Reid Byers on Imaginary Books
2024-11-13 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Baxter Society
Open to members of FABS Societies: contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org to receive a link.
Reid Byers, the President of the Baxter Society, is the author of The Private Library, listed among the best non-fiction books of 2021 by the Washington Post. At our November meeting, he will speak on his upcoming book and exhibition at the Grolier Club in New York, Imaginary Books: Lost, Unfinished, and Fictive Works Found Only in Other Books. The meeting will be held at 7:00 pm on November 13, at Glickman Library in Portland, and on Zoom.
The New York Times said:
This irresistible conceptual-art installation displays meticulously constructed simulacra of books that don’t exist — some because they’ve been lost, others because they never did exist. Look for “Love’s Labour’s Won,” Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, and the “Necronomicon.” (Dec. 5-Feb. 15, 2025; Grolier Club) – Will Heinrich, NY Times, Sept 6, 2024.

Riding Like The Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb
2024-11-18 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California
In 1939, when John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was published, it became an instant bestseller and a prevailing narrative in the nation’s collective imagination of the era. But it also stopped the publication of another important novel, silencing a gifted writer who was more intimately connected to the true experiences of Dust Bowl migrants. In Riding Like the Wind, renowned biographer Iris Jamahl Dunkle revives the groundbreaking voice of Sanora Babb.
Dunkle follows Babb from her impoverished childhood in eastern Colorado to California. There, she befriended the era’s literati, including Ray Bradbury and Ralph Ellison; entered into an illegal marriage; and was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee. It was Babb’s field notes and oral histories of migrant farmworkers that Steinbeck relied on to write his novel. But this is not merely a saga of literary usurping; on her own merits, Babb’s impact was profound. Her life and work feature heavily in Ken Burns’s award-winning documentary The Dust Bowl and inspired Kristin Hannah in her bestseller The Four Winds. Riding Like the Wind reminds us with fresh awareness that the stories we know—and who tells them—can change the way we remember history.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Iris Jamahl Dunkle, author
Register here: https://www.bccbooks.org/event/riding-like-the-wind-the-life-of-sanora-babb-2/

FABS Bindings Zoom: Richard Minsky on his Bindings 1968-Present
2024-11-18 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Nov 18, 2024. 7:30 pm Eastern time, 4:30pm Pacific
Richard Minsky will draw upon his exhibition Material Meets Metaphor and talk about choosing binding materials that evoke the metaphor of the text. It will feature images of Richard Minsky’s bindings showing how they began and evolved from 1968 to the present. He will be glad to answer questions about concepts and techniques. You can see many of the bindings here.
To join the mailing list for this group contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

Robert McCracken Peck on Botanically Illustrated Books
2024-11-19 18:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Grolier Club
Join the Grolier Club for a live webcast as former Grolierite, Robert McCracken Peck, who is Curator of Art and Senior Fellow at The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, lectures on books about the natural world from the 18th and 19th centuries that defied expectations by replicating nature in a tangible way.
The volumes incorporated the organisms themselves into their pages, or, in the case of trees, used the very subjects being discussed to create the books describing them. In what we think of as the “Golden Age” of natural history publications, John James Audubon and James Bateman took their volumes to extremes in size, while Maria Sibylla Merian, Mark Catesby, Pierre Joseph Redoute, Joseph Bloch, John Gould and other naturalist-artists bedazzled contemporaries with illustrations that are still referenced by scientists and sought after by collectors. These publications’ goal was to record and disseminate information about plants and wildlife, and to provide “lifelike” illustrations of flora and fauna.
In this heavily illustrated lecture, Peck will discuss a different approach to scientific illustration: how natural history specimens were used to illustrate themselves in three dimensions in exsiccatae, xylotheks, and lepidochromes. He will also discuss books illustrated with feathers. You won’t want to miss this unusual – and beautiful – presentation about a little-known aspect of scientific book production.
Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-lecture-robert-mccracken-peck-on-botanically-illustrated-books-tickets-1044425263077?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Conversation with David M. Rubenstein on Abraham Lincoln
2024-11-22 18:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Grolier Club
Join the Grolier Club online for a livestreamed conversation with David M. Rubenstein about the public exhibition Abraham Lincoln: His Life in Print, which runs until December 28, 2024, in our ground-floor Exhibition Hall.
Note: This is a live webcast. Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-lincoln-exhibition-event-conversation-with-david-m-rubenstein-tickets-1044322214857?aff=ebemoffollowpublishemail&ref=eemail&utm_campaign=following_published_event&utm_content=follow_notification&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eventbrite
If you wish to register instead for the in-person event, please visit this page.
In many ways, books made Abraham Lincoln. He became a lawyer through self-disciplined study, won the White House through the concurrent rise of American popular publishing, and remains one of the most written about figures over the 160 years since his death. Abraham Lincoln: His Life in Print uses original printings of books and ephemera to create a sweeping, conceptual portrait of the man. The exhibition features important editions of Lincoln’s greatest accomplishments, including the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, the Cooper Union Speech, his debates with Stephen A. Douglass, and many others. More than 150 objects describe the life of Lincoln as he was born in the American West, captivated by literature, shaped by the portentous 1850s, tested by the American Civil War, responsible for the end of slavery, and murdered and mourned at the age of 56. Featuring materials from the David M. Rubenstein Americana Collection, the exhibition is curated by Mazy Boroujerdi, special advisor to the collection, and will be accompanied by a catalogue published by the Grolier Club.
David M. Rubenstein is co-founder and co-chairman of the private equity firm The Carlyle Group and is the principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team. His published books include The Highest Calling: Conversations on the American Presidency (2024) and The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians (2019). His philanthropic activities have assisted the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, Arlington House, and the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima). His collection has included the Bay Psalm Book (1640, the first book printed in America) and the Magna Carta (1297, one of the most important legal documents in the history of democracy).
Visit the exhibition online and view case images on Flickr.
Photo Credit: Cover of Abraham Lincoln: His Life in Print (Grolier Club, from Marquand Books). Cover design by Ryan Polich.

FABS Zoom: Living With Books
2024-11-26 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Fourth Tuesday of the month, 4:00-5:30pm Pacific/7:00-8:30pm Eastern
Join the Zoom group that meets monthly to discuss the pleasures and challenges of home libraries. This month’s topics are “bad” home libraries and sound/silence/music in libraries.
To be added to the mailing list please contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

Caxton Printers of Idaho: A Century of Publishing in the American West
2024-12-02 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California
James H. Gipson founded Caxton Printers as a small print shop in rural Idaho over a century ago. During the following decades, Caxton grew to publish hundreds of books across all genres––primarily about the American West. Gipson’s philosophy was to help writers from the West get published, regardless of the commercial success of their books. Learn how a tiny publisher in Idaho survived and competed with larger firms and made an impact on the history of the American West/California.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Alessandro Meregaglia, archivist, librarian, historian, and associate professor, Boise State University, Idaho
Register here: https://www.bccbooks.org/event/caxton-printers-of-idaho-a-century-of-publishing-in-the-american-west/
** The Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Lecture on the History of the Book Trade in California and the West **

Andrew Hui on Renaissance Libraries
2024-12-03 18:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Grolier Club
Join the Grolier Club as Andrew Hui, associate professor of humanities at Yale-NUS College, Singapore, will lecture on his new book, The Study: The Inner Life of Renaissance Libraries (Princeton), which reveals how the Renaissance studiolo (“little studio”), space dedicated to self-cultivation, became both balm and poison for the soul.
Prof. Hui, an insatiable bookworm himself, has combed literary and visual works to trace how humanists from Petrarch to Machiavelli to Montaigne created their own intimate studies. He looks at imaginary libraries in Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Marlowe, and discusses how Renaissance painters depicted saints as bibliophiles. Yet writers of the period also saw a dark side to solitary reading. It drove Don Quixote to madness, Prospero to exile, and Faustus to perdition. Hui draws parallels with our own age of information surplus and charts the studiolo’s influence on bibliographic fabulists like Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Eco.
The Study: The Inner Life of Renaissance Libraries will be available for sale and signing at this event.
Hui’s previous books include A Theory of the Aphorism: From Confucius to Twitter (Princeton, 2019) and The Poetics of Ruins in Renaissance Literature (Fordham, 2016).
Note: This is a live webcast. Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-lecture-andrew-hui-on-renaissance-libraries-tickets-1044522443747?aff=ebemoffollowpublishemail&ref=eemail&utm_campaign=following_published_event&utm_content=follow_notification&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eventbrite

Gwendolyn Brooks and the Formation of the Black Literary Canon
2024-12-05 12:00 (America/Chicago)
Sponsored by The Caxton Club
December Midday Program
Presented by the Caxton Club and Chicago Collections Consortium

August 24, 1949: Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks is published. It is her second volume of poetry, and readers admire and struggle with its technical forms, its atomizations, and critiques of racial life in Black America. At the book’s center is a forty-three-stanza poem called “The Anniad” in which Brooks’s titular heroine comes of age in epic verse, followed immediately by an “Appendix” of “leaves from a loose-leaf war diary.”
May 1, 1950: Annie Allen wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The book has never been reprinted. Until now.
Join us as Caxtonian Cait Coker explores Gwendolyn Brooks’s literary legacy and her place in American letters – and the exhibition currently on display at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign – on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of Annie Allen.
Cait Coker is Associate Professor and Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A scholar who focuses on the intersections of gender, genre, and publishing history, she is also Co-Editor of the Women in Book History Bibliography at womensbookhistory.org.
Register today: https://caxtonclub.org/event-5951521/Registration
Book purchase Registering for the program will allow you the opportunity to purchase copies of the seventy-fifth anniversary edition of Annie Allen for $32, including tax and shipping.
Preregistration required via website. Zoom presentation is free and open to all. Please forward this notice to anyone who may find it of interest.

FABS Handpress Era Zoom Group
2024-12-10 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Join us this month as Dr. Gene Flamm discusses some variations among the incunable editions of the first illustrated work on anatomy – Ketham’s Fasciculus medicinae, 1491-1500.
To get on the mailing list for this group and receive links, contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

Allie Alvis on Weird and Wonderful Treasures in the Winterthur Library
2024-12-13 12:00 (America/Chicago)
Sponsored by The Caxton Club
December Midday Program

A recent Caxton Club program unfolded like an English country house mystery: The Case of the Poison Pigments, in which the Winterthur Library played a vital detecting role. New to Inspector Winterthur?
Well, imagine a 175-room house nestled into a remarkable thousand-acre estate. It was brought to life by H.F. du Pont, whose vision was for “a bastion of decorative arts connoisseurship in America.”
The formal garden encompasses sixty acres. Ninety thousand objects populate the museum. And the library? It features a stunning collection of more than a million items relating to American decorative art. The library offers a premier assortment of materials relating to American decorative art in a global and social context. It illuminates the lives of everyday Americans through a range of materials, including ephemera, pattern books, trade catalogs, and so much more.
No private plane waiting to jet you to Delaware? No worries. Annie Alvis, Curator of Special Collections at the Winterthur will come to us, with a fast paced, lavishly illuminated talk that reveals the history, highlights, and wonderfully weird treasures of the Winterthur Library.
A Smithsonian Library veteran, Alvis has earned degrees in book history and information management at two different universities in Scotland … where they quickly realized that they weren’t in Kansas anymore.
You can enjoy this program from the comfort of your very own Zoom Room. Or … you can gather with other Caxtonians at the Union League Club for a showing on a big screen with a plenty loud sound system. Then you can adjourn to a great big room with a really high ceiling and pillars and a working (but not really) fireplace for a lavish holiday buffet. As you navigate the tables groaning with delectable delights, you can engage your luncheon companions about the proper pronunciation of Winterthur and maybe hear from carolers (whose wide Dickensian skirts do not conceal those startling children from the end of … well, you know.)
Register today! https://caxtonclub.org/event-5903258?CalendarViewType=1&SelectedDate=12/12/2024
Zoom presentation is free and open to all.
Zoom begins at 12:00PM CT/1:00 PM ET. Preregistration required via website.

Abraham Lincoln Virtual Exhibition Tour
2024-12-19 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Grolier Club
Join the Grolier Club for a video tour of the exhibition “Abraham Lincoln: His Life in Print” with curator Mazy Boroujerdi, followed by live online Q&A.
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-exhibition-tour-qa-abraham-lincoln-his-life-in-print-tickets-1044332595907?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

FABS 19th Century Zoom Group
2024-12-29 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Join this congenial group for conversation on all things bookish and 19th century!
For announcement and links to the monthly meetings, contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

FABS Handpress Era Zoom Group: John Windle on Pochoir Technique
2025-01-06 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
The Handpress Era Zoom group is hosting a talk by bookseller and William Blake expert John Windle, who will discuss the pochoir technique used at the Trianon Press to create extraordinary facsimiles of works by Blake and others. Join us!
Contact Jennifer: info@fabsocieties.org

Jennifer Larson on "Little Books and Big Ideas in the Handpress Era"
2025-01-09 19:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Book Club of Detroit

As soon as people in the West learned to print, they made little books. But what types of books were produced in very small formats, and why? Using examples from her collection, Jennifer Larson will describe the development of miniature formats and typography, and explore the literary authors and titles most often chosen for distribution in small formats from the incunabular period through the early 19th century. The presentation will conclude with a look at the history of traveling libraries in the Handpress Era. This is a free event, open to non-members as well as members of the Book Club of Detroit.
About our speaker: Dr. Larson is Professor of Classics at Kent State University. She earned her PhD in Classics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The author of five books on ancient Greek religion and culture, as well as many scholarly articles, Dr. Larson is a lifelong antiquarian-book collector who has served as Treasurer and Chair of the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies.
This event is free and open to members of FABS Societies. To register, click here or e-mail BCDrsvp73@gmail.com. Log-in credentials for this virtual presentation will be provided to those who register.
There will be a Q&A following Dr. Larson’s presentation. Questions may be submitted in the Zoom chat feature.
Yours in all things books,
Marcia McBrien
President, Book Club of Detroit

Morgan Swan on Penny Dreadfuls
2025-01-10 12:00 (America/Chicago)
Sponsored by The Caxton Club

January Midday Program

“It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college, and yet there are those who love it.”
Daniel Webster
Curl up in your Zoom Room and prepare to be magically transported to that much loved small college in Hanover, New Hampshire.
As Londoners became increasingly literate, publishers met their desire for exciting (and inexpensive) content with a host of sensational soft cover serialized stories. These quickly earned the nickname Penny Dreadfuls. Unfortunately they weren’t exactly produced on high quality paper and nestled firmly between sturdy boards, so they tended to be read to death – and then repurposed to answer a variety of household uses.
That’s why we’re so fortunate that Morgan Swan will be able to share examples from Dartmouth’s remarkable collection. Dr. Swan is the Special Collections Librarian for Teaching & Scholarly Engagement. He received his PhD from Yale, his MLIS from UW-Milwaukee, and has the dual distinctions of having grown up in Macau, China and being a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
Of course, the event is free. It won’t cost even a penny. Dreadful if you miss it. Register today!
Register here: https://caxtonclub.org/event-5903260
Preregistration required via website. Zoom presentation is free and open to all. Please forward this notice to anyone who may find it of interest.
Even if you can’t attend at the scheduled time, if you’re interested, please register. After the program, we’ll send an email to all registrants, asking if you’d like a link to the complete recording. That way you can see the program even if you couldn’t attend live, ran into technical issues, or simply wanted to watch it again.

Joel Silver on J. K. Lilly and the Lilly Library
2025-01-13 20:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Manuscript Society
Manuscript Mondays
J.K. Lilly, Jr. and His Collecting of Manuscripts
Special Date: January 13, 2025
8:00 PM Eastern
Free, Live Webinar
J.K. Lilly Jr. was a visionary, a keen businessman with a generous spirit and one of Lilly Endowment’s three founders. He built extensive collections of coins, stamps, books and manuscripts, nautical models and military miniatures, among others.
Upon opening, the Lilly Library featured nearly 100,000 rare books and one million some manuscripts. Rare items from J.K. Lilly Jr.’s collection included John James Audubon’s “Birds of America”; Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy of the first printing of the Bill of Rights; a first edition of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”; the original manuscript of J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan”; and the William Shakespeare “First Folio” of 1623 – the first printed collection of Shakespeare’s plays.
Joel Silver, the Director of the Lilly Library at Indiana University, will answer questions from attendees about J.K. Lilly and his collecting, the development and future of the Lilly Library, and the Lilly Library in general. Attendees, please come prepared to ask questions of a leading authority in rare books, manuscripts, and special collections and the director of one of the finest special collections libraries in the United States.
Presenter: Joel Silver
Appointed as the director of the Lilly Library in 2013, Joel Silver has served in several capacities at the Lilly. He began his long-standing career with the Lilly Library in 1983 and has served as head of public services, curator of books, associate director, and interim director for two separate appointments. In addition, Joel is an adjunct associate professor and director of the special collections specialization in the IU School of Library and Information Science. He is also an adjunct faculty member in the Department of English. He also serves as a faculty member at the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia.
An undergraduate English major at the University of California, Los Angeles, Joel went on to earn his Juris Doctor from Whittier College School of Law and his MLS at Indiana University.
Joel has also made significant academic contributions with his scores of published articles, multiple books and numerous exhibition catalogs. He has a distinguished record as a lecturer and leader of rare-books-related workshops, and he has curated many exhibitions at the Lilly Library, including “The Reign of Charles II,” “J.K. Lilly, Jr.: Bibliophile,” “English Renaissance Prose” and “Five Centuries of Music.” His most recent book, “Dr. Rosenbach and Mr. Lilly: Book Collecting in a Golden Age,” was published by Oak Knoll Press in 2011.
Register for the Webinar: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1gkKYKq2RJeiObybe3fDAg
[you will receive an email confirmation of your registration]
For the archive of Manuscript Mondays: Click

FABS 19th Century Zoom Group
2025-01-16 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Join us for convivial discussion of all things bookish and 19th century! Hosted by Bill Bryson and Richard Kopley.
To get on the mailing list, contact Jennifer Larson: info@fabsocieties.org

Leonard Marcus on The Women Who Invented American Children's Book Publishing
2025-01-21 19:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Baltimore Bibliophiles
Join Leonard Marcus and The Baltimore Bibliophiles for a presentation entitled “Strong Women, Great Books: The Women Who Invented American Children’s Book Publishing.”
For link contact Binnie Syril Braunstein, bsbgc@aol.com

Imaginary Books Panel: Earle Havens, Anthony Grafton, Jeff Altepeter
2025-01-22 14:30 - 16:00 (America/New_York)
Panel discussion on the themes of the 2nd-floor gallery exhibition “Imaginary Books: Lost, Unfinished, and Fictive Works,” curated by Reid Byers. Featuring Earle Havens, Anthony Grafton, and Jeff Altepeter; moderated by the Club’s Executive Director, Declan Kiely.
About Imaginary Books
Part bibliophilic entertainment and part conceptual art installation, Imaginary Books: Lost, Unfinished, and Fictive Works Found Only in Other Books features a collection of books that do not really exist. Curated by Grolier Club member Reid Byers, the exhibition includes approximately 100 books and associated arealia from his collection—all simulacra created with a team of printers, bookbinders, artists, and calligraphers—of lost books that have no surviving example, unwritten books that were planned but left unfinished, and fictive works that exist only in fiction. Highlights of the exhibition include William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Won, the lost sequel to Love’s Labour’s Lost; Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, stolen from his wife’s bag on a French train in 1922; and the Necronomicon, John Dee’s copy of the eldritch grimoire that has been kept sealed in a Wells Fargo strongbox, as a precaution, since the Krickle accident of 1967. An accompanying book will be published by Oak Knoll and Club Fortsas.
Visit the exhibition in person Monday-Saturday, 10am-5pm, or online. On view through February 15, 2025.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/imaginary-books-bibliography-week-panel-tickets-1133438859139?aff=ebemoffollowpublishemail&ref=eemail&utm_campaign=following_published_event&utm_content=follow_notification&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eventbrite

Greg MacAyeal on The John Cage Collection: Its History and Its Treasures
2025-01-22 18:30 (America/Chicago)
Sponsored by The Caxton Club
January Evening Program

The John Cage Collection held in the library at Northwestern University is a major research collection concerning the life and work of one of the most important artists of the 20th Century. Cage’s use of indeterminacy, electronics, silence, and other innovations created a lasting and profound impact on many creative fields. Northwestern students, faculty, and researchers from around the world find indispensable information related to many different areas of study.

In this talk, Music Library Curator Greg MacAyeal will describe the collection and tell the story of how it came to the university. He will highlight treasures of the collection, student and faculty use, past exhibits, and other important engagements. A particular focus will be on Notations (Something Else Press, 1969), a Cage project and artist’s book.

Greg MacAyeal is Senior Librarian, Curator of the Northwestern University Music Library, and Lecturer in the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music. He oversees all library collections and services related to music, and he teaches on the topic of research methods.

Register today! https://caxtonclub.org/event-5903251

Preregistration required via website. Zoom presentation is free and open to all. Please forward this notice to anyone who may find it of interest.

Even if you can’t attend at the scheduled time, if you’re interested, please register. After the program, we’ll send an email to all registrants, asking if you’d like a link to the complete recording. That way you can see the program even if you couldn’t attend live, ran into technical issues, or simply wanted to watch it again.

FABS Living With Books Zoom Group: Categories, and Making Room for More Books
2025-01-28 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Join us for conversation on all the delights and challenges of home libraries, hosted by Reid Byers. This month’s discussion topics:
1. Categorization – your personal book divisions
2. Four feet of books on a three foot shelf – making room for new books

To join the mailing list and receive links, contact Jennifer Larson: info@fabsocieties.org

Belle da Costa Greene: A Librarian's Legacy
2025-02-02 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of Washington
Philip S. Palmer on left; Belle da Costa Greene, right.
Unable to travel to New York to see the current exhibition at the Morgan Library on Belle da Costa Greene? We’ve got you covered with an online presentation by the show’s curatorial lead, Philip S. Palmer.
Belle da Costa Greene (1879–1950) was one of the most prominent librarians in American history. She ran the Morgan Library for forty-three years, building one of the most important collections of rare books and manuscripts in the United States. The Morgan Library & Museum is currently holding a major retrospective exhibition on Belle Greene, which opened in the fall of 2024. The show’s curatorial lead, Philip S. Palmer, will speak about Greene’s storied life and career, from her roots in a predominantly Black community in Washington, D.C., to her distinguished career at the helm of one of the world’s great research libraries. The exhibition catalog may be ordered here.
Philip S. Palmer is the Robert H. Taylor Curator and Department Head of Literary and Historical Manuscripts at the Morgan Library & Museum. He holds a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and worked for five years at UCLA’s Clark Library before coming to the Morgan in 2019. His interests are wide ranging and he has curated exhibitions at the Morgan on Woody Guthrie, James Joyce, Beatrix Potter, and The Little Prince, and is co-curator of the Morgan’s current exhibition on Belle da Costa Greene, as well as co-editor of Belle da Costa Greene: A Librarian’s Legacy (DelMonico Books, 2024).
RSVP here: https://www.bookclubofwashington.org/events-1/belle-da-costa-greene-a-librarians-legacy/form

Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts: Designing the Book
2025-02-03 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California

Before the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century, books were designed, written, and illustrated by hand. Today these handmade manuscripts are highly valued, and greatly sought after by collectors and institutions around the world.
This presentation addresses two aspects of illustration in medieval and Renaissance manuscripts before the dominance of the printed book. First, it defines the components and principles of decoration that are featured in many manuscripts, ranging from full-page miniatures to the minor decoration of small painted initials and line-fillers. Second, it focuses on several types and genres of manuscripts, including illuminations in Bibles, liturgical books, legal texts, classical works, and the extremely popular Books of Hours. The overall theme of the presentation is how manuscript illustrations help the reader navigate through a text, whether it is written in Latin or in a vernacular language.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Barbara A. Shailor, PhD FSA, author, researcher, professor of paleography and codicology, and President, The American Trust for the British Library
** The Windle-Loker Lecture Series on the History of the Illustrated Book
** Co-presented & co-hosted by The American Trust for The British Library
To register for the Virtual event: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_hYrD7q2ySEGz45gQoHmKUQ#/registration

Manuscript Mondays: Dr. Jason Silverman on Researching Manuscripts
2025-02-03 20:00 (America/New_York)
The Manuscript Society
Manuscript Mondays
Can You Teach an Old Dog to Learn New Tricks?
Monday, February 3, 2025
8:00 PM Eastern
Guest Presenter: Dr. Jason Silverman
Moderator: Jay Gaidmore
Presentation Description:
Dr. Jason Silverman will reflect on a half century of research, writing, and publishing. He will discuss his experiences, humorous and otherwise, from researching his master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation to his fifteen books. In the process he will talk about how he has found that the definition of researching has changed and how a manuscript is not a manuscript anymore in some cases.

Guest Presenter: Dr. Jason Silverman, Ellison Capers Palmer, Jr. Professor of History (ret.), Winthrop University; Manuscript Society Executive Director

Dr. Jason Silverman received a BA with Distinction from the University of Virginia, an MA from Colorado State University, and a PhD from the University of Kentucky. His teaching career spanned over 40 years at both Yale University and Winthrop University. He was the inaugural Ellison Capers Palmer, Jr. Professor of History at Winthrop University and was the first Winthrop faculty member to be named South Carolina Professor of the Year.
During his tenure at Winthrop, he was awarded the Outstanding Junior Professor Award and several years later was named Distinguished Professor. Upon retirement, the Governor of South Carolina awarded him The Order of the Silver Crescent, which is the state’s highest civilian award for significant contributions, leadership, volunteerism, and lifelong influence within a region or community. For those who love football and movies, Dr. Silverman was one of the Captains of the T.C. Williams High School football team immortalized in the movie “Remember the Titans.”
To Register for this Webinar:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Zomi1iLkTlGSZnUz9M7-_w
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FABS Handpress Zoom Group
2025-02-10 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Join us for convivial discussion of books and other materials printed before 1800. This month’s topic is “My favorite acquisition of 2024”! No presentation required; just hold it up and talk for up to 5 minutes.
To join this group contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

Virtual Exhibition Lecture: Reid Byers on "Collecting the Imaginary"
2025-02-11 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Grolier Club

Curator Reid Byers gives a livestreamed talk called “Collecting the Imaginary (in which all will be revealed)” related to his Grolier Club member’s exhibition: Imaginary Books: Lost, Unwritten, and Fictive Books Found Only in Other Books . The show runs in the Grolier Club’s second-floor Gallery through February 15, 2025.
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-exhibition-lecture-reid-beyers-on-collecting-the-imaginary-tickets-1027823195847?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
Note: This is a live webcast. If you wish to register instead for the in-person event, please visit this page.
Part bibliophilic entertainment and part conceptual art installation, Imaginary Books: Lost, Unwritten, and Fictive Works Found Only in Other Books features a collection of books that do not really exist. Curated by Grolier Club member Reid Byers, the exhibition includes approximately 100 books and associated arealia from his collection—all simulacra created with a team of printers, bookbinders, artists, and calligraphers—of lost books that have no surviving example, unwritten books that were planned but left unfinished, and fictive works that exist only in fiction. Highlights of the exhibition include William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Won, the lost sequel to Love’s Labour’s Lost; Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, stolen from his wife’s bag on a French train in 1922; and the Necronomicon, John Dee’s copy of the eldritch grimoire that has been kept sealed in a Wells Fargo strongbox, as a precaution, since the Krickle accident of 1967. An accompanying book will be published by Oak Knoll and Club Fortsas.

Virtual Exhibition Tour and Curator Q&A: "Imaginary Books"
2025-02-12 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Grolier Club

Curator Reid Byers gives a pre-recorded video walkthrough tour of his Grolier Club member’s exhibition: Imaginary Books: Lost, Unwritten, and Fictive Books Found Only in Other Books followed by a live online Q&A. The show runs in the Grolier Club’s second-floor Gallery through February 15, 2025.
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-exhibition-tour-and-curator-qa-imaginary-books-tickets-1027819314237?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
Part bibliophilic entertainment and part conceptual art installation, Imaginary Books: Lost, Unwritten, and Fictive Works Found Only in Other Books features a collection of books that do not really exist. Curated by Grolier Club member Reid Byers, the exhibition includes approximately 100 books and associated arealia from his collection—all simulacra created with a team of printers, bookbinders, artists, and calligraphers—of lost books that have no surviving example, unwritten books that were planned but left unfinished, and fictive works that exist only in fiction. Highlights of the exhibition include William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Won, the lost sequel to Love’s Labour’s Lost; Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, stolen from his wife’s bag on a French train in 1922; and the Necronomicon, John Dee’s copy of the eldritch grimoire that has been kept sealed in a Wells Fargo strongbox, as a precaution, since the Krickle accident of 1967. An accompanying book will be published by Oak Knoll and Club Fortsas.

Jonathan Senchyne on The Salisbury Club: Buffalo Bibliophiles
2025-02-14 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago)
Sponsored by the Caxton Club.
February Midday Program
Jonathan Senchyne, Associate Professor & Director, Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture, University of Wisconsin – Madison

Oh we’re gonna shuffle-uffle-uffle off to Buffalo.
You won’t have to navigate the crowds at Grand Central Station to shuffle off to Buffalo. Just click a Zoom link and you’ll be transported to the Nickel City during what designers now call the mid-Century modern era.
As you arrive, you’ll be swept along to meet the Salisbury Club, a bibliophilic society that grew out of a friends group of the rare books branch of the Buffalo Public Library. During their time together, the members promoted public collections at the Buffalo library, the local historical society, and the University of Buffalo.
They also published a handful of private fine press editions (with stunning wood-cut illustrations) that highlighted little known documents as well as national figures with upstate New York connections. (For instance, it’s an easy drive from Buffalo to Elmira … if there was any well-known author who took up a Conklin fountain pen there.)
If you’ll be eating lunch as you watch, and Buffalo wings are too spicy, then put some brats, cheese soup, and maybe a bottle of Spotted Cow on the menu. We’ll be in the company of Jonathan Senchyne, Associate Professor of Book History and Print Culture in the Information School and Director of the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Go Badgers!
So avoid a kerfuffle as off you shuffle and book into Buffalo today!
Preregistration required via website. Zoom presentation is free and open to all. Please forward this notice to anyone who may find it of interest.
Even if you can’t attend at the scheduled time, if you’re interested, please register. After the program, we’ll send anemail to all registrants, asking if you’d like a link to the complete recording. That way you can see the program even if you couldn’t attend live, ran into technical issues, or simply wanted to watch it again.
For more information, and to register, click here: https://caxtonclub.org/event-6029995/Registration
Register today!

The Man Beneath the Paint: California Impressionist Tilden Daken
2025-02-24 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California
The untold, multifaceted story of one of the most adventurous and prolific landscape painters of the American West. California Impressionist Tilden Daken (1876–1935), famous in his day, painted in every California state park and national park in the West—from the redwood forests to the High Sierra—and beneath the Pacific Ocean in a custom-built diving bell. In The Man Beneath the Paint, Bonnie Portnoy, Daken’s granddaughter, has deftly defined his indomitable spirit, audacious exploits, insatiable curiosity, and endlessly colorful life during the era of California Impressionism—from the early 1900s to the onset of the Great Depression. A close friend of writer Jack London, Daken lost his home and studio in San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake, got caught up in the Mexican Revolution, and participated in the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. A portrait of perpetual motion, he ventured on art expeditions to Mexico, Baja, Hawaii, and the South Seas; spoke out against the oncoming forces of modern art; socialized with many famous personalities of his era; and demonstrated his sensory synesthesia to the Hollywood crowd, painting to music in the “key of red.” Notwithstanding his wanderings, frequent relocations, and persistent self-promotion, he painted constantly and with passion. His legacy lives on, thanks to the thousands of canvases he painted of California’s stunning scenery more than a century ago.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Bonnie Portnoy, author
To register for the online event, follow this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ulQ1JwWQQVi_-uknYvdbTg#/registration
