Sunday, January 20, 2019

Links & Reviews

Here comes Bibliography Week! See the schedule of events.

- Coming up on 1–2 February, Rare Books Los Angeles, a new book fair organized by Brad & Jen Johnson. They were featured on the AbeBooks "Behind the Bookshelves" podcast this week.

- The BL's medieval manuscripts blog announces the library's acquisition of the Southwark Hours, now digitized and on display. The manuscript was formerly on loan from the Archdiocese of Southwark.

- A current exhibition at Les Enluminures in New York showcases the forgery collection of William Voelkle. A short Q&A between Sandra Hindman and Voelkle is up at Art and Object.

- Newly digitized from the Royal Society, five volumes of draft meeting minutes from 1686 to 1711.

- Over on the ABAA blog, some updates about the future of the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar.

- From Milton Esterow in the NYTimes, "The Hunt for the Nazi Loot Still Sitting on Library Shelves" (which partially highlights Anders Rydell's The Book Thieves).

- The Harvard Gazette has a look at the upcoming Houghton Library renovations.

- Jennifer Schuessler visited the Grolier Club for the NYTimes.

- Elizabeth Lisa Cruces is featured in the "Bright Young Librarians" column in FB&C.

- Jay Moschella has a post on the BPL blog about the library's recent digitization of two 15th-century Italian choirbooks.

- Rebecca Romney writes for LitHub about linguist Suzette Haden Elgin's 1984 novel Native Tongue.

Reviews

- Susan Orleans' The Library Book; review by Alexander Larman in the Guardian.

- Lee Israel's Can You Ever Forgive Me? (and the recent movie starring Melissa McCarthy); review by Kathryn Hughes in the Guardian.

Upcoming Auctions

- Rare Books & Fine Prints at William Bunch Auctions on 22 January.

- Books and Manuscripts at Il Ponte (Milan) on 22 January.

- Mexican Historical Books and Documents at Morton Subastas on 22 January.

- Autographed Documents, Manuscripts, Photos & Books at University Archives on 23 January.

- Rare Books & Works on Paper at Chiswick Auctions on 23 January.

- Fine Manuscript and Printed Americana at Sotheby's New York on 24 January.

- Mid-Winter Miscellany Part II, with Illustrated & Children's Books at PBA Galleries on 24 January.

Sunday, January 13, 2019

Links & Reviews

- From the "headlines that made me smile" department, in the Indy Star, "'The opposite of lost': IU Library claps back at The New Yorker over Sylvia Plath story." Unpublished, yes. Lost, no.

- Over at The Collation, Elizabeth DeBold on "Folger collections in times of war."

- From Leo Robson in the New Statesman, a piece on the "contested world of literary estates."

- Lindsay McKenzie reports for Inside Higher Ed on recent paper shortages and other issues that have bedeviled the production of many university press books and journals.

- Will Noel will give the 2019 Sandars Lectures in Bibliography at Cambridge in March, on "The Medieval Manuscript and Its Digital Image."

- Much news this week about a recent finding of lapis lazuli fragments in the tartar of a 10th-century German nun, most likely as the result of her working with the pigment while she was illuminating texts. See Steph Yin's NYTimes report or Sarah Zhang's Atlantic piece.

- Lloyd (Meadhbh) Houston writes for the TLS on the Bodleian Library's Phi Collection (of books deemed obscene or otherwise inappropriate).

- Cheap books were the order of the day for the Princeton Rare Book Working Group.

- From R. B. Bartgis at Sammelband, "Building and Displaying a Teaching Collection."

- The Bibliographical Society of Canada and Concordia University Press have announced a new book series: "Authors, Publishers, Readers, Texts: Studies in Book History and Print Culture."

Reviews

- Jill Lepore's These Truths; review by Christine DeLucia in the LARB.

- David Blight's Frederick Douglass; review by Adam Goodheart in the WaPo.

Upcoming Auctions

- "Say it Loud": The John Silverstein Collection of African American Social History at Heritage Auctions on 15 January.

- Printed Books, Holy Land Maps, Posters & Jewish Graphic Art at Kestenbaum & Company on 17 January (online).

Sunday, January 06, 2019

Links & Reviews

Happy New Year! I've been using the first week of 2019 to read through a backlog of biblio-periodicals and articles, in preparation for work on various projects over the next couple months. It's been very pleasant to get (at least mostly) caught up - I recommend it!

- From Kurt Zimmerman, "Untrodden Paths in Book Collecting" (republishing his classic 1997 Firsts piece).

- Rare Book Monthly's January articles include Michael Stillman's look back at the top 500 book auction sales of 2018,  Susan Howard reflecting on forty years of independent bookselling, and Michael Stillman on the case of Kevin Schuwer, charged with thefts of Mormon material from several Utah institutions.

- Over on the BL blog, a roundup of their recent Manuscripts in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms conference.

- London's Feminist Library has been saved from closure thanks to a major fundraising drive.

Reviews

- Bridget Collins' The Binding; review by Sandra Newman in the Guardian.

- Mark Dery's Born to be Posthumous; review by Robert Gottlieb in the NYTimes.

- Patt Morrison's Don't Stop the Presses!; review by Liz Ohanesian in the LATimes.

Upcoming Auctions

- Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 10 January (online sale).

- Literature of the 19th & 20th Centuries, with the Glenn Todd Collection of Arion Press at PBA Galleries on 10 January.