- Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending my first Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair (and given the weather reports, it sounds like they picked the right weekend for it!). Kate Mitas has a writeup for the Tavistock Books blog. Good venue, decent crowds, and as always a real delight to be among friends from around the biblio-community.
- As Boston approaches, Rich Rennicks has a posted on the ABAA blog offering advice on attending your first book fair.
- Speaking of Boston, the ABAA-RBS seminar series on Thursday, 27 October (right before the fair) still has some spaces available. If you'll be in the area and are interested in a concentrated day of bookish seminars, please join us!
- I missed this announcement in early August: the Berger-Cloonan collection of decorated papers has been acquired by Texas A&M.
- Gavriel Hundiashvili has been charged with the theft of two rare books from the PRPH Books in Manhattan, and has reportedly confessed both to the theft and to mailing the books to the police in September.
- See also, from the NYTimes, Sarah Maslin Nir's piece on rare book theft and booksellers' efforts to combat it.
- The BL and BNF are working on a joint project to digitized some 800 manuscripts from before 1200 CE. Please see Dot Porter's response to this announcement.
- Conservators Frank Mowery and Sonja Jordan-Mowery are profiled in the Lakeland Ledger.
- New letters by Sir Peyton Skipwith at William & Mary's Swem Library include one in which Skipwith mentions his wife Jean's "small, but well-chosen library." (See the library here).
- Matthew Carter will deliver APHA's Lieberman Lecture on 3 December at the Museum of Printing in Haverhill, MA.
- Items from the collection of the Great Evanion (Harry Evans) will go on display at the British Library this week.
- PBA Galleries will sell an extensive archive of Civil War letters this week.
- The NYPL is digitizing its collection of New York city directories from 1786 through 1922/3. Good background and context on the project in the linked post.
- Arizona State University has acquired the Robert A. Lawler collection of sixteenth-century English literature.
- New from Cambridge: Fleuron: A Database of Eighteenth-Century Printers' Ornaments.
- There's a new exhibition on rare book provenance at the University of Adelaide.
- Michael Danaher is currently on trial in Oxford Crown Court for the April murder of rare book dealer Adrian Greenwood. Prosecutors claim the murder was "part of an attempt" to steal a first edition of The Wind in the Willows. The book was found in Danaher's house, along with lists of "people of means" the defendant allegedly planned to kidnap or rob.
- Jonathon Green's Dictionary of Slang is now available online.
- Over at The Collation, Abbie Weinberg and Elizabeth DeBold take a look at the "other" First Folio (Jonson's Workes), published four hundred years ago.
- Ben Cort writes for the Harvard Crimson about a project to digitize Native American petitions in the collections of the Massachusetts State Archives.
- Atlas Obscura visits the hidden apartments inside the NYPL's branch libraries.
- The National Library of Israel has acquired a collection of manuscripts related to the Silk Road.
- From Bookhunter on Safari, a profile of Clara Millard, "the most successful book-huntress in the world."
- More Rare Books of Instagram on the Fine Books Blog.
- Google and Monotype have launched Noto, an open-source typeface family designed to be used for any language.
- Sotheby's will sell the Bible collection of Charles Ryrie in December.
- John Pipkin writes for Lithub about bookseller James Lackington and his Temple of the Muses bookshop.
Reviews
- Zara Anishanslin's Portrait of a Woman in Silk; review by Alyssa Zuercher Reichardt at The Junto.
- Shakespeare & Company, Paris (edited by Krista Halverson); review by Frances Spalding in the Guardian.
- Corey Mead's Angelic Music; review by Eugenia Zukerman in the WaPo.
- Alan Taylor's American Revolutions; review by Louisa Thomas in the WaPo.
- Colin Dickey's Ghostland; review by Tom Zoellner in the LATimes.
- The current Grolier Club exhibition, "The Centaur Turns One Hundred"; review by Allison Meier at Hyperallergic.