Sunday, February 23, 2014

Links & Reviews

- That theft case from Vermont I mentioned last week took a surprising turn: Patrick J. Rooney, the accused thief, was found dead in his apartment; the death is being considered a suicide.

- There's a new website to highlight all the good things happening in New York City in early April: rarebookweek.org.

- From the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Hidden Away," a post on manuscript fragments recently found in the binding of a John Evelyn commonplace book.

- This morning's CBS Sunday Morning highlighted (with video) what may be the last newspaper in America being printed with linotype.

- Ruth Graham has a lengthy piece in the Boston Globe about the lure of the Voynich Manuscript for scholars, outlining some of the recently-unveiled theories (here's another one) and the skepticism which has greeted them.

- Over at The Collation, Heather Wolfe on some early images of family trees, drawn from preparations for an upcoming Folger exhibition.

- From Princeton, a writeup of the recent 100th birthday celebration for William Scheide.

- At Manuscript Road Trip this week, a rundown of three medieval manuscripts stolen from Connecticut College in the 1950s, and still missing.

- Also in the Boston Globe, a profile of the Boston Athenaeum's conservation efforts.

- This year's nominees for the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year have been announced.

Reviews

 - Timothy Brook's Mr. Selden's Map of China; review by Rana Mitter in the Telegraph.

- Lawrence Buell's The Dream of the Great American Novel; review by Michael Kimmage in TNR.

- Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction; review by Michael S. Roth in the WaPo.