Rare Books Festival Launches in Edinburgh
While there are only a few days left, if you're in the United Kingdom you may want to swing up to Edinburgh to check out a new festival, "Rare Books Edinburgh," which is coming toward the end of its ten-day run. The festival launched on March 20, bringing together ten institutions and organizations in the celebration of book culture, collecting, and the history of the book. The festival's tent pole was the Edinburgh Book Fair, held this past weekend, but the talks, workshops, and exhibitions continue until March 30.
"The latest figures for hardcover and eBook sales show that books are back, and collectable books in fact never went away', said festival organizer Derek Walker, co-owner of McNaughtan's Bookshop in Edinburgh, and a recent profile in our Bright Young Booksellers series. "This city is lucky to have so many world-class bookshops, libraries, collections, and organizations, and Rare Books Edinburgh is an unparalleled opportunity for locals and visitors to see, learn about, handle, and even buy important, antique, or collectable books and printed material. It will be a veritable feast for book-lovers of all kinds."
Talks suitable for beginners, as well as advanced workshops, are on offer, many of them free and open to the public. A full program, complete with registration information is available on the festival website: www.rarebooksedinburgh.com.
Participating institutions include the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh University Library, the Centre for the History of the Book, the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Central Library, Blackwell's Bookshop, and auction house Lyon & Turnbull.
