Happy New Year !!

  Wishing book lovers everywhere a very Happy New Year!! Cheers,   Deb @ Bygone Books

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A Web Round-up ~

Here is a compilation of tidbits ~ articles, booklists, blogs, etc that I have been storing up through Christmas week; some are now outdated,  and also perhaps repeated elsewhere, but here they are ~ all things books, libraries, bookstores and blogging: *An essay at the The New York Times  on “You Never Know What You’ll [...]

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Merry Christmas One & All!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! Deb @ Bygone Books

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Dickens ~ “A Christmas Carol”

Today we celebrate Dickens A Christmas Carol , first published on December 19, 1843.  Illustrated by John Leech, it was the first of Dickens’s Christmas stories, instantly successful, selling over 6,000 copies in a week.  It also stimulated a revival of the Christmas traditions that we associate with Victorian England, many of which we still practice [...]

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Articles of note …

A few items of interest over the past few days ~  all things books, reading, and libraries… *“The Personality of Used Books” by Rachel Jagareski at the Shelf Space blog of Foreword Magazine. *A PhiloBiblos post on the Libraries of Early America Project at Library Thing *Winnie the Pooh books for sale at auction on [...]

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On my Bookshelf

I am a sucker for books about books, so when I happen upon one I buy it, almost without exception.  I was in Montreal yesterday and visited the delightful Nicholas Hoare bookshop [on Greene St], and found the newly released Reading Matters: Five Centuries of Discovering Books by Margaret Willes.  Yale University Press, 2008.  Here [...]

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On the Block ~ Byron’s Hair, etc…

Sothebys has just published the results of today’s auction [December 17, 2008, Sale L08411, London] of English Literature, History, Children’s Books and Illustrations, with a final take of 901,913 GBP!   Literature by the likes of Shakespeare, Byron, Milton, Dickens, and Beatrix Potter seems to be alive and well.  Here are a few of the results: Lot 26.  [...]

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Happy Birthday Jane!

Today is Jane Austen’s birthday, 233 years ago!  I append here the post on my other blog, Jane Austen in Vermont, followed by Garrison Keillor’s post on The Writer’s Almanac: The Rev. George Austen wrote the following letter to his sister-in-law Mrs. Walter on December 17, 1775: “You have doubtless been for some time in [...]

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Buy Local!!

I am posting the following from Roy Blount, Jr., the President of the Authors Guild [see original post at Authors Guild.] It is an all-out call to BUY BOOKS this holiday, especially from your local bookshop: Holiday Message from Roy Blount, Jr.: Buy Books from your Local Bookstore,  Now December 11, 2008. I’ve been talking [...]

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Random notes…

A few items of interest today: ~ Belles Heures on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: Museum visitors are accustomed to seeing illuminated manuscripts opened to a single page. To see one of the greatest illuminated manuscripts ever in all its unbound glory provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to walk through its pages. [...]

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