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On Nov. 18, the National Book Foundation awarded its annual book awards. T.J. Stiles won in the non-fiction category for his lengthy book, "The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt." Much ado has been made of the fact that Stiles took his moment in the spotlight to thank the actual 'book-makers' (editors, designers, etc.) and librarians behind the book. Bravo! (Full disclosure: Stiles did extensive research at the Drew University Archives' Gibbons collection that I was processing at the time.)

So before I thank the specific people who have helped to bring my book into existence, I want to thank the editorial assistants, copywriters, marketing managers, copy editors, graphic designers, production managers and managing editors. I want to thank the indexers, publicists, receptionists, and sales people. I want to thank the mail room guys, warehouse staff, bookstore clerks, and independent-bookstore owners. I want to thank the book reviewers, academic scholars, MFA students, librarians--especially the librarians--agents, and the unsung archivists. I suspect that the advent of the e-book is fooling some people into believing that none of these people are necessary anymore, or perhaps that they do not even exist. But if they cease to exist, then e-books will only be worth the paper they're not printed on.

For information on the other winners and honorees (including Colum McCann, Gore Vidal, and Dave Eggers), or to watch the entire speech, visit the National Book Award website.

Erica Olsen

Erica Olsen lives in Cortez, Colorado. She is the author of Recapture & Other Stories, a collection of short fiction.

On a trip to Portland, Oregon, this month, I made the requisite pilgrimage to Powell's Books. I also discovered Oblation Papers & Press, a letterpress print shop, paper mill, and stationery shop located in the city's Pearl District, about 10 minutes' walk from Powell's.

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With the holidays approaching, my eye was caught by Oblation's cards featuring dictionary-style definitions--a refreshing change from the usual visual clichés of the season. The cards are letterpress printed with soy inks on 100 percent cotton paper (which they make themselves using recycled garment industry fabric).

Oblation Papers & Press is located at 516 NW 12th Avenue in Portland's Pearl District. Up front is the retail space, where you'll find cards, stationery, and other paper goods. The print shop is at the back, with antique presses still going strong.

Jonathan Shipley

Jonathan Shipley is a freelance writer living in Seattle. He’s written for the Los Angeles Times, Gather Journal, Uppercase, and many other publications.


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Care to say a few beautiful words before you dig into your Thanksgiving feast? The Poetry Foundation is here to help. Poets range from John Greenleaf Whittier to Paul Lawrence Dunbar, John Keats to Elizabeth Alexander in their collection of Thanksgiving poems perfect for pre-dinner recitation.
The idea of the "classic," particularly how a book is elevated to that status, has always fascinated me. I even wrote my master's thesis on the many cheap reprint editions of "classics" in the twentieth century: Modern Library, Everyman's Library, Penguin Classics, Puffin Classics, Perennial Classics, Loeb Classical, Oxford's World's Classics, Signet Classics, S&S Classic Editions, Verso Classics, Vintage Classics, Washington Square Enriched Classics, Bantam Classics, Barnes & Noble Classics, Cameo Classics, Harvard Classics, Library of America - to name some on my bookshelves. (I will spare you any further description of my thesis.)

So it piques my interest that the New York Review of Books is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its NYRB Classics series this month. There was an event in New York earlier this month, but the event in London next week couldn't suit me better. Darn it, why wasn't this one held in New York?

From the NYRB e-newsletter:

Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009, 6:30 p.m.
The Gallery at Foyles
113-119 Charing Cross Road
London, UK
020 7437 5660

What is a classic? When does a great book become a classic and who decides? Over the past ten years, the NYRB Classics series has explored the boundaries of this enduring but problematic term. Mary Beard, Geoff Dyer, Adam Thirlwell, and the NYRB Classics series editor Edwin Frank will discuss these questions.

Tickets: Free, email events@foyles.co.uk to reserve a place.


I'm sure this event will be lively, as the canon and the classics are heady topics for literary types. If any readers are in London and can attend, we'd love a report.

p.s. NYRB is having an anniversary sale on its classics line through November.
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If you find yourself in New York during the holidays, there are a few seasonal activities that top most tourists' to-do lists. The tree at Rockefeller Center will be lit on Wednesday, Dec. 2 (so plan accordingly). Or the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Perhaps Macy's flagship store in Herald Square is more your style. But for book lovers, yet another treasure awaits. The Morgan Library & Museum exhibits the original manuscript of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol from November 20 through January 10.

About a decade ago, when I worked in the book publishing world, I worked with Dickens' great-great-grandson, Gerald Charles Dickens, on another little Christmas book called The Life of Our Lord. When he visited New York, the Morgan Library was the first place I brought him. We were lucky enough to have a private viewing of the Carol manuscript. It is a beauty. If you're in town, don't miss it. If you're not in town, well, you may still be in luck. Next month in Fine Books, we'll have a special feature on Dickens and his popular Christmas book, which you can enjoy wherever you are.
It is an axiom in book collecting that the market value of an object is not necessarily determined by what one person is willing to pay for the privilege of ownership, but by the lengths to which a determined underbidder is willing to compete for the prize in open bidding. This dynamic was in persuasive evidence last night a few miles north of West Palm Beach in Stuart, Florida, at an auction organized to benefit the Hibiscus Children's Center, a local charity dedicated to the needs of abused and neglected youngsters.

Billed the Little Auction That Could in respectful tribute to Watty Piper's classic children's tale of infinite possibilities, The Little Engine That Could, the premise was centered around asking various celebrities to inscribe copies of books that had meaning in their lives. More than 80 people responded, and it was decided to offer the books for sale in two venues, online at eBay for 70 of the items in a contest that continues through Nov. 25, and last night in open competition at the historic Lyric Theater before an audience of 400 people for 14 others.

A total of $34,000 was raised last night, the most coveted item being Pop-up White House, a nicely engineered piece of movable art with illustrations by local artist Chuck Fischer--and signed by President Barack Obama; this neat little item, a unique curiosity if ever there was one, was hammered down at $6,500.  Equally robust was the $4,500 paid for a copy of Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan of the Apes signed by the renowned animal authority Jane Goodall--her specialty is chimpanzees, naturally--the $2,900 for a copy of Horatio Alger, Jr.'s Struggling Upward signed by Maya Angelou, and the $2,600 bid for the copy of Harry Potter (Book 7), inscribed by the author, J. K. Rowling.

It was a great program, about as capably conceived, organized, and executed as anything comparable I have ever been associated with, and the credit for that certainly goes out to every member of the crackerjack staff of volunteers, but primarily to the guiding spirit, the co-chair of the event, Karla Preissman, who came up with the concept two years ago, and contacted every celebrity individually to participatee. A brilliant move on her part was to arrange for a tastefully mounted exhibition of the books at the Elliott Museum in Stuart, which my wife and I had a chance to visit yesterday before the evening's festivities.

It was an unannounced visit there earlier in the week by a person who has chosen to remain anonymous that led to the preemptive bid of $850,000--that is not a typo, it is $850,000--for a copy of Jean de Brunhoff's The Travels of Babar co-signed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and his mother, the former First Lady, Barbara Bush.

The benefactor was said to be passionate about the goals of the Hibiscus Center, and found this a worthy way of supporting it. In one fell swoop--before the first bid went up last night--the Little Auction That Could became the Little Auction That Most Assuredly Did, all of it made possible by the enduring magic of books. An unqualified plus was the opportunity I had to speak on the program with Carl Hiaasen; the man is a fabulous speaker, and a real hoot.


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It's not often that we feel compelled to highlight yet another website, but once in a while, something special comes along. Peter Strauss has been featured in our pages before. He is a top collector of livres d'artistes. His newest venture is a website dedicated to the twenty most important modern illustrated books. There's so much good information here, well laid-out, with excellent images (such as this Toulouse-Lautrec).

Jonathan Shipley

Jonathan Shipley is a freelance writer living in Seattle. He’s written for the Los Angeles Times, Gather Journal, Uppercase, and many other publications.

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Material degradomics analyzes the gases emitted by old books and documents without altering the documents themselves. What does this mean? Scientists can now tell the condition of an old book by giving it a whiff. The brief story is here with the full report here.

From the piece...

In a report published in the American Chemical Society's Analytical Chemistry, a semi-monthly journal, they describe development of a new test that can measure the degradation of old books and precious historical documents on the basis of their aroma. The non-destructive "sniff" test could help libraries and museums preserve a range of prized paper-based objects, some of which are degrading rapidly due to advancing age, the scientists say.

Matija Strli? and colleagues note in the new study that the well-known musty smell of an old book, as readers leaf through the pages, is the result of hundreds of so-called volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released into the air from the paper.
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In our June issue, Ian McKay wrote a short piece on the Peyraud Collection, auctioned by Bloomsbury earlier this year. This fascinating collection-including Samuel Johnson, Jane Austen, and Fanny Burney, etc.-was formed by the late librarian Paula Peyraud. (Pictured here is the three-volume first edition of Burney's Evelina in contemporary calf with gilt tooling.)

 

Interested readers can now take note of a more extensive report on the Peyraud collection, written by Maureen E. Mulvihill, a scholar and writer with the Princeton Research Forum. In her essay, "Literary Property Changing Hands: The Peyraud Collection," Dr. Mulvihill takes an in-depth, post-auction view at the lots and their bidders. She also enlightens readers about Peyraud, book-collecting's "dark lady." A selection of fine images from the original sale catalogue accompanies the text.

 

Dr. Mulvihill's report was recently published in the journal Eighteenth-Century Studies, Autumn 2009, vol. 23, no. 1 (2009). You can download a PDF version here:

http://www.ilab.org/download.php?object=documentation&id=81

The U.S. Senate must have used its collective library voice on Nov. 6 when it confirmed New York Public Library Director David Ferriero as the 10th Archivist of the United States. Few media outlets have covered the story but a detailed press release highlighting his experience is making its way around cyberspace.

"Mr. Ferriero was one part of the leadership team responsible for integrating the four research libraries and 87 branch libraries into one seamless service for users, creating the largest public library system in the United States and one of the largest research libraries in the world," according to the press release from the National Archives and Records Administration. "Among his responsibilities at the NYPL was the development of the library's digital strategy, which currently encompasses partnerships with Google and Microsoft, a web site that reaches more than 25 million unique visitors annually, and a digital library of more than 750,000 images that may be accesses free of charge by any user around the world."

Prior to joining the New York Public Libraries, Ferriero lead efforts to expand both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Duke University libraries.

President Obama nominated Ferriero last July, drawing a smattering of mostly positive responses in a range of blogs covering history, libraries and politics. A few comments to a post from the National Coalition for History expressed some concern that a librarian, rather than an archivist, had been tapped for the post. Washington Post blogger Al Kamen, meanwhile, noted that the job of Archivist "has become something of a lightning rod for controversy, particularly as various agencies and administrations press for keeping their records secret for decades despite strong pressures from historians and the public to declassify as much information as soon as possible."

The Washingtonian magazine is already optimistic that Ferriero will be a success, listing him on Nov. 2 on its "Guest List" -- a collection of people the staff would like to break bread with.

"The newly appointed US archivist, who headed the New York Public Library, comes here with a mission of transparency and openness," it wrote.