wrote a short blog about one of my favourite images in the book - a figure of 'true' and 'feigned' ginger, and what it might mean for a plant to be false. cambridgeblog.org/2026/03/trea...
Some delights, even. No Dwights were present AFAIK
Some Dwight’s from today’s class @uofglasgowasc.bsky.social Cross-Cultural Artistic Encounters in the Mediterranean, 1200-1700 HISTART5164 led by Anthi Andronikou. A 19c Ethiopic talisman scroll (an angel) and details from a cracking Andalusian Qur’an.
The latter was owned by Joseph Ames and has a rather nice stamped binding
These are MS Gen 751 www.gla.ac.uk/collections/... and MS Hunter 479 (V.7.6) www.gla.ac.uk/collections/... respectively
Some Dwight’s from today’s class @uofglasgowasc.bsky.social Cross-Cultural Artistic Encounters in the Mediterranean, 1200-1700 HISTART5164 led by Anthi Andronikou. A 19c Ethiopic talisman scroll (an angel) and details from a cracking Andalusian Qur’an.
In 1787, Robert Burns acquired a diamond-tipped pen which he used to inscribe poems on windows & chimney-pieces across Scotland. “I Murder Hate” is Burns’s version of “make love, not war” #graffiti, & was etched into a window at the Globe Tavern, Dumfries
#WyrdWednesday #C18 #poem #poetry
Something nasty on the bookshelf: my review of @tanyakirk.bsky.social's collection of stories about books and libraries for @blpublishing.bsky.social, ‘The Haunted Library’ drfrancisyoung.com/2026/03/04/s... 📚👻
Calling all #UofG students! There is less than 1 week to apply for the David Murray Book Collecting Prize!
£500 will be awarded to the student with the best collection of books or printed materials 📘📕📙
To find out more and apply, go to www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/li....
We all slip. In 1591, so did 1 of Mynken Liefrinck’s workmen quite literally. While printing engravings for this edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses published by Jan I Moretus, a stray paper slip seems to have been left between plate & sheet. Its edge blocked ink, leaving a defined unprinted corner.
Pleasingly meta to find some printed binding waste with a whole page of definitions of the word bind/binding. In a medical work by Leonart Fuchs, printed at Lyons in 1550 & bequeathed to @theulspeccoll.bsky.social in 1591 by Thomas Lorkyn, Regius Professor of Physic. N*.13.49(G).
The “messy” course returns to London’s palaeography summer school, 8-12 June. A chance to make your own medieval manuscript. Places are limited so book now (tell your friends)! #medievalsky taught by the amazing @saracharles.bsky.social @stevelawesarts.bsky.social 👇🎨
palaeography.uk/study/short-...
Call for applications!
We are looking for a small press to take up a temporary residency at UCL!
£5,000 to spend flexibly, an opportunity to work with outstanding collections & collaborate with brilliant students and staff!
blogs.ucl.ac.uk/special-coll...
TCD Library is recruiting a Senior Bibliographer to help catalogue the Fagel Collection! This is a fabulous professional opportunity to work on one of Europe's great early modern private libraries. Closing 10 March at noon. Full details available at www.tcd.ie/hr/vacancies
Love opening up a box or two in the stacks to see what's inside and found two absolute treasures today. First up, a poor ruinous mid-sixteenth century primer which alas has not yet been mended, and doesn't appear in the catalogue. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social 1/2
Shoutout to my amazing colleagues at Cambridge & Birmingham on the 'Small Performances' project into John Baskerville's typographic punches - today is released a @camdiglib.bsky.social collection of imagery of the punches. Check it out! cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/...
Puzzle Binding!
Tricky! These are almost as rare as hen's teeth, and we just...
Had One???
And, it includes HOW Many Books? (Five from Germany c. 1601 and a blank one at last count...) #Vexierbuch #DosADos @newberrylibrary.bsky.social (Case C 823 .966)
Owning a printing office comes in handy when your family library needs labels for the books: just print the labels with the monogram on paper first, then paste it onto the spines!
#bookhistory #earlymodern #rarebooks 📚💙📜
My new book, An Injury to All: The Unmaking of the British Working Class, is now listed in Verso's trade catalogue for 2026.
You can find it here: versobooks.com/en-gb/pages/...
I nod and nod to my own shadow and thrust
A mountain down and down.
Between my feet a loch shines in the brown,
Its silver paper crinkled and edged with rust…
—Norman MacCaig, “Climbing Suilven”
from BETWEEN MOUNTAIN AND SEA: Poems From Assynt (Birlinn, 2018)
#poetry
birlinn.co.uk/product/betw...
This is my new book (26/026). It's the 1st time in years that I'll be published as 'Shona' rather than 'S.G.'and I am very happy to be reclaiming my name. It's about a reading society formed in a northern Scottish town in the 1830s. Drama ensues. (My mother-in-law crocheted the shawl 🧶)
Book launch: The Cromarty Library Circle
25 Feb, Dunkeld: £5
@shonamaclean.bsky.social launches her latest novel, THE CROMARTY LIBRARY CIRCLE: a Scottish town on the cusp of change & the townspeople whose lives will be irrevocably altered over one tumultuous year
www.culturepk.org.uk/event/an-eve...
New our blog, @jamesafox.bsky.social on Robert Burns and the how-to of barrel gauging 📏🛢📖🍺
howtobook.hypotheses.org/5697
#bookhistory #robertburns #taxes
Applications for our rare books librarian position at the University of Arizona are open until Feb 9 (next week)
We have a fab diverse collection, great people to work with, and amazing Mexican food.
arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...
I'm not on the search, please feel free to reach out w qs!
First London Palaeography Seminar of 2026 coming up! Eyal Poleg, no less, speaking on 'The Science of Erasures' - Tuesday 3rd February, 5:30pm Senate House and online. To learn more and to register:
ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...
This year's Stevenson Lecture will examine the library assembled at Auchincruive House in Ayr by Glasgow merchant Richard Oswald (c.1705–1784) — in light of Oswald’s extensive profits from the transatlantic slave trade.
📅 25 Feb, 6pm
📍 Senate House, London
This event is free, booking is required.
The most exciting #BookHistory talk of the season is coming up next week!
Join us @ransomcenter.bsky.social or online as Ann Blair delivers the 2026 Pforzheimer lecture. This talk has Erasmus, Gessner, and volumes both large &small!
Learn more: www.eventbrite.com/e/pforzheime...
#booksky 🗃️📜📚
Back to work! Happy New Year, all!
On reading both sides of a piece of paper: a mini essay
adamsmyth.substack.com/p/bothsidesi...
