The Irish Times spoke to ILAB affiliated bookseller Will de Burca about social media in a rare book business, fine Irish bindings and a catalogue dedicated to the women of Ireland.
Rare Book Hub has just published an interview with UK based rare bookseller Simon Beattie who set up a Facebook Group called " We Love Endpapers" in 2016 which now has almost 2500 members - proof that the beauty of a printed book still resonates in the digital era. Maybe now even more so than before?
The Art Newspaper reports: "The foundations of a Roman building that is probably the oldest library in Germany have been uncovered in central Cologne in archaeological excavations..."
Every year, the German, Austrian and Swiss associations organize a unique seminar with related excursions to bibliophile treasures in the German-speaking countries. This year's seminar will take place in Hanover, Bargfeld and Celle, opening doors to some less known places of German literary history.
Antiquarian booksellers John Windle and Chris Loker have just announced to fund an annual lecture series: “The Windle - Loker Lecture Series on the History of the Illustrated Book." in association with the Book Club of California.
On June 18, 2018, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier inaugurated the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles. More than 250 guests from the worlds of culture, science, politics and the media gathered in the house on San Remo Drive in Pacific Palisades, a borough of Los Angeles.
“I belong to that class of unfortunate beings who are addicted to a habit which it is not easy to break off. This sounds alarming, but let me assure you that neither drug nor dram is the cause of my undoing, and that I have no intention of following in the foot-steps of the English Opium-Eater. The truth is that I am a bibliophile, and I suffer a complaint common to the tribe, namely a feverish appetite which can only be assuaged by choice tit-bits in the form of ancient quartos and duodecimos”.
Today, July 18, 2018, the world celebrates Mandela’s 100th anniversary. In 1962 at the age of 44, Mandela was arrested when South Africa’s apartheid regime took drastic measures against political opposition, in particular against members of the African National Congress (ANC). Nelson R. Mandela passed away in December 2013 but has remained an icon for democracy, freedom and the fight against a racial and class divide.
The MA in the History of the Book at the Institute of English Studies (University of London) provides an internationally unrivalled base for the study of book history. Covering a period of c.3000 BCE to 2000 CE, the programme introduces students to an incredible range of disciplines, including bibliography, palaeography, codicology, bookbinding, the history of printing, bibliometrics, the history of publishing, the history of reading, digital publishing, library history, and the rare book trade.
Nearly 100 British booksellers in Oxford harness the Power of 1,800 colleagues Worldwide on UNESCO's World Book and Copyright Day. On Saturday April 23 nearly 100 booksellers in Oxford will take part in a unique worldwide event. For 24 hours a worldwide chain of rare book events will occur. Starting on the East Coast of Australia running through Asia and Europe and ending on the West Coast of the United States, booksellers in 15 countries and nearly 30 locations will hold quick and often quirky events that celebrate rare books, autographs and manuscripts, maps and other paper items. Booksellers will show and talk some of the rarest and most interesting items they own while raising funds for literacy.
Between the World Wars, a "little world war," as Time Magazine described it, took place from 1936-1939. The Spanish Civil War pitted the Republicans, backed by international leftist allies, against the Nationalists and soon-to-be-tyrant General Francisco Franco. You might know a little bit about the history of the Spanish Civil War and its significance in Europe. Both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany supported the dictator, turning the relatively localized war into a prescient event for the megalomania and political atrocities that have come to define World War II. As the Associated Press described it, the "conflict became a battlefield of ideologies . . . fascism against elected socialists and communists." How much do you know about the novelists and poets who not only depicted battles through language, but also fought alongside the Republicans in various regions of the country? From Pablo Neruda to Ernest Hemingway to George Orwell, let's take a relatively quick guided tour through the literary history of the brutal war in Spain.
A paradise for book lovers: The 52nd Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair will be held from 25th to 27th January 2013 in the elegant rooms of the Württemberg Art Museum, opposite to the Palace, next to the Palace Garden and directly in the city centre of Stuttgart. Around 80 rare book dealers from Europe and abroad will showcase bibliophile treasures from the middle ages to avant-garde to contemporary artists' books. Magnificently illuminated manuscripts, milestones of science, autographs by famous artists, scientists, philosophers and authors, first editions, children's books, press and illustrated books, musical scores, photography, prints as well as Japanese woodcuts along with beautifully illustrated accounts of adventurous voyages to the „edge of the world" (and beyond): The fascination of book collecting lies in its unlimited variety. There is no better place to explore this unlimited variety than an antiquarian book fair.
We are very sorry to report the death of Anthony Rota, peacefully on Sunday 13th December. There will be a private family cremation. Details of a memorial service will be announced in the new year. Anthony Rota was President of the ABA from 1971 to 1972, a long-serving ILAB Committee Member, Treasurer and Vice-President, President of the ILAB from 1988 to 1991, and subsequently an ILAB President of Honour ...
Manuscripts are unique items, though many of them are similar and share general characteristics. A hard and fast set of regulations, which few will follow and others will not understand, has, therefore, less relevance for manuscripts than printed books and allows me to present my remarks more as an essay than a formulary. Much of what really matters is, in truth, predetermined by the honesty, integrity and sense of self-mortification in the cataloguer and the degree with which he seeks personally to attain perfection in terms of accuracy and straightforwardness. But such considerations have not always faced down earnest legislators in the past.
