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50 Books About Books
On Books and Writers: Selected Essays by Matthew J. Bruccoli (University of South Carolina Press, jacketed hardcover, $39.95). Thirty of the late scholar-collector’s best short pieces on publishing, libraries and librarians, bibliography, and prominent writers of the twentieth century. Buy it now
About the Author: Inside the Creative Process by Nicholas Basbanes (Fine Books Press, jacketed hardcover, $27.95). A remarkable collection of more than forty of Basbanes’ interviews and essays about modern authors, such as A. S. Byatt, Kurt Vonnegut, and Joseph Heller. Full (and obvious) disclosure: This is a book by a FB&C columnist, published by Fine Books Press. Buy it now
Lambeth Palace Library: Treasures from the Collection of the Archbishop of Canterbury edited by Richard Palmer and Michelle Brown (Scala Publishers, jacketed hardcover, £35/$60). Sixty manuscripts and early printed books are beautifully reproduced, alongside expert commentary and a history of the library.
Manuscript Treasures of Durham Cathedral by Richard Gameson (Third Millenium Information, hardcover, $40). Professor Gameson’s commentary alongside lavish color illustrations of Durham’s medieval manuscripts.
Rax me that Buik: The National Library of Scotland by Iain Gordon Brown (Scala Publishers, paperback, $29.95). A celebration of the NLS in Edinburgh, its development and holdings, and its extraordinary collection of manuscript and printed material.
The Vatican Secret Archives (VdH Books, jacketed hardcover, $99.50). A heavily illustrated peek at more than one hundred letters, petitions, and legal documents stored in the mysterious Vatican Archives. Also available in several languages and in limited collector’s editions.
The Art of the Bookstore by Gibbs M. Smith (Gibbs Smith, jacketed hardcover, $35). Sixty-eight oil paintings the author/publisher created while visiting bookstores around the country, accompanied by short essays. In the FB&C annual gift guide, we wrote, “this gorgeous book was made for people like us.” Buy it now
This Book is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson (Harper, jacketed hardcover, $24.99). A modern and clever look at librarians, librarianship, and library culture. On the FB&C blog Nick Basbanes called it “a most enthusiastic book that is great fun to read.”
Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill edited by Michael Snodin (Yale University Press, jacketed hardcover, $85). An illustrated study of the history and reception of Walpole’s collection of rare books and manuscripts, antiquities, paintings, prints and drawings, furniture, etc., as it was formed and arranged at Strawberry Hill.
The Book in the Renaissance by Andrew Pettegree (Yale University Press, jacketed hardcover, $40). A cultural history of the first 150 years of print. Hailed in our September review as a “fascinating and readable work [that] deserves wide notice.” Buy it now
One Hundred Portraits: Artists, Architects, Writers, Composers and Friends engraved by Barry Moser (David R. Godine, jacketed hardcover, $35). Gathered here are Moser’s exceptional wood and relief-engraved portraits of notables including Dante Alighieri, Flannery O’Connor, Jane Austen, Walt Whitman, William Shakespeare, and more. With a foreword by Ann Patchett.