Forgery Warning!

If you're buying (or selling) modern inscribed books, beware. There seems to be a forger at work. Ian has the scoop, via dealers Peter Stern and Jeffrey Marks.

DOJ to Probe Google Deal

Well if I'd know this was going to be Google Books Settlement week I would have just planned one big post and had done with it, but since the drip-drip continues ... today's big news is that the Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation into the settlement deal. "The inquiry does not necessarily mean that the department will oppose the settlement, which is subject to a court review. But it suggests that some of the concerns raised by critics, who say the settlement would unfairly give Google an exclusive license to profit from millions of books, have resonated with the Justice Department."

Hakimzadeh Sentence Slashed

BAH! These are the stories that really irk me. The BBC is reporting that a British appeals court has halved the jail sentence of Farhad Hakimzadeh, the Iranian-British millionaire who mutilated and stole books from the British Library. Hakimzadeh pleaded guilty to the crimes and received a two-year prison term in January. Today's ruling "means that Hakimzadeh, having served 104 days, will be released in 78 days time."

A British Library spokesman said the institution is disappointed in the ruling, and that they continue to pursue legal options (a civil suit is still in process).

Look, there's no reason this sentence should have been reduced. This guy admitted what he did. He accepted a plea deal. He should do the time. Utterly ridiculous.

Jackson Letter Recovered

An Andrew Jackson letter stolen from the New York State Library has been recovered after a University of Tennessee historian noticed it on the auction site Profiles in History, according to media reports. The letter, written by Jackson to Samuel Swartout on 24 March 1824, was being offered for sale at $35,000. Timothy Coens saw the letter and informed New York authorities, who were able to arrange for its return.

Investigators discovered the letter was missing from the State Library during the investigation into the thefts of Daniel Lorello, a former State Archives employee now serving a prison sentence. WTEN's report says that the theft of this letter has now been "tied" to Lorello's spree as well.

Google Settlement Delayed

Judge Denny Chin has granted a four-month extension to the Google Books settlement deadline, Publisher's Weekly reports. The comment/objection/opt-out period will now continue through early September. Those seeking an extension praised the move; an Authors Guild spokesman said they had continued to hope for just a two-month extension. More from Wired.

New Ways to Parse Legacy Data

Tim's made some super-cool changes to the way LT displays the Legacy Library statistics - see his blog post for all the gory details. One of the nifty new features is a top shared list for all the Legacies (it took me a little while to guess which book is the most-shared). We've also started creating slice-and-dice options so you can categorize the Legacies (Signers of the Declaration of Independence, scientists, actors - you can help out with this, here). There's an LT discussion thread for bugs and comments and things here, too, so please feel free to chime in.

Boston Honors Poe

Better late than never, right?

Today at a ceremony in the city, BC professor Paul Lewis joined Mayor Tom Menino and Boston Poet Laureate, Sam Cornish (we have a poet laureate?) in naming the corner of Boylston and Charles Streets Poe Square. Ed approves (grudgingly :-)

Sorry I didn't hear about this before this morning, or I would have gone and taken pictures!

Movements on the Google Books Front

As the (current) 5 May deadline for the filing of objections and comments on the Google Books settlement approaches, some movement:

- The judge charged with overseeing (and potentially improving) the settlement has rejected the Internet Archive's attempt to intervene in the suit. Publisher's Weekly reports: "The IA had said it does not want to file an amicus brief, also known as a friend of the court brief, as other parties said they intend to do, and it believes 'there are no existing parties in the case that could adequately represent the Archive’s interests, or the interest of other Internet content providers.' Now that the court has denied the IA's intervention request, it is looking at a number of different alternatives, including filing an amicus brief. The IA wants to remove orphan works from the settlement and limited the settlement to rightsholders who have filed a claim."

- A group of authors and the estates of others (including John Steinbeck and Arlo Guthrie) are asking the judge to delay the deadline for opt-out by four months. "The group of authors seeking the delay has not come out against the settlement. The members argue that, given the complexity of the agreement and its long-range implications, the May 5 deadline should be extended by four months to allow authors to make informed decisions about how to proceed." Google, the Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers have also asked for an extension of the opt-out period, but they only want an additional two months.

Links & Reviews

- The World Digital Library went live this week, with 1170 items from 25 institutions. I spent some time last night browsing the site, and like it quite well. Among the items I found there was Richard Mather's copy of the Bay Psalm Book (via the John Carter Brown Library). I've added the link to the scan to the book's LT record.

- From the University of Barcelona, a revamped online database of printers' devices, containing 2182 images from 1372 printers. Great for browsing!

- News broke this week of a fun Ben Franklin find: Alan Houston has discovered in the BL a cache of long-lost copies of Franklin letters from the mid-1750s, concerning Braddock's expedition into Pennsylvania, among other things. The letters, copied by Thomas Birch, will be published in April's WMQ. Coverage also from the Washington Post. I know exactly the feeling Houston's talking about - it's pretty amazing.

- In the WSJ, Stephen Marche writes about missing literary works (like Shakespeare's 'Cardenio') and why they tantalize us.

- OCLC's making another power-grab. Tim has the details, and the follow-up, including links to some really good Library Journal pieces on the subject. Some really questionable stuff going on over there, I have to say.

- Brian Cassidy's trying out a new experiment on Twitter: cheepreads. Check it out.

- Some movement in the Rolland Comstock case this week: lawyers for Comstock's ex-wife Roberta have filed a motion to preserve a collection of photographs which apparently were an issue between the Comstocks prior to Mr. Comstock's murder in 2007. The motion, part of a wrongful-death suit against Roberta Comstock filed by her daughter Faith Stocker, contends that the photos "constitute important potential evidence in this matter and should not be destroyed as they potentially provide evidence of possible alternative motives relating to the death of Rolland Comstock." The contents of these photographs is unknown.

- The Internet Archive has jumped into the Google Books settlement, telling the judge charged with approving the settlement that the deal would compromise IA's ability to compete with Google. Full letter here.

- Via LibraryJuice, a revealing Chronicle story about the key question these days of what happens to digital archives when they change owners. Just another scary element of our brave new world, I fear.

- At McSweeney's, Robert Lanham offers up an "Internet-Age Writing Syllabus and Course Overview." Scary, but hilarious.

- Steven Johnson has an essay extolling the virtues of e-books in the WSJ; the New Yorker's Thessaly La Force says not so fast. Of course I don't buy the "e-books won't work because they're not pretty" argument either ... if that becomes our only line of defense, we lose.

- Amazon has strengthened its requirements for selling "collectible" books. But it looks like their commission fees for high-end items may be problematic.

- The Simpson sale in New Zealand was a big success, netting some $470,000 (NZ).

- An online exhibit of fore-edge paintings at the BPL. [h/t Bygone Books Blog]

- Mary's posted some updates at the Adams Papers Catalog blog this week - lots of proofreading going on up there these days!

Reviews

- At Reading Archives, Richard Cox reviews Anthony Grafton's new book, Worlds Made by Words: Scholarship and Community in the Modern West. Can't wait to read this one myself, actually.

- Ingrid Rowland reviews Bruce Redford's Dilettanti: The Antic and the Antique in Eighteenth-Century England for the NYRB.

- Also in the NYRB, Hugh Eakin reviews two new books on the antiquities trade: James Cuno's Who Owns Antiquity? and a collection of essays (also edited by Cuno), Whose Culture?

Book Review: "Stone's Fall"

Iain Pears, of An Instance of the Fingerpost fame, returns to the form which brought him to prominence with Stone's Fall (forthcoming in May from Spiegel & Grau). Like Fingerpost this is a monster of a book (clocking in at 800 pages) but (also like Fingerpost) Pears puts every single page to good use.

Stone's Fall is told in three sections, by three different narrators, in three entirely different chronologically-regressive decades and locations (London in 1909, Paris in 1890, Venice in 1867). It begins with the mysterious death of English financier John Stone, and concludes with him engaging in a certain youthful indiscretion which, nearly forty years later, serves to precipitate his sudden end.

The story told here is a wonderfully complex one of the honeycomb-like intersections between European finance, military industry, and espionage, of the highest and lowest reaches of human society. As the book progresses we learn more and more about its cast of characters, whose actions and feelings we slowly come to understand as Pears reveals their past deeds (and misdeeds). With the first-person narrative style he has deployed so successfully in many of his books, Pears truly makes his reader a part of his tale, and his sense of timing is simply impeccable.

Not to put too fine a point on it, this is a masterwork by one of the most ingenious and versatile writers of our time. It kept me up late at night, and was one of those books I almost couldn't help pulling out of my bag to read while walking home from work. It's a brilliant addition to the Pears canon, and I can say with confidence that it will almost certainly be one of my top books for 2009.

This Week's Acquisitions

I took a long walk this morning, out to Harvard Square and then down Mass Ave back into town, visiting the various bookshops along the route.

- All Things Reconsidered: My Birding Adventures by Roger Tory Peterson (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). Harvard Bookstore.

- Remember, Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day by James Sharpe (Harvard University Press, 2005). HUP Store.

Huge Gift to Simmons, Thanks to Smith

The family of longtime Simmons College library science professor Allen Smith has arranged for a $1 million gift to the college from his estate, we learned yesterday. This is the largest individual gift in GSLIS history, and will fund a visiting scholar program and an endowed scholarship fund for GSLIS students with an interest in oral history, reference, or humanities (some of Allen's passions).

More from Simmons here [PDF]. Some of my memories and thoughts on Allen here.

A Book's Tale

During the Portland trip this weekend I ran into one of those little books that just grabs ahold of you in the shop and won't let go. I don't know if there's a name for this sort of book - you know the type, the one you know will be yours as soon as you pick it up, even if you can't always explain why ...

This one is Abrégé de l'Histoire Ancienne, en Particulier de l'Histoire Grecque, suivi d'un abrégé de la fable, a l'usage des Elèves de l'Ecole Militaire (A Paris: chez le veuve Nyon, Libraire, rue de Jardinet, An 10, ou MDCCCII [1802]). It's one of a series of small texts produced for the use of the students of the École Militaire in Paris beginning in the 1770s. It's in French. I don't even read French.

But it's a fascinating book. It's bound in pasteboards covered in what appears to be waste parchment (later stained or painted to produce the colored pattern). The old parchment, however, is almost entirely taken up with manuscript writing - which, from the way it overlaps the edges of the boards, was clearly there prior to the parchment's being attached to the cover boards. I can't make out much of the writing, which appears to be in French (if anybody wants to have a go, let me know and I'll get you some hi-res images), but I like it.

That's interesting in and of itself, and there's still more. Several previous owners have made this book their own. Benjamin Duprat signed his named on the front pastedown, adding the date "14 fevrier 1812." Duprat also signed the rear pastedown, and glued the letters of his last name there, ransom-note style. I still have some tracking down to do on Duprat, but it's possible that he's the same Benjamin Duprat who went on to become a well-known publisher and bookseller in Paris in the mid-19th century. If anyone has any information on that Duprat, I'd be delighted to receive it.

Other owner's marks include an early inked list on the front pastedown of the fourteen rulers of Persia from Cyrus the Great (550-529 BC) to Alexander the Great (330-323 BC), and a later inscription on the recto of the front flyleaf: "Lucy D. Waterman / New York, July 1896."

Sometimes it's not the content that matters. It's the story. And this little book has a great story to tell.

Marketing Dan Brown

Unless you've been sleeping for the past 36 hours or so you probably already know that Dan Brown's long-awaited Da Vinci Code sequel will be released by Doubleday on 15 September. The Lost Symbol will feature the further adventures of symbologist Robert Langdon, and word is that the entire plot occurs in just twelve hours. According to Allison Flood, "persistent rumours have suggested it will be set in Washington DC and will focus on freemasonry" (but publishing industry insider Ron Hogan suggests that perhaps Freemasonry is out and 2012-Maya-calendar-apocalypse "paranoia" is in).

The publishers have ordered up a five-million-copy first printing of The Solomon Key, the largest initial run in Doubleday/Random House history.

Within hours of the announcement, I had emails from Borders and Barnes & Noble telling me I could pre-order the book, for a 40% discount from the former and a 46% discount from the latter. Amazon hasn't yet emailed me, but they're also offering it at 46% off as of this evening. Funny thing is, they probably wouldn't even need to discount it like that. The book could be awful (and certainly has the potential to be) but people will still buy it. Heck, I'll still buy it.

That's just the way it goes.

Pulitzers Announced

Columbia announced the 2009 Pulitzer winners this afternoon. The full list is here.

Notables:

Fiction - Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

History - The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed

Biography - American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham

Poetry - The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin

General Nonfiction - Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon

Some Extra Links

I missed a few things in yesterday's links post, and there are couple new links I'd rather add now than wait until next weekend for:

- In the Globe today, a non-story that the BPL may deaccession some out-of-scope items from its collections. Turns out non-functioning pianos and glass postcard printing plates aren't necessarily integral to the mission of the Boston Public Library. Institutions part with objects that don't fit in with their collecting policies all the time - this should not come as a surprise to anyone. What's important is that there be policies in place to govern such actions: transparent procedures for deaccessioning, decisions on how the funds can be used, &c.

- For the New Yorker, Jill Lepore writes on Poe and his horror stories. Over at the magazine's blog, she offers up a Poe cryptogram for readers to solve (answer tomorrow).

- Paul Collins has a piece in the New Scientist about the Victorian fad for gaming by telegraph (chess, bowling, even billiards!).

- And the one I missed: In Thursday's NYTimes, Mary Beard has an essay on the book trade in ancient Rome.

Book Review: "The Book of God and Physics"

In the tradition of bestselling Spanish literary mysteries like The Club Dumas and The Shadow of the Wind comes Enrique Joven's The Book of God and Physics (forthcoming from William Morrow, first published as El Castillo de las Estrellas in 2007). Joven's work concerns the quest to solve the mysteries of the Voynich Manuscript, the strange and mostly indecipherable work now housed at Yale's Beinecke Library (lots of info at the Wikipedia page). The protagonist, Hector, a Jesuit teacher of high school physics and an amateur Voynich scholar, finds himself drawn into a bit of a mystery when he starts to find clues about the manuscript right in his own institution (and when he realizes that the other 'amateurs' he's been corresponding with about the manuscript aren't entirely what they seem).

As he recounts the strange history of the Voynich, Joven lapses a bit too much into exposition (always the danger of this type of book), and I found his use of a precocious high-schooler armed with reams of Wikipedia printouts as the main source of recited background information slightly problematic. Much of the book also amounts to little more than an extended and strongly-worded critique of Joshua and Anne-Lee Gilder's 2004 book Heavenly Intrigue (which postulates that Kepler murdered Tycho Brahe) and potshots at anti-evolutionist belief (entirely justified, to be fair, but perhaps a bit out of place here).

What isn't clear through almost the entire book is just why those who seek to block the 'breaking' of the manuscript are so worried about it (and/or how do they know before its secrets are revealed what it's going to say?). But, given the ending, I guess that's something we'll have to wait for the sequel to discover.

Book Review: "McSweeney's, Vol. 14"

McSweeney's Vol. 14 (2004) is a collection of seventeen pieces of short fiction, two "Convergences" essays by Lawrence Weschler, and journalistic remarks on giant Chinese gerbils. Bearman's gerbil exposé was fun, and reading through the fiction was good for me too, especially since most of it isn't the kind of work I'd normally be drawn to. Some I liked, some not so much. All were well written and worth reading, though.

The musings of a Roman foot soldier stationed on Hadrian's Wall, the internal dilemmas of a female matador, and T.C. Boyle's interesting take on Madam Knight's 1702 trip to New York were good reading. I was creeped out by Ryan Boudinot's dystopian "children have to kill their parents," and affected by Silvia DiPierdomenico's detail-heavy story of a cancer diagnosis. The murderous space pigs were also slightly creepy.

A good, eminently browseable collection of McSweeney's-type fiction.

Links & Reviews

- First of all, if you're not one of the 13-million-plus 30-million-plus who've already seen it, do watch Susan Boyle's performance on last Saturday's "Britain's Got Talent." It's simply amazing. And she's even singing a song from a musical based on a book, so it fits right in here.

- In the Boston Globe this week, a compilation gallery of most of the used bookshops in town. Visit them all, and often!

- Pulitzer prizes will be awarded on Monday. As Carolyn Kellogg points out, PPrize.com has posted a list of what they think are the likely winners for the fiction prize.

- A rare Renaissance-era textbook stolen from the history museum in Kotel, Bulgaria has been found, and a local antiques dealer has been arrested in relation to the theft.

- The AP reports that Susan Quirk, former president of the Posen Public Library District (Ill.) has been indicted on charges that she stole more than $135,000 from the library to pay off personal gambling debts. Quirk has pleaded not guilty, and will be in court next on 11 May. [h/t LISNews]

- Lots of press about it this week, but it's a fun story: Washington & Lee College received a long overdue book back recently; it'd been taken by a Union soldier in 1864. The volume is the first of four in Napier's History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France From the Year 1807 to the Year 1814. It was returned by a friend of descendants of the soldier. More at AntieQuarian.

- Another volley in the Shakespeare Portrait Battle: the Folger's Erin Blake has a letter in the TLS in response to the last. And in other Shakespeare news, Justice John Paul Stevens said this week he believes that Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, may be the true author of the plays typically attributed to Shakespeare. The WSJ asked other justices to respond: Scalia concurred with Stevens (!), while Kennedy and Breyer opted in favor of the traditional attribution. Retired justice Sandra Day O'Connor said "It might well have been someone other than our Stratford man."

- The Commonwealth Museum at the MA State Archives building on Columbia Point in Boston reopens tomorrow, the Globe reported on Friday. The exhibit will be "Our Common Wealth: the Massachusetts Experiment in Democracy."

- Contrary to a February statement, trustees of the Remnant Trust decided this week that the collection will be moved from its current home in Jeffersonville, IN. Where it's bound has not yet been announced. [h/t RBN]

- Tim & Co. unveiled a flashy new catalog layout at LT. I like it!

- The Gates Foundation is giving $5 million to OCLC to "develop a public information campaign to boost library support." Why not just give money to the libraries?

- On 22 April, Dunbar Sloane Auction House in Wellington, NZ will sell the collection of Edward C. Simpson (PDF Catalog), which is being called "one of the most important collections ever to be offered on the Australasian market."

- J.L. Bell points out a new searchable database of the London Gazette. He's right, the search is a bit clunky, and I couldn't find a way to browse (boo) but for specific things it should be very useful.

- From Strange Maps, a 1938 German map of Bücherland (The Land of Books), by Alphons Woelfle [h/t Joel Kovarsky, MapHist]

- The Wellcome Library has digitized its collection of 17th-century manuscript recipe books (75 in all), and they're also in the process of indexing the books. Very cool. [h/t Joyce]

Reviews

- In the Boston Globe, Katherine Powers reviews Robert Sullivan's The Thoreau You Don't Know. And David Gessner reviews the same book for the NYTimes.

- In the Times, James McConnachie reviews RA Scotti's The Lost Mona Lisa and John Brewer's The American Leonardo.

This Week's Acquisitions

- Journey to Mauritius by Bernardin De Saint-Pierre (Interlink Books, 2002). Raven.

- Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy by Malcolm Gaskill (Harvard University Press, 2005). HUP.

- Julian P. Boyd: A Bibliographical Record Compiled and Offered by his Friends on the Occasion his Tenth Anniversary as Librarian of Princeton University by P. J. Conkwright (Princeton, s.n., 1950). Carlson & Turner (Portland, ME).

- A Dictionary of the Print Trade in Ireland, 1550-1775 by Robert L. Munter (Fordham University Press, 1988). Carlson & Turner.

- The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726 (2v.); edited by C.E. and R.C. Wright (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966). Carlson & Turner.

- Abrégé de l'Histoire Ancienne, en Particulier de l'Histoire Grecque, suivi d'un abrégé de la fable, a l'usage des Elèves de l'Ecole Militaire (A Paris: chez le vetore Nyon, Libraire, rue de Jardinet, 1802). Carlson & Turner. Stay tuned. I've more to say about this one!