy in discovering and exploring the byways of the book world. And what a world it is, full of fascinating characters and interesting tales, which Basbanes, with his experience covering 'every imaginable kind of story as a newspaper reporter,' is perfectly fitted to evoke."
- In The Scotsman, Emma Crichton-Miller reviews Peter Ackroyd's Poe: A Life Cut Short.
- Marjorie Kehe reviews Thomas DeWolf's Inheriting the Trade for the Christian Science Monitor. DeWolf's relative James was "the head of the most successful slave-trading family in American history," and features prominently in Marcus Rediker's recent The Slave Ship. DeWolf's book complements a recent documentary film, "Tracing the Trade," made by another family member.
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