In mid-April 2014 the Austrian antiquarian bookseller Norbert Donhofer was elected president of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), an umbrella organization compromised of twenty- two national associations, including our own ABAA, representing thirty-four countries and around 1,800 individual affiliates. In his first interview as President he noted that the most important project he was working on at the moment was "a strategic part-time cooperation with AbeBooks." He went on: The aim is that ILAB booksellers listing on AbeBooks are highlighted on the Abe homepage as the world's leading experts. This would be an enormous advantage for all ILAB...
A five book (one letter and one record) birthday salute to william carlos williams
Paterson. Published by New Directions, 1946-58. Williams's magnum opus. Today is the birthday of the influential American poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). From the Poetry Foundation: William Carlos Williams has always been known as an experimenter, an innovator, a revolutionary figure in American poetry. Yet in comparison to artists of his own time who sought a new environment for creativity as expatriates in Europe, Williams lived a remarkably conventional life. A doctor for more than forty years serving the New Jersey town of Rutherford, he relied on his patients, the America around him, and his own ebullient imagination to create...
The Novel That Writes Itself is finished
Allen Ruppersberg began The Novel That Writes Itself in 1978. The plan was to create a "fictionalized autobiography where he would talk of his adventures as a young artist." The main characters were slated to be the artist’s friends including Ed Ruscha, his gallery owner, Rosamund Felsen, and the collectors Elyse and Stanley Grinstein. Amazingly, Ruppersberg exhibited a Kickstarter mentality 35+ years before crowdsourcing became the rage by offering the Grinstein's places in the story for 300 dollars. He also offered the opportunity to become a supporting character for 100 dollars or to be an extra in the book for 50 dollars. A decade later,...
New technology looks to uncover hidden text on map that influenced Christopher Columbus
The map is referred to as the Martellus map. It is named after its creator, the German cartographer Henricus Martellus, and is thought be have been produced in or around 1491. The only known surviving copy lives at the Beinecke Library at Yale. Being a large wall map, it is 4 by 6.5 feet, and having survived for over 500 years it is understandable that the map has seen better days. The map, which is usually on display by Beinecke’s service desk, has been relatively unexamined following a peak in interest after its acquisition in the 1960s because it is largely illegible. Now thanks to a new...
Bookcase with Moss
Are you still looking for that perfect bookshelf to house your natural history, botany or nature writing collection? Well, I think we found it. Created by Alcarol, the bookshelf is called Undergrowth and was recently on display at the London Design Festival. The bookshelf retains the vegetation present on the log when it was retrieved from the forest. The mossy edges are then cast in resin and preserved. Mosses and lichens are very primitive organisms that grow in damp places, including rocks and trees. They form the lowest layer of forest vegetation and are equipped with chlorophyll giving them a green colour of varying...