Nicholas Basbanes Rare Books Blog

Canyon of Confetti

2009-11-08T17:16:31Z

Indulge me, please, as I make a connection between the recent victory in the World Series of the New York Yankees--their 27th championship--and what so many futurists perceive to be the imminence of...

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Flora Mirabilis

2009-11-01T13:33:21Z

Flora Mirabilis How Plants Have Shaped World Knowledge, Health, Wealth and Beauty, by Cahterine Herbert Howell (National Geographic Books, 256 pages, $35.) Yes, this is a title that will certainly...

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Nick's Picks: History at Its Best

2009-10-18T00:21:18Z

History in the grand tradition--including one new edition of a classic written 2,500 years ago--comprise my choices for this current batch of new releases, each one worthy of your attention.Empire of...

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Reports From the Field

2009-10-10T22:50:02Z

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy for me, starting off with a keynote address in Columbus, Ohio before the Ohio Preservation Council on the occasion of the group's 25th anniversary--the...

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Kudos, Tim Barrett

2009-09-29T16:29:46Z

I was absolutely delighted to learn last week that Timothy Barrett, one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on the subject of paper and papermaking, has received one of twenty-four "genius"...

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Nick's Picks: A Fall Quartet

2009-09-15T11:27:11Z

A little bit of something for everyone with this quartet--solid nonfiction, a scholarly biography, a charming novel, a new selection of poetry from the work of a grand master. Fall, indeed, is here,...

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Philistines at the Gate

2009-09-04T13:50:13Z

You talk about adults who should know better making block-headed decisions. There is a piece in today's Boston Globe by reporter David Abel bearing the startling news that a prep school here in...

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Picturing the Unpictureable

2009-08-31T12:57:23Z

When you publish a book with a university press, the likelihood, far more often that not, is that you will generate a modicum of attention in your field of enquiry, and if you are lucky, earn the...

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Nick's Picks: Fantastic Foursome

2009-08-19T13:07:03Z

September is right around the corner, and the new books for fall are starting to trickle in from the publishers. Among those that have caught my fancy--and which, I believe, are richly deserving of...

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Books in Hard Times

2009-08-16T11:50:19Z

Talk about a sobering way to say good bye to summer and usher in the official arrival of fall. On Sept. 22, the Grolier Club, 47 East 60th, St., New York, is mounting a one-day symposium dealing with...

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Gooey Decimal System

2009-08-08T12:25:07Z

Hats off to Andy Woodworth, a New Jersey librarian, for coming up with a splendid way of making people think about their libraries. and generating a good deal of fun at the same time. Proceeding...

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Edward Gorey House

2009-07-29T11:32:40Z

Nothing is more entertaining than a visit to the home of a favorite author, especially when the house in question once belonged to the unrepentant bibliomaniac and pack rat Edward Gorey, who died...

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Bowdlerizing Hemingway?

2009-07-21T11:21:10Z

In case you haven't heard, there is a brand new edition of Ernest Hemingway's fictionalized memoir of his expatriate years in Paris during the 1920s, A Moveable Feast, now arriving in bookstores,...

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Archimedes on the Beach

2009-07-14T13:59:49Z

In the week that has passed since my last posting, I have exhausted my supply of recreational reading, a circumstance that has occasioned a trip to Parnassas Books, one of my favorite haunts here on...

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Nick's Picks for Summer Reading

2009-07-04T14:15:34Z

Greetings and Happy Independence Day from Sandwich, Mass., on Cape Cod Bay. I have ten books that I brough along with me, a few of them newly released, and which I will share herewith as worthy of...

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