- Rob Lopresti has a second post at Criminal Brief on his first-hand experiences in the Brubaker case (also see his first post here). In this one, Lopresti describes reactions to the thefts: his own, the media's, and others'.
- PC World has an article on the new technologies being deployed as part of the new LOC Experience program at the Library of Congress (which includes the TJ Library project I wrote about on Friday - happy 265th birthday to TJ, by the way!). The first of several online exhibits, Exploring the Early Americas, is now online, and very impressive. Jefferson's should be up shortly, with any luck at all. Also see Michael's Book Patrol post on this topic.
- Laura adds "book nerd" to Wired's new "Geekster Handbook." She also commented this week on Maria Sibylla Merian, a fascinating early naturalist and illustrator. Kim Todd's biography of Merian, Chrysalis (2007) is on my 'to-read' shelf; it seems like a good summer book.
- From BibliOdyssey, botanical images from Nicolai Joseph Jacquin's Fragmenta Botanica (1809).
- McIntyre & Moore, long a Davis Square feature, has now relocated to 1971 Mass Ave in Porter Square, as the Boston Globe reports today.
- J.L. Bell comments on Martin Brückner’s excellent Common-place article, The Material Map: Lewis Evans and cartographic consumer culture, 1750-1775.
- Over at Bookshop Blog, Pazzo Books' Tom Nealon offers a paean to ex-library books. It includes a sonnet. He's right, sometimes these can be great diamonds in the rough. Sometimes.
- On NPR, Cokie Roberts discusses her new book, Ladies of Liberty. We'll host Ms. Roberts for a brown-bag lunch and book-signing at the MHS on Thursday, 24 April.
- Much discussion of Rachel Donadio's essay about "literary dealbreakers" (that is, those books which, if a potential mate confessed to enjoying them, would put the kibosh on that relationship). See her Paper Cuts post (and associated comments) and further thoughts at GalleyCat.
Reviews
- In The Telegraph, Jenny Uglow reviews two new books about flower collecting: John and Mary Gribbin's Flower Hunters and Andrea Wulf's The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession. Both sound quite good.
- Michael Kenney reviews Gary Nash and Graham Russell Gao Hodges' Friends of Liberty, which he calls "absorbing."
- And one more mention of Nicholson Baker: his rather unconventional new book, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization is reviewed by Louis Menand in The New Yorker. I very nearly fell off my chair laughing at the first line of Menand's review: "Nicholson Baker is a little bit of a Martian, and this is what gives his books their curious appeal."
