San Francisco fair buzz, Block on the block, book arts booster, first aid for books.

Rare author photos surface in the Jacobi archive.

by Scott Brown— Lotte Jacobi pioneering portraits have been rediscovered by the art world. Book lovers should take note of her stunning author photographs, included previously unpublished images of J.D. Salinger taken during the photo shoot for the dust jacket picture on The Catcher in the Rye.

by Geneviève Duboscq —"The cyclotron can, if improperly tuned, drill a hole through a steel plate," said semi-retired physicist Thomas Cahill of the University of California, Davis. Researchers need to be very careful when aiming it at a Gutenberg Bible to analyze the printer's ink.

When Audubon sailed for Liverpool to find a publisher for his bird paintings, it was a fool's errand. He had failed at every business venture he had ever tried, had no training in ornithology and the only person he knew in England despised him.

OP asked bird artist David Allen Sibley about Audubon's influence on modern bird illustration. Read the full interview online. [read online]

A Firsthand Look At China's Reviving Book Trade.

by Andrew Edwards and Charles De Simone—"After decades of dormancy during the devastating Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, book collecting in China is coming into its own." [read online]

by Linda Castellitto—"I'm interested not only in history, but in how the past is felt in the present," says Tony Horwitz, author of Blue Latitudes: Going Boldly Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before.

Reviews of The Bookseller of Kabul and Book Row.

The H.P. Kraus Auction ­ 5 Days that Ended an Era

Offbeat Catalog Listings and Rare Specimens

Upcoming Book Fairs and Auctions