- Paula Reed Ward has a followup report this week on the court proceedings related to the Pittsburgh Carnegie Library thefts: the judge handling the case has allowed access to the Caliban Book Shop accounts so that the store's expenses and employee salaries can be paid. Ward's report also notes that a preliminary hearing in the case has been scheduled for 12 October.
- Flipbacks are coming! I was really intrigued by these little books when a few were published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2011, so I'm very pleased to see the format being tried out in the U.S. (as Penguin Minis). I really enjoy having a couple of these when I travel, since they very handily tuck into a jacket pocket, so I hope a good selection will be published. And yes, I've already preordered the first four.
- Over at Phys.org, "Mass spectrometry technique helps identify forged Robert Burns manuscripts." See also the full paper in Scientific Reports.
- The Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair is coming up on 8–9 September. You can buy tickets for the "Bagels and Books" opening preview now, and check out the lineup of talks throughout the weekend.
- From Alison Flood at the Guardian, a report on the recent discovery of a second-century building in Cologne which is believed to have housed as many as 20,000 scrolls.
- Also from Alison Flood, news that the Schomburg Center successfully acquired the "lost chapters" of Malcolm X's autobiography at a New York auction last month. See also Jennifer Schuessler's report in the NYTimes.
- From PennToday, a writeup of the three-year BiblioPhilly project to catalog and digitize manuscripts from 15 Philadelphia-area institutions.
- On the ABAA Blog, "Building the Gilder-Lehrman Collection."
- The thirteenth-century Lyghfield Bible has been returned to the collections of Canterbury Cathedral after being removed during the Reformation.
- In LitHub, "Breaking Up the Boys Club: On Women in Rare Books," by Joanna Demkiewicz, and on the Fine Books Blog, A.N. Devers on "Who are the Women in the Book Trade?"
- Not to be missed: Alberto Manguel talking about his library and his bibliomania.
Reviews
- Fiona Sampson's In Search of Mary Shelley; review by Dinitia Smith in the NYTimes.
- A quintet of recent Emily Brontë books; review by Jacqueline Banerjee in the TLS.
Auctions
- Fine & Rare Books - Art & Illustration - Asian & Asian-American Material at PBA Galleries on 9 August.
