To Roger Deakin, water was a miraculous substance. It was curative and restorative, it was beautiful in its flow, it was a lens through which he often viewed the world, and it was a medium of imagination and reflection. “All water,” he scribbled in a notebook, “river, sea, pond, lake, holds memory and the space to think.” Read more
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A trove of manuscripts acquired from the Bronte family in the 19th century, all but unseen for the past century, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s. Read more
The humorous literary award known as the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year has been running since 1978, with past winners including Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality (1986) by Glenn C. Ellenbogen, The Joy of Waterboiling (2018) by Achse Verlag and The Dirt Hole and its Variations by Charles L. Dobbins (2019). But we can go back centuries earlier to find their ancestors. The following are some of the more curious lurking in the corners of library catalogues. Read more
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was expected to earn more than $5 million from his book about leading New York during the coronavirus pandemic, according to figures released by his office on Monday, as investigators continued to look into his use of state resources to write and promote the book. Read more
In early experiments, a paralyzed man with implants in his premotor cortex typed 90 characters per minute—by envisioning he was writing by hand. Read more
A wealth of research comparing print and digital reading points to the same conclusion — print matters. For most students, print is the most effective way to learn and to retain that knowledge long-term. Read more
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During the Great Depression as part of the New Deal, Roosevelt established the FWP with the goal of providing work for writers, historians, librarians, editors, teachers and others. At its peak, the program employed more than 6,000 people nationwide. Read more
One of the questions rare booksellers get asked a lot is how best to handle and store books. From climate-controlled vaults to the ubiquitous white gloves that we often see on our screens, the handling of works on paper is misrepresented and over-complicated in popular culture, and this has give rise to the idea that specialist training and environments are needed to house a rare book collection. While it’s certainly true that some items of extreme fragility require specialist environments and care, most books can, with care, be safely stored in ordinary homes. Read more
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40 Years Ago, Poet Lucille Clifton Lost Her House. This Year, Her Children Bought It Back. Read more
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Readers are in demand on dating sites, with one focused entirely on bringing book-lovers together. But is our taste in literature truly a good indication of compatibility? Read more
