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From 17th to 18th October 2014 bibliophiles, scholars and rare book dealers will gather in Lucca (Italy) to hold a conference on the life, work and collections of Giuseppe Martini. Guiseppe Martini (1870-1944) was a contemporary of Leo S. Olschki and Ulrico Hoepli. Mario Armanni, the later director of the Libreria Antiquaria Hoepli, called him "l'homo bibliographicus". Martini's library, formed during over thirty years of collecting, was considered to be one of the richest private collections of Italian literature in the world. The Lucca conference in October 2014, officially supported by numerous Italian and international organizations – among them ILAB and the Italian Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (ALAI) – is dedicated to Giuseppe Martini's extraordinary career and the historical background under which it developed.

I've often been told that the pen (and by extension, the book) is mightier than the sword. But what if the book is the sword? Uwe Wandrey's Kampfreime is a collection of rhymed chants meant for use during the German Student Movement. As far as my research can tell, it is also the first book to be designed as a weapon, and as such is a landmark in book design.

"It has become trendy to declare the book obsolete in this brave new world of digitalized data rubbish", book historian Reinhard Wittmann declares in the new "Handbook 2015/2016" published by the German Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (VDA). "It may have lost its general function and its social prestige, but it will survive as a historical and artistic object, far beyond its actual content, as a time machine for the aura of times long gone."The German Antiquarian Booksellers' Association would like to invite you on a bibliophilic time voyage on the occasion of the 54th Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair from 23rd to 25th January 2015. About 80 leading antiquarian booksellers from Germany, Italy, Great Britain, the USA, Switzerland and the Netherlands will present rare and precious manuscripts, books, autographs and prints from five centuries of book printing and book art. Beautifully illustrated manuscripts, scientific milestones, avant-garde book art, autographs and manuscripts of important scientists and artists, rare first editions of world literature, children's books, artists' books, maps, views, decorative prints and book objects: The fair fascinates by its diversity, from unique little objects to books worth millions, from the Middle Ages to the 21st century.

Hesse's personal library and his literary remains were divided between the Marbach Archives (Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach) and the Swiss National Library (Berne) in 1964. Links to databases, bibliographies and museums.

First of all, I'd like to mention: Sokol Books is a small London company run by Mr. Christopher Sokol himself, the founder and director, Grant McLean and Brooke Palmieri as his associates. There are also two interns: me and Laura Lebarbey, a young antiquarian bookseller from France. My first task after the London International Antiquarian Book Fair was unpacking and checking all the books together with Laura from France, and, afterwards, putting the books back into the shelves. This gave me a chance to take a closer look at the books (and to take an unplanned fitness exercise).

Since the beginnings in the second millennium BC, the catalogue has accompanied the history and development of our written heritage. With its complex and at the same time precise concept and structure, the catalogue represents a fundamental ambition which is the origin of science and culture: to name, to describe and to classify the universe. Catalogues allow us to find taxonomies for the elements and all aspects of nature, nomenclatures to identify the stars, and devices to find access to our written heritage, to education and learning as well as to trade and economics and to the printing of books.