• Golden Slumbers: California’s Dormant Fine Press Scene

    Sponsored by The Book Club of California. Building on themes from his book, Dreaming on the Edge: Poets & Book Artists in California, Alastair Johnston explores overlooked figures in the history of printing in the Golden State. Johnston’s work was the first in 80 years to assess the impact of small and fine presses on the […]

  • With Maternal Ferocity: Reclaiming Secular Yiddish Children’s Literature

    Sponsored by The Grolier Club Based on her new book Modern Jewish Worldmaking Through Yiddish Children’s Literature, Yiddish scholar Miriam Udel will reflect on her efforts to reclaim and revivify the corpus of secular Yiddish children’s literature published in Eastern Europe and the Americas during the 20th century. She will consider the relationship between the texts, […]

  • Miniature Book Society Conclave

    Sponsored by The Miniature Book Society Miniature Book Society Conclave The Miniature Book Society will hold a two day Virtual Conclave on Saturday and Sunday October 25 and 26, 2025. The two days will feature zoom presentations by miniature book artists and publishers, guest speakers, a Collector’s Showcase, and a timed online auction of miniature […]

  • A Journey in Bookplates: The Art and Life of California Designer Beulah Mitchell Clute

    Sponsored by the Book Club of California. Come along on a collector’s journey as Claudia Smukler takes you through the fascinating world of bookplates, also known as ex-libris. The term ex-libris refers to all marks of provenance in a book, including stamps, labels, and names written on the inside cover. Book owners have been doing this […]

  • The Yiddish Sherlock Holmes, Newly Translated

    Sponsored by The Grolier Club The debut of a new English translation of Yiddish novels starring the fictional Viennese detective Max Spitzkopf. In early 1900s pulp fiction, the Viennese detective Max Spitzkopf was an undefeated foe of villains and passionate defender of the Jewish people. When he is summoned, no matter how dangerous or seemingly […]

  • 100 Objects From the Collections of the YIVO Institute

    Sponsored by The Grolier Club A celebration of a new book, 100 Objects from the Collections of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. A pair of ruby red slippers. A medieval manuscript. A Yiddish folk medicine prescription. These and 97 other objects comprise a new centennial coffee-table-book, 100 Objects from the Collections of the YIVO Institute for […]

  • City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry

    Sponsored by The Book Club of California. California’s 1849 gold rush triggered creation of the “instant city” of San Francisco as a base to exploit the rich natural resources of the American West. City of Wood examines how capitalists and workers logged the state’s vast redwood forests to create the financial capital and construction materials needed to […]

  • Margaret Armstrong’s Book Covers

    Sponsored by Ohio State University Libraries with The Aldus Society Margaret Armstrong was one of the most celebrated and prolific book cover designers of the late 19th and early 20th century, with more than 300 known designs published over her 40-year career. Madison Good, of The Ohio State University's Thompson Library Special Collections, will discuss […]

  • Lauren Hewes on American Ephemera before 1900

    Sponsored by the Caxton Club. In this program, Lauren Hewes will introduce Caxton Club members to the Stephen D. Paine Collection of American Ephemera at the American Antiquarian Society, a national research library located in Worcester, Massachusetts. The talk will include an overview of the 18,000 objects in the Paine Collection – a private collection […]

  • New Light on Medieval Manuscript Culture

    Sponsored by The Grolier Club A new look at medieval monastic manuscript culture. Andrew Jotischky, Professor of Medieval History at Royal Holloway, University of London, will speak about the manuscript culture at the heart of his recent book, The Monastic World: A 1,200-Year History (Yale University Press, 2024). His talk will be followed by a conversation with […]

  • The Binfords & Mort Story: Publishing Books About Oregon, 1930-1983

    Sponsored by The Book Club of California. In 1891 while still teens in Portland, Oregon, Maurice and Peter Binford started an influential career as publishers. They went on to found the Binfords & Mort publishing company focused on Pacific Northwest literature. This talk will explore how this mostly forgotten company, once the largest publisher west […]

  • FABS Handpress Era Zoom Group: David Levy on Hoyle

    Sponsored by FABS David Levy will present "The Earliest Hoyles: what a bibliographer can learn from examining multiple copies." From 1742-1747 there were three authorized publishers of Hoyle's pamphlets on popular games of the day. Each publisher had a characteristic binding, from a richly tooled deluxe morocco at the high end, to drab paper wrappers […]