Book Review: "The Revisionists"

Thomas Mullen's The Revisionists (Mulholland Books, 2011) is a fast-paced, highly intellectual thriller with all sorts of interesting things to say about the intersections of the past, present and future and the ways in which individual actions and events shape history. Our main character, Zed, is an agent from the future, sent back in time to ensure that all the nasty events of our own day still happen so that the humans of the future can live in a society made perfected by learning from the mistakes of the past. That means taking out the historical agitators (hags) also sent back in time in order to keep those events from happening.

As Zed carries out his gruesome but necessary missions, Mullen draws in other characters, spinning a complicated web of betrayals, relationships and pursuits: we meet former CIA operative Leo Hastings, corporate lawyer Tasha Wilson (grieving over the loss of her soldier brother), and a young Indonesian maid being mistreated by her Korean diplomat employers. Mysterious men in dark SUVs from various intelligence agencies crop up at various points.

Complex, dark, and thought-provoking. Sometimes a bit hard to follow, but overall, quite well done. And the cover design is one of the best I've seen in a very long time.

Links & Reviews

- This week's big news was a new lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild and other interest groups against HathiTrust and participating universities. Julie Bosman covered the suit for the NYTimes, and Jen Howard for the Chronicle. There were several angles to all this, one of which was HathiTrust's list of possibly orphaned works, rights-holders for some of which were quickly identified. Michigan said they would re-examine their process for including orphaned works. And Kevin Smith's open letter to one of the author identified as the rightsholder is certainly worth a read.

- Meanwhile, a status conference was held in the original Google Books lawsuit; judge Denny Chin has outlined a proposed schedule to bring the case to trial, although both sides say they continue to negotiate and hope to reach a settlement.

- Steve Ferguson's found a nifty 1872, "The Printer's Sheet of Miscellaneous Trade Receipts" - things like making fireproof paper, gilding edges of books, removing ink blotches from paper, &c.

- Over at the new Folger blog The Collation (which you should be reading if you're not already), Heather Wolfe posts on a new acquisition: a collection of deeds documenting the ownership of a Fleet Street property from 1543-1735. The deeds are notable because they offer up the precise location of Richard Tottel's printing house and provide evidence of the "evolution of this property into various other booksellers’ shops and coffeehouses in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries," as Heather writes.

- Also on The Collation this week, a Q&A with new Folger director Michael Witmore.

- JSTOR released the full list [PDF] of titles from which early content is now freely available. Some great stuff here; kudos to them for releasing it.

- At Booktryst, a short profile of the English binder Roger Payne, and a look at some early Poe titles coming up for auction at Sotheby's on 20 October (along with a whole bunch of other great things; I'll have a preview up of the sale up shortly).

- Jonathan Gharraie has an essay in the Paris Review on Meryn Peake's Gormenghast books.

Reviews

- David Reynolds' Mightier than the Sword; review by Drew Gilpin Faust in TNR.

- Catherine McKinley's Indigo; review by Alice Wyllie in the Scotsman.

- David Lodge's A Man of Parts; reviews by Christopher Benfey in the NYTimes and Michael Dirda in the WaPo.

- Jim Lehrer's Tension City; review by Jeff Shesol in the WaPo.

- David Roberts' Finding Everett Ruess; review by Jessica Gelt in the LATimes.

Auction Report: 1-15 September

- PBA's Rare Books & Manuscripts sale on 8 September saw the archive of letters and documents from the family of Benjamin O’Fallon sell by private treaty prior to the sale (a very good thing). Of the 136 remaining lots, just 82 founds buyers. The only lot among the expected high spots which made a price approaching its estimate was the first octavo edition of McKenney and Hall, which made $14,400. The first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in a fine binding sold for $6,600. A manuscript Koran from ~1796 was the surprise top seller, fetching $18,000.

- At Bloomsbury's Conjuring & Circus: Books, Prints, Posters and Apparatus sale on 8 September, the top sellers were a set of plated silver cups which originally belonged to famous 19th-century magician Johann Nepomuk Hofzinser; and an 1882 painting of a tavern featuring a conjurer doing tricks. Both made £10,000.

- Heritage Auctions Historical Manuscripts sale made a total of $995,959.81, with the military archive of Henry Burbeck fetching the highest price: $113,525. The John Adams letter to John Jay failed to find a buyer [Update: Joe Fay from Heritage writes to say the letter was withdrawn prior to the sale], as did the 9 May 1754 "Join, or die" Pennsylvania Gazette (which, as of this morning, you can "Buy now" for $59,750 - not a bad deal, actually). The Rare Books sale brought in a total of $889,753.23, with Galileo's Dialogo (1632) at the top of the list; it sold for $65,725. A presentation copy of Darwin's The Different Forms of Flowers (1877) and the first edition Book of Mormon both sold for $48,800. The Aitken Bible didn't sell.

- Watch for my full report on the Swann Galleries sale of the first part of Eric Caren's How History Unfolds on Paper collection in the fall Fine Books & Collections. The sale was held on on 15 September, and saw 300 of 355 lots sell. Charles II's commission to Edmund Andros to take possession of New York sold for $120,000; a rare first American broadside copy of the famous diagram of the slave ship Brooks made $14,400; a copy of William Hubbard's A Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New-England (1677) fetched $24,000 and two fragments of what may be the first printing job done in New York did not sell. An 1866 baseball scorecard made $36,000.

- Also on 15 September, Bloomsbury held a Bibliophile Sale, in 417 lots. Full results (with no lot making more than £1,200).

This Week's Acquisitions

Here's what arrived this week:

- The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (Visual Editions, 2011). Amazon. Edition info.

- The Shakespeare Thefts: In Search of the First Folios by Eric Rasmussen (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Publisher.

- Signing Their Rights Away by Denise Kiernan and Joseph D'Agnese (Quirk Books, 2012). Publisher.

- Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style by Mark Garvey  (Touchstone, 2007). Amazon.

- Verdi's Shakespeare: Men of the Theater by Garry Wills (Viking, 2011). Publisher.

- Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson (Viking, 2011). Publisher.

Book Review: "Scorch City"

I absolutely loved Toby Ball's 2010 debut The Vaults (my review), and I'm incredibly pleased to report that his followup novel, Scorch City (St. Martin's Press, 2011) does anything but disappoint.

We find ourselves back in Ball's "City" in the summer of 1950 some fifteen years after the events of The Vaults. Political, religious, and racial tensions have come to a roiling boil, pitting the black Uhuru Community, perhaps allied with Communist sympathizers, against the virulent anti-Communists of the City, whose numbers include not a few members of the police force.

Investigative reporter Frank Frings and detective Piet Westermann are called upon by the Community's leaders to simply move a murder victim's body so that suspicions won't fall upon innocents, but of course doing so sets into motion a series of unexpected consequences that could lead to the end of the City itself.

Once again Ball's put together a cast of memorable characters, none entirely good and none without their own motivations and concerns.

Dark, gritty, and absolutely riveting. I had a difficult time doing anything else once I started reading.

Book Review: "Stealing Rembrandts"

Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), co-written by Anthony Amore (head of security at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) and Tom Mashberg (a longtime Boston Herald reporter who's written extensively on the 1990 Gardner heist) chronicles a few (really, just a few) of the many thefts of Rembrandt artworks during the 20th and early 21st centuries.

I'd have expected something a little less workmanlike from this duo; I've read many of Mashberg's articles about the Gardner case, and this has little of the liveliness evident in much of that earlier journalism. And it's a shame that the Gardner story (which involved the theft of three Rembrandts!) is relegated to passing mentions throughout the text, since who better to write about that particular theft than these two?

Don't get me wrong: the cases Amore and Mashberg do profile are certainly worth the attention, and they make for fascinating stories. The interviews with those behind a few of the heists alone make this a book worth reading, although simply printing long excerpts from the interviews might not have been the best approach. The historical background on Rembrandt's life, practices, artistic circle and the ongoing attribution scholarship are well integrated into the text.

The takeaways from the book are that thefts of masterpieces rarely turn out well for the thieves: in today's market there really simply isn't an easy way to sell them on, and keeping them long term tends to just result in damage to the artwork.

Another easy improvement would have been the addition of more pictures: eight pages of black and whites, which don't even include reproductions of all the Rembrandts higlighted in the text, was simply disappointing.

Overall: could have been significantly better.

Links & Reviews

Either it was a reasonably quiet week or I wasn't paying enough attention (probably the latter).

- JSTOR announced this week that ~500,000 articles from 200 journals (pre-1923 in the US, pre-1870 from other countries) will be made freely available.

- I'll just second Sim's comments on the current Rare Book School fundraising campaign. Give if you're able.

- Project Gutenberg founder Michael Hart died at the age of 64. NYTimes Obit.

Reviews


- Andrew Graham-Dixon's Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.

- Simon Garfield's Just my Type; review by Wes Bausmith in the LATimes.

- Nigel Cliff's Holy War; review by Eric Ormsby in the NYTimes.

- Sylvia Nasar's Grand Pursuit; review by Alana Samuels in the LATimes.

- Willard Sterne Randall's Ethan Allen; review by Adam Tschorn in the LATimes.

This Week's Acquisitions

No new books this week, but the first issue of the new McSweeney's food magazine Lucky Peach arrived.

Book Review: "Midnight Rising"

Tony Horwitz's new book Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War (Henry Holt, 2011) is rather different from his previous works, in that he doesn't alternate the narrative between past and present but focuses on the historical event: John Brown's attack on the Harpers Ferry arsenal in October 1859. When I first realized this, I confess I was a little bit bummed (I liked that aspect of those earlier books), but I'm more than pleased to say that this is an excellent book, very probably the best account of the raid we're likely to get.

Horwitz offers up not only a detailed, even riveting play-by-play of the assault itself, but also several chapters on Brown's earlier life and exploits. He explores, at great depth than several other recent Brown biographers have done, the strong links between Brown and his key northern backers (as well as the widely varying reactions of those backers following the raid). And he's done a very nice job of profiling Brown's comrades-in-arms, bringing their stories into the mix in a way I've not seen done before.

My favorite part of the book were the aftermath chapters, covering the reaction to Brown's attack in the northern and southern press, by government officials at the federal and state levels, abolitionist leaders, and those who actually knew Brown and his men or supported his efforts. Horwitz has done a brilliant job of recreating how Brown's capture, trial, and execution were perceived by those actually living the events.

No matter how much you think you know about John Brown and his actions, I guarantee you'll learn something from this book, and that you'll enjoy the read. Highly recommended.

Book Review: "Lost States"

Michael Trinklein's very amusing Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and other States that Never Made It (Quirk Books, 2010) profiles a bunch of states that might have been, complete with contextual maps, short explantations, and entertaining tidbits aboout the proposals.

Many of the "lost states" fall into one of several types: territories which the U.S. either controls now or controlled at one time, separatist movements within existing states, different plans for boundaries of existing states (basically different ways to slice up territories), or far-fetched schemes to annex all or parts of other countries (there are entries here for Albania, Great Britain, Guyana, and Taiwan, for example).

While I'm not sure I would have included a few of these, Trinklein makes a good case for each, and I really liked the maps he designed for them (also, the dust jacket unfolds into a poster-sized map, if you're into that sort of thing). The tone is light, and that's perfectly okay.

Quirky, and great fun.

Links & Reviews

Sorry for the delay this week; no internet connection this morning meant I got some reading done.

- The September Fine Books Notes is out, featuring an interview with longtime Americana dealer Norman Kane, a piece on Yukon maps, recent auction highlights, and more.

- Also up, this month's Americana Exchange Monthly, which looks ahead to some of the fall's auctions, profiles Vic Zoschak's reference workshops, &c.

- Steve Ferguson's got a mustn't-miss post up about Elkanah Settle's presentation bindings.

- Ed Pettit's going to devote 2012 to reading all of Dickens' works: follow along here, or on Twitter at @ReadingDickens.

- The NYTimes covered what seems to be a diminished market for mass-market paperback editions of books.

- On NPR this week, Simon Garfield talked about his new book Just my Type.

- In the September Believer, Paul Collins writes on a very odd trend in late-50s-model Chrysler cars: hi-fi turnstables!

- At The Collation, Jim Kuhn's begun a series of posts on various handy Folger Library tools with an introduction; start following along!

- Lev Grossman writes in the NYT's "The Mechanic Muse" column about scrolls, codices, and e-reading.

- In case you missed it this week, check out 60 Minutes with Shakespeare, in which 60 scholars talk for a minute (or so) apiece about som aspect of Shakespeare and the "authorship controversy." And for more Shakespeare on the radio, check out Folger curator Owen Williams and editor Barbara Mowat's appearance on the Kojo Nmandi show.

I didn't see any particularly noteworthy reviews this week.

Book Review: "Then Everything Changed"

Even though I don't write about it too much here, I'm something of a politics junkie by nature, and I also happen to love some well-informed speculative writing, so when I learned that Jeff Greenfield had written Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics: JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2011) the book went right on the "must read" list.

Putting his many years of political reporting and experience to good use, Greenfield has taken three "turning points" and spun out the longterm scenarios of what might have happened had things gone differently. As he writes in the preface, "what would have happened if small twists of fate had given us different leaders, with different beliefs, strengths, and weaknesses? I've tried here to answer that question by exploring, in dramatic narrative form, complete with characters, thoughts, and dialogue, a trio of contemporary alternate American histories, all flowing from events that came a mere hairsbreadth away from actually happening" (p. xii).

What if a suicide bomber had killed JFK outside his house in December, 1960, before the electors had cast their ballots? What if RFK hadn't been shot in June, 1968, just after winning the California primary? What if Gerald Ford had recovered from a crucial gaffe during a 1976 debate, and won reelection? Greenfield outlines what the next years and decades might have looked like under those circumstances. While some of the conclusions may seem implausible, far-fetched, or even silly, I'm hard pressed to say that any of Greenfield's flights of fancy are any less likely than some of the actual things we've seen in our politics over the last few decades.

From what he writes in the Acknowledgments, it would appear that Greenfield had been contracted to write a novel (he'd done an earlier one for Putnam). I'm glad that he ended up writing this book instead, and I certainly hope he had as much fun writing it as I had reading it. I absolutely loved the arcana he delved into, from the complicated mechanics of Democratic primary delegate math to the vice-presidential calculations of the 1980 candidates. If you get as excited about these things as I do, go out and buy this book, and read it closely.

Book Review: "Tides of War"

Historian Stella Tillyard makes her debut as a novelist with Tides of War (Henry Holt, 2011), a thoroughly satisfying story of the Peninsular Wars both on the battlefront and the home front.

Integrating fictional characters with historical personages and real settings, and alternating sections of chapters between London and the Spanish front, Tillyard manages to curate a vast, detailed plot into a readable whole. Clearly her knowledge of the historical context was put to good use in the deployment of key details and various elements of the plot (in which a field doctor experiments with blood transfusions, and we witness the development of early gas lighting attempts and the beginnings of the Rothschild banking empire).

While it took me little while to get into the book, and I found myself drawn more to several of the minor characters than to the headliners of the novel, no real matter. It ended up being a good read, and I'll certainly watch for Tillyard's next (which I suspect may feature at least a few of the same cast).

This Week's Acquisitions

New arrivals:

- Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl by Donald Sturrock (Simon & Schuster, 2010). Forgotten Bookmarks (watch their site and Twitter for giveaways of some great titles).

- Ethan Allen: His Life and Times by Willard Sterne Randall (W.W. Norton & Co., 2011). Publisher.

- Scorch City by Toby Ball (St. Martin's Press, 2011). Publisher.

- Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie (Random House, 2011). Publisher.

- Sanctus by Simon Toyne (William Morrow, 2011). Publisher.

- Reamde by Neal Stephenson (William Morrow, 2011). Publisher.

Book Review: "Chatterton"

A complicated meditation on literary reality and originality, forgery and fakery, Peter Ackoyd's Chatterton (Grove Press, 1996) combines a trio of narratives: in the present day, failed poet Charles Lutwyche finds a portrait and papers suggesting Thomas Chatterton might not have actually killed himself in 1770; in the 1850s, painter Henry Wallis uses poet George Meredith as his model for Chatterton's death scene; and Chatterton himself, over the course of his short (or was it?) life.

As Lutwyche investigates his discoveries, he accidentally finds that his sometime employer, novelist Harriet Scrope, might have done a little "borrowing" in a couple of his own novels, adding another dimension to Ackroyd's treatment.

While many of the characters are rather forgettable, and the Wallis/Meredith section doesn't work quite as well as it might, overall I liked the playful complexity of the novel, and one of the sub-plots (featuring Lutwyche's sometime employer, novelist Harriet Scrope) was great fun.

Auction Preview: September

- PBA Galleries hosts a Rare Books & Manuscripts sale on 8 September, in 185 lots. The top-estimated lot is a complete set of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, each signed by King and the artist (estimated at $15,000-20,000). A first octavo edition of McKenney and Hall also rates a $15,000-25,000 estimate; a "true first" edition of Cooper's Water Witch (Dresden, 1830) is estimated at $10,000-15,000, as is a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in a fine binding. Lots 137-185 in this auction include an archive of letters and documents from the family of Benjamin O’Fallon (1793-1842), Indian Agent for the United States on the Missouri.

- Bloomsbury's got a Conjuring & Circus: Books, Prints, Posters and Apparatus sale on 8 September, in 729 lots.

- Heritage Auctions is selling Historical Manuscripts and Rare Books on 13-14 September in Beverly Hills. The key lot in the manuscripts bunch is the 9 May 1754 Pennsylvania Gazette, containing the first instance of Franklin's "Join, or die" cartoon. It's estimated at $100,000-200,000. A July 1788 John Adams letter to John Jay concerning ratification of the Constitution rates a $40,000-60,000 estimate. Among the books, there's a first edition Book of Mormon (est. $80,000+) and an Aitken Bible (est. $40,000+).

- Swann Galleries will sell Part I of Eric Caren's How History Unfolds on Paper collection on 15 September, in 355 lots. Watch for my profile of this sale in the next issue of FB&C. Highlights include Charles II's commission to Edmund Andros to take possession of New York (est. $100,000-150,000); a rare first American broadside copy of the famous diagram of the slave ship Brooks (est. $15,000-25,000); a copy of William Hubbard's A Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New-England (1677; est. $25,000-35,000) and two fragments of what may be the first printing job done in New York (est. $8,000-12,000).

- Also on 15 September, Bloomsbury holds a Bibliophile Sale, in 417 lots.

- On 22 September, Bloosmbury London sells the Cetus Library: Food & Drink, Agriculture, Gardening and Social History, 1543-1829, in 425 lots.

- Christie's London will hold a Travel, Science and Natural History sale on 29 September. More info to follow.

Book Review: "The Ballad of Tom Dooley"

Sharyn McCrumb's latest novel is The Ballad of Tom Dooley (St. Martin's, 2011), a fictional examination of the actual events which inspired the famous song (whose real-life title character was named Dula, not Dooley). McCrumb's tale is told through the narratives of Pauline Foster (cousin and hired girl of Tom Dula's married lover Ann Melton) and Zebulon Vance (former governor of North Carolina and lawyer for Dula and Melton in their trials for the killing of Laura Foster).

I didn't know there was such a fascinating backstory there to be worked with, and give McCrumb much credit for how she's spun a readable, elegant story out of the case. While we may not ever be able to know whether the scenario she lays out is precisely what happened, it seems, as she notes, just as plausible as any other.

Perhaps it would have been worthwhile to add another perspective or two into the mix: Pauline works well, but perhaps including James Melton (Ann's husband) might have been useful too (Vance's vantage point is interesting, but somewhat removed from the actual events at hand). Nonetheless, it's neat to see original historical research brought to bear here and an imaginative reconstruction of what led to the death of Laura Foster and the hanging of Tom Dula.

Book Review: "The Technologists"

I've been a fan of Matthew Pearl's novels from the get-go; while I always have a hard time picking "favorite" books, The Dante Club would certainly make any list of top novels I've read. I'm very happy to say that his newest, The Technologists (due in early 2012 from Random House) is another big win.

Set in 1868 Boston, the novel opens with a series of terrifying attacks on the city's commercial infrastructure: compasses on ships in the harbor suddenly malfunctioning simultaneously, window-glass in the business district spontaneously dissolving ... and the events seem likely to continue unless someone can figure out who's behind them.

And just who does Pearl assign to figure out how to save Boston from further attacks? Departing from his earlier trio of novels, it's not a major literary figure, but rather three young men, seniors at the nascent Massachusetts Institute of Technology, plus Ellen Swallow, the first female student at MIT. Facing off against a motley crew of MIT's opponents (including some rowdy trade unionists, Harvard's Louis Agassiz, and a mysterious hooded figure calling himself the "avenging angel,"), the unlikely quartet (who dub themselves "The Technologists") must break some rules in order to protect themselves, their school, and their city.

Pearl's captured the tensions of post-Civil War Boston beautifully, and told the story of MIT's genesis and early years very nicely. The conflicts between those who supported MIT's mission of practical scientific education and those who saw this as a dangerous trend were real, and The Technologists brings that to life in a way that I'm not sure a historian could.

I greatly enjoyed the richly-drawn characters, the pace, the plot, the setting - this is the real deal, a thrilling read that I wanted more of. All I can say is, keep up the good work!

Book Review: "Those Across the River"

If you're in search of a really creepy book (one which I wouldn't suggest trying to read right before bed), give Christopher Buehlman's debut a try. Those Across the River (Ace, 2011) is the story of washed-up academic and WWI veteran Frank Nichols, who takes possession of a family house he's inherited in the backwoods town of Whitbrow. Nichols decides he'll write a book about the ancestor whose plantation had been in the neighborhood, believed murdered at the hands of his own slaves in the aftermath of the Civil War.

But Whitbrow's not the quiet river hamlet it seems to be; there's something out there (yes, it's across the river), and Frank's arrival sets into motion a chain of events with dramatic consequences for the entire town.

An eerie page-turner with its fair share of unexpected plot twists, interesting characters, and an unconventional and unexpected explanation.

Links & Reviews

Irene's winds and rains have begun to move into Portland overnight, although we're not expected to see the worst of it until this afternoon and evening. So today will be a day for hunkering down and getting some serious reading done, with any luck at all. Meanwhile, here's what happened this week:

- The book world received the very sad news this week that longtime Rare Book School faculty member and world's expert on 19th-century American publishers' bindings Sue Allen passed away after a short illness. She was 93. I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting Sue at RBS this summer, and was immediately struck by her generosity, kindness, and expertise. She will be greatly missed.

- That volume of Harbottle Dorr's annotated newspapers I mentioned recently sold at auction this week for a total of $345,000. The buyer was, as I'd hoped it might be, the Massachusetts Historical Society, which holds the other three volumes. The purchase was made possible by gifts from anonymous donors. Coverage in the Portland Press-Herald, or see the MHS press release.

- From The Collation (a new Folger blog that you should be reading), Steven Galbraith writes about this summer's re-evaluation of the number of First Folios in the Folger's collection (now being counted as 82 rather than 79). A fascinating look at the process behind this.

- In the NYTimes, Geoff Dyer writes about "what we do to books" (by which he seems to mean that he beats up on his pretty hard).

- Peter Ackroyd has embarked on a six-volume history of England, the first volume of which will be published in the UK next month. He says in a Telegraph essay that he's taking Gibbon and Macaulay as his models, and wants to "address the general public and introduce to them the long story of England."

- Author and historian Deborah Harkness talked to Humanities Magazine about her historical research, animated pies, and how she came to write her recent novel A Discovery of Witches. She also answers (and correctly, too), that age-old question "Footnote or endnote?"

- The Google Book Search blog had a post this week in honor of what would have been Jorge Luis Borges' 112th birthday, putting their Ngram viewer to good use.

- At Anchora, Adam Hooks examines examples of blank A1 leaves (which gradually begin to turn into half-title pages during the later part of the 17th century) in the Iowa collections (he found six neat examples).

- From Antipodean Footnotes, a very nifty discovery: printed prospectuses for an edition of Johnson's Dictionary have been found in the binding of a copy of the 1785 folio edition of the Dictionary.

- Skinner has posted a preview of their November Books & Manuscripts sale; highlights will include a manuscript draft petition calling for passage of the 13th Amendment, a George Washington letter about a house in D.C., and a Lincoln letter to Massachusetts Governor John Andrew (not Andrews) about the defense of Boston Harbor. The sale will be held on 13 November.

- Over on PW's ShelfTalker blog, Elizabeth Bluemie asks "Is the Personal Library Doomed?"

- This week's earthquake caused minor structural damage at the National Archives Records Center in Suitland, MD, but the damage did not seriously affect any records.

- Yale will work with the National Library of Korea to digitize some 140 rare Korean works from the Yale collectios.

- I quite like the most recent William Reese Co. bulletin, titled "Evidence" [PDF]

- Unabridged Chick has an interview with David Liss about his new novel The Twelfth Enchantment (which may well become one of the books I take up this afternoon for hurricane reading).

- Files released this week by the UK National Archives reveal that MI5 briefly investigated P.G. Wodehouse as a possible Nazi collaborator for making radio broadcasts from WWII Berlin.

- From the Edinburgh book festival, Ewan Morrison's argument about the future of publishing and authorship is well worth a read.

- Stepanie Williams writes about her new book Running the Show: Governors of the British Empire in the Telegraph.

- Menachem Youlus, who set up the Save a Torah charity in 2004 to rescue Torahs supposedly lost in the Holocaust, has been charged with mail and wire fraud; prosecutors say he bilked the charity out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and lied about where he "rescued" certain Torahs (in some cases having simply purchased them from dealers).

- A 15th-century illuminated lectionary has been returned to St. Kieran's College; it had apparently made its way to the National Library of Ireland in the 1960s and been catalogued into the library's collections.

- Berlin's library will return some 70 books stolen from the German Social Democratic Party during the 1930s, including Engels' copy of The Communist Manifesto. The return is part of an ongoing project to give back books stolen from Jewish and other political organizations during the Nazi years.

Reviews

- James Pennebaker's The Secret Life of Pronouns; reviews by Ben Zimmer in the NYTimes and Dennis Drabelle in the WaPo.

- Lev Grossman's The Magician King; review by Dan Kois in the NYTimes.

- Robert Booth's Death of an Empire; review by Michael Kenney in the Boston Globe.

- Simon Garfield's Just my Type; review by Janet Maslin in the NYTimes.

- Maeve Gilmore/Mervyn Peake's Titus Awakes; review by Michael Moorcock in the LATimes.