Thursday, January 18, 2007

Old books

Anthony Grafton at the New Republic on an exhibition of bibles from before the year 1000 (via the Powell's blog).

Here is the gallery link (it's the Sackler, in Washington), but I am sorry to see it's already over. (Isn't there something magical about the word scriptorium?) Might be worth getting the catalog/book, though...

I am making a resolution (related to a conjectural new project) to learn much, much more about the history of reading, especially from the quite early days of reading and writing. But I'd also like to see more artists' books and such, they're something that appeals to me greatly but they're often hived away in rare book collections where you have to known in advance what you're looking for. The Yale Center for British Art has some extraordinary ones: doesn't this list make you drool?

1 comment:

  1. Yes, I love that word! The new Paul Auster book is called "Tales From the Scriptorium" (something like that)...

    And — I haven't checked it in a while, but there's a website called "The Scriptorium" that gathers info. about interesting writers — actually it's called "The Modern Word," one section is the Scriptorium...

    http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/lem.html

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