History of Books & Printing Reading Group
Below are a good number of the books we have read, in no particular order:
PHILOBIBLION by Richard de Bury, a collector of books who lived in the 14th century.
MR. PENUMBRA'S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE: A NOVEL by Robin Sloan.
THE SUN AND THE MOON: THE REMARKABLE TRUE ACCOUNT OF HOAXERS, SHOWMEN, DUELING JOURNALISTS, AND LUNAR MAN-BATS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY NEW YORK by Matthew Goodman.
CODEX SINAITICUS : THE STORY OF THE WORLD'S OLDEST BIBLE by D.C. Parker.
HENRY E. HUNTINGTON'S LIBRARY OF LIBRARIES by Donald C. Dickinson
A NEW WORLD: ENGLAND'S FIRST VIEW OF AMERICA by Kim Sloan
CAXTON IN FOCUS : THE BEGINNING OF PRINTING IN ENGLAND by Lottie Hellinga
THE UNSPEAKABLE CURLL: BEING SOME ACCOUNT OF EDMUND CURLL, BOOKSELLER by Ralph Strauss
THE ARCHIMEDES CODEX: HOW A MEDIEVAL PRAYER BOOK IS REVEALING THE TRUE GENIUS OF ANTIQUITY'S GREATEST SCIENTIST by Reviel Netz and William Noel
THE BOOK IN THE RENAISSANCE by Andrew Pettegree
THE RISE OF ROBERT DODSLEY : CREATING THE NEW AGE OF PRINT by Harry Solomon
TO HAVE AND TO HOLD : AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING by Philip Blom
PENGUIN BY DESIGN: A COVER STORY 1935-2005
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH by Richard W. Bailey
THE RAVEN KING : MATTHIAS CORVINUS AND THE FATE OF HIS LOST LIBRARY by Marcus Tanner
THE RIDDLE AND THE KNIGHT: IN SEARCH OF SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE, THE WORLD'S GREATEST TRAVELER by Giles Milton
KEEPERS OF THE FLAME: LITERARY ESTATES AND THE RISE OF BIOGRAPHY by Ian Hamilton
THE SCHOLAR IN HIS STUDY: OWNERSHIP AND EXPERIENCE IN RENAISSANCE ITALY by Dora Thornton
THE BOOK AS HISTORY : THE IMPORTANCE OF BOOKS BEYOND THEIR TEXTS by David Pearson
JUST MY TYPE: A BOOK ABOUT FONTS by Simon Garfield
DR. ROSENBACH AND MR. LILLY: BOOK COLLECTING IN A GOLDEN AGE by Joel Silver
AUDUBON'S ELEPHANT : THE STRUGGLE TO PUBLISH BIRDS OF AMERICA by Duff Hart-Davis
THE SWERVE : HOW THE WORLD BECAME MODERN by Stephen Greenblatt
JACOB TONSON, KIT-CAT PUBLISHER by Kathleen Martha Lynch
THE NATION'S GREAT LIBRARY: HERBERT PUTNAM AND THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 1899-1939 by Jane A. Rosenberg
THE "BOOK OF MORMON": A BIOGRAPHY by Paul C. Gutjahr
UNDER THE HAMMER: BOOK AUCTIONS SINCE THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY edited by Robin Myers et. al.
WILLIAM CAXTON by George D. Painter
PETER MARK ROGET: THE WORLD AND THE MAN by Emblen
FINDING ATLANTIS: A TRUE STORY OF GENIUS, MADNESS, AND AN EXTRAORDINARY QUEST FOR A LOST WORLD by David King
AN ILLUMINATED LIFE: BELLA DA COSTA GREENE'S JOURNEY FROM PREJUDICE TO PRIVILEGE by Heidi Ardizzone
THE BOOK OF WILLIAM: HOW SHAKESPEARE'S FIRST FOLIO CONQUERED THE WORLD by Paul Collins
WITH ALL FAULTS by David Low, a memoir of a British bookseller
PRINTING PRESSES : HISTORY & DEVELOPMENT by James Moran
FLASH PRESS: SPORTING MALE WEEKLIES IN 1840S NEW YORK by Patrica Cohen
DR. JOHNSON'S PRINTER : THE LIFE OF WILLIAM STRAHAN by J. A. Cochrane
A HISTORY OF THE FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR by Peter Weidhaas and others
BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD by Andrew Taylor
MAPPING THE WORLD by Peter Whitfield
WYNKYN DE WORDE, FATHER OF FLEET STREET by James Moran
Late Booking by Paul Minet
Reading Matters: Five Centuries of Discovering Books by Margaret Willes
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh by David Damrosch
OZ and Beyond: the Fantasy World of L. Frank Baum by Michael Riley
The Book: a History of the Bible by Christopher De Hamel
Bookleggers and Smuthounds : the Trade in Erotica 1920-1940 by Jay A, Gertzman
Thrown to the Woolfs: Leonard & Virginia Woolf and the Hogarth Press by John Lehmann
The Art of the Bookplate by James P. Keenan
English Emblem Books by Rosemary Freeman
First With the News : The History of W. H. Smith 1792-1972 by Charles Wilson
Books on Fire : the Destruction of Libraries Throughout History by Lucien Polastron
Grub Street Stripped Bare by Philip Pinkus
Seeing Shelley Plain: Memories of New York's Legendary Phoenix Book Shop by Robert Wilson
A Book For Sixpence : the Circulating Library in America by David Kaser
History of the Book in Canada Vol. 1: Beginnings to 1840
Patience & Fortitude: a Roving Chronicle of Book Pople, Book Places, and Book Places by Nicholas Basbanes
A Splendor of Letters: the Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World by Nicholas Basbanes
Shakespeare & Company: the Story of an American Bookshop in Paris by Sylvia Beach
Encyclopedie : The Triumph of Reason in an Unreasonable Age by Philip Blom
The Printed Book in America by Joseph Blumenthal
In the Stacks: Short Stories About Libraries and Librarians by Michael Cart
Libraries in the Ancient World by Lionel Casson
At Random: the Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf (Random House) by Bennett Cerf
Mercator: the Man Who Mapped the Planet by Nicolas Crane
Great Natural History Books and Their Creators by Ray Desmond
Booked To Die by John Dunning
The Adventures of a Treasure Hunter by Charles P. Everitt
The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus by Owen Gingerich
Two Renaissance Book Hunters: the Letters of Poggius Bracciolini to Nicolaus de Niccolis by Phyllis Walter & Goodheart Gordon, editor & translator
Measuring Eternity: the Search for the Beginning of Time by Martin Gorst
Banned Books 387 B.C. to 1978 A.D by Anne Haight and Chandler Grannis
Great Forgers and Famous Fakes by Charles Hamilton
The Popular Book, A History of America's Literary Taste by James Hart
The History of the Illustrated Book: the Western Tradition by John Harthan
Treasure Hunt: A NYT Reporter Tracks the Quedlinburg Hoard by William H. Honan
Papermaking: the History & Technique of an Ancient Craft by Dard Hunter
Ex-Libris by Ross King
Outwitting History by Aaron Lansky
Type: the Secret History of Letters by Simon Loxley
In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and A Culture by Alister McGrath
The Book: the Story of Printing & Bookmaking by Douglas McMurtrie
Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words by John Man
A History of Reading by Albert Manguel
Book Row: an Anecdotal & Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade by Marvin Mondalin & Roy Meador
Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morely
The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte
The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski
Adventurer's All by Rita Ricketts
Playing Darts With a Rembrandt: Public and Private Rights in Cultural Treasures by Joseph L. Sax
Boswell's Presumptuous Task: the Making of the Life of Johnson by Adam Sisman
Five Hundred Years of Printing by S. H. Steinberg. new edition. ed. by John Trevitt
Pepys: the Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin
Design of Books by Adrian Wilson
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
The Meaning of Everything: the Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
The Poet and the Murderer: a True Story of Literary Crime and the Art of Forgery by Simon Worrall
The Mapmakers by John Noble Wilford
PHILOBIBLION by Richard de Bury, a collector of books who lived in the 14th century.
MR. PENUMBRA'S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE: A NOVEL by Robin Sloan.
THE SUN AND THE MOON: THE REMARKABLE TRUE ACCOUNT OF HOAXERS, SHOWMEN, DUELING JOURNALISTS, AND LUNAR MAN-BATS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY NEW YORK by Matthew Goodman.
CODEX SINAITICUS : THE STORY OF THE WORLD'S OLDEST BIBLE by D.C. Parker.
HENRY E. HUNTINGTON'S LIBRARY OF LIBRARIES by Donald C. Dickinson
A NEW WORLD: ENGLAND'S FIRST VIEW OF AMERICA by Kim Sloan
CAXTON IN FOCUS : THE BEGINNING OF PRINTING IN ENGLAND by Lottie Hellinga
THE UNSPEAKABLE CURLL: BEING SOME ACCOUNT OF EDMUND CURLL, BOOKSELLER by Ralph Strauss
THE ARCHIMEDES CODEX: HOW A MEDIEVAL PRAYER BOOK IS REVEALING THE TRUE GENIUS OF ANTIQUITY'S GREATEST SCIENTIST by Reviel Netz and William Noel
THE BOOK IN THE RENAISSANCE by Andrew Pettegree
THE RISE OF ROBERT DODSLEY : CREATING THE NEW AGE OF PRINT by Harry Solomon
TO HAVE AND TO HOLD : AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING by Philip Blom
PENGUIN BY DESIGN: A COVER STORY 1935-2005
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH by Richard W. Bailey
THE RAVEN KING : MATTHIAS CORVINUS AND THE FATE OF HIS LOST LIBRARY by Marcus Tanner
THE RIDDLE AND THE KNIGHT: IN SEARCH OF SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE, THE WORLD'S GREATEST TRAVELER by Giles Milton
KEEPERS OF THE FLAME: LITERARY ESTATES AND THE RISE OF BIOGRAPHY by Ian Hamilton
THE SCHOLAR IN HIS STUDY: OWNERSHIP AND EXPERIENCE IN RENAISSANCE ITALY by Dora Thornton
THE BOOK AS HISTORY : THE IMPORTANCE OF BOOKS BEYOND THEIR TEXTS by David Pearson
JUST MY TYPE: A BOOK ABOUT FONTS by Simon Garfield
DR. ROSENBACH AND MR. LILLY: BOOK COLLECTING IN A GOLDEN AGE by Joel Silver
AUDUBON'S ELEPHANT : THE STRUGGLE TO PUBLISH BIRDS OF AMERICA by Duff Hart-Davis
THE SWERVE : HOW THE WORLD BECAME MODERN by Stephen Greenblatt
JACOB TONSON, KIT-CAT PUBLISHER by Kathleen Martha Lynch
THE NATION'S GREAT LIBRARY: HERBERT PUTNAM AND THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 1899-1939 by Jane A. Rosenberg
THE "BOOK OF MORMON": A BIOGRAPHY by Paul C. Gutjahr
UNDER THE HAMMER: BOOK AUCTIONS SINCE THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY edited by Robin Myers et. al.
WILLIAM CAXTON by George D. Painter
PETER MARK ROGET: THE WORLD AND THE MAN by Emblen
FINDING ATLANTIS: A TRUE STORY OF GENIUS, MADNESS, AND AN EXTRAORDINARY QUEST FOR A LOST WORLD by David King
AN ILLUMINATED LIFE: BELLA DA COSTA GREENE'S JOURNEY FROM PREJUDICE TO PRIVILEGE by Heidi Ardizzone
THE BOOK OF WILLIAM: HOW SHAKESPEARE'S FIRST FOLIO CONQUERED THE WORLD by Paul Collins
WITH ALL FAULTS by David Low, a memoir of a British bookseller
PRINTING PRESSES : HISTORY & DEVELOPMENT by James Moran
FLASH PRESS: SPORTING MALE WEEKLIES IN 1840S NEW YORK by Patrica Cohen
DR. JOHNSON'S PRINTER : THE LIFE OF WILLIAM STRAHAN by J. A. Cochrane
A HISTORY OF THE FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR by Peter Weidhaas and others
BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD by Andrew Taylor
MAPPING THE WORLD by Peter Whitfield
WYNKYN DE WORDE, FATHER OF FLEET STREET by James Moran
Late Booking by Paul Minet
Reading Matters: Five Centuries of Discovering Books by Margaret Willes
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh by David Damrosch
OZ and Beyond: the Fantasy World of L. Frank Baum by Michael Riley
The Book: a History of the Bible by Christopher De Hamel
Bookleggers and Smuthounds : the Trade in Erotica 1920-1940 by Jay A, Gertzman
Thrown to the Woolfs: Leonard & Virginia Woolf and the Hogarth Press by John Lehmann
The Art of the Bookplate by James P. Keenan
English Emblem Books by Rosemary Freeman
First With the News : The History of W. H. Smith 1792-1972 by Charles Wilson
Books on Fire : the Destruction of Libraries Throughout History by Lucien Polastron
Grub Street Stripped Bare by Philip Pinkus
Seeing Shelley Plain: Memories of New York's Legendary Phoenix Book Shop by Robert Wilson
A Book For Sixpence : the Circulating Library in America by David Kaser
History of the Book in Canada Vol. 1: Beginnings to 1840
Patience & Fortitude: a Roving Chronicle of Book Pople, Book Places, and Book Places by Nicholas Basbanes
A Splendor of Letters: the Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World by Nicholas Basbanes
Shakespeare & Company: the Story of an American Bookshop in Paris by Sylvia Beach
Encyclopedie : The Triumph of Reason in an Unreasonable Age by Philip Blom
The Printed Book in America by Joseph Blumenthal
In the Stacks: Short Stories About Libraries and Librarians by Michael Cart
Libraries in the Ancient World by Lionel Casson
At Random: the Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf (Random House) by Bennett Cerf
Mercator: the Man Who Mapped the Planet by Nicolas Crane
Great Natural History Books and Their Creators by Ray Desmond
Booked To Die by John Dunning
The Adventures of a Treasure Hunter by Charles P. Everitt
The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus by Owen Gingerich
Two Renaissance Book Hunters: the Letters of Poggius Bracciolini to Nicolaus de Niccolis by Phyllis Walter & Goodheart Gordon, editor & translator
Measuring Eternity: the Search for the Beginning of Time by Martin Gorst
Banned Books 387 B.C. to 1978 A.D by Anne Haight and Chandler Grannis
Great Forgers and Famous Fakes by Charles Hamilton
The Popular Book, A History of America's Literary Taste by James Hart
The History of the Illustrated Book: the Western Tradition by John Harthan
Treasure Hunt: A NYT Reporter Tracks the Quedlinburg Hoard by William H. Honan
Papermaking: the History & Technique of an Ancient Craft by Dard Hunter
Ex-Libris by Ross King
Outwitting History by Aaron Lansky
Type: the Secret History of Letters by Simon Loxley
In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and A Culture by Alister McGrath
The Book: the Story of Printing & Bookmaking by Douglas McMurtrie
Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words by John Man
A History of Reading by Albert Manguel
Book Row: an Anecdotal & Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade by Marvin Mondalin & Roy Meador
Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morely
The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte
The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski
Adventurer's All by Rita Ricketts
Playing Darts With a Rembrandt: Public and Private Rights in Cultural Treasures by Joseph L. Sax
Boswell's Presumptuous Task: the Making of the Life of Johnson by Adam Sisman
Five Hundred Years of Printing by S. H. Steinberg. new edition. ed. by John Trevitt
Pepys: the Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin
Design of Books by Adrian Wilson
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
The Meaning of Everything: the Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
The Poet and the Murderer: a True Story of Literary Crime and the Art of Forgery by Simon Worrall
The Mapmakers by John Noble Wilford
This reading group has been meeting at Motte & Bailey since October 2001, reading works about books, printing, and publishing from fiction to forgery. Books for the next meeting are determined at the end of each meeting, and members are encouraged to bring books to suggest or simply to show before the meeting. We always try to meet the 1st Wednesday of each month. See our Book Events page for our next meeting.
A small number of copies of each month's book are available at the shop.
To join the group or learn more, please contact us at 734.669.0451 or motte [at] mottebooks [dot] com. Directions are here.
A small number of copies of each month's book are available at the shop.
To join the group or learn more, please contact us at 734.669.0451 or motte [at] mottebooks [dot] com. Directions are here.
Books we are considering:
EDMUND CURLL, BOOKSELLER by Paul Baines and Pat Rogers
FOURTH PART OF THE WORLD : THE RACE TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, AND THE EPIC STORY OF THE MAP THAT GAVE AMERICA ITS NAME by Toby Lester
A HISTORY OF PLAYING CARDS AND A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CARDS AND GAMING by Catherine Hargrave
REVOLUTION IN PRINT: THE PRESS IN FRANCE, 1775-1800 by Darnton et. al. (essays)
ANONYMITY: A SECRET HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE by Mullan
THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES: THE GOLDEN AGE OF GREAT AMERICAN BOOK PUBLISHERS, THEIR EDITORS AND AUTHORS by Silverman
INCLINED TOWARD MAGIC: ENCOUNTERS WITH BOOKS, COLLECTORS, AND CONJURORS by Meyer
THE ALEPPO CODEX : A TRUE STORY OF OBSESSION, FAITH AND THE PURSUIT OF AN ANCIENT BIBLE by Matti Friedman
THE BOOK THAT CHANGED EUROPE: PICART AND BERNARD'S RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE WORLD by Lynn Hunt, Margaret C. Jacob and Wijnand Mijnhardt
A HEAVENLY CRAFT: THE WOODCUT IN EARLY PRINTED BOOKS by Daniel De Simone, Lilian Armstrong and Daniela Laube
COPYRIGHT'S HIGHWAY: FROM GUTENBERG TO THE CELESTIAL JUKEBOX by Paul Goldstein
NO ART WITHOUT CRAFT: THE LIFE OF THEODORE LOW DE VINNE, PRINTER by Irene Tichenor
DOCTOR F.J. FURNIVALL: VICTORIAN SCHOLAR ADVENTURER by William Benzie
CHRISTOPHER PLANTIN by Colin Clair
THE STATIONERS' COMPANY: A HISTORY, 1403-1959 by Cyprian Blagden
THE AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED BOOK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY edited by Gerald W. R. Ward
BY ITS COVER: MODERN AMERICAN BOOK COVER DESIGN by Ned Drew and Paul Sternberger
EDMUND CURLL, BOOKSELLER by Paul Baines and Pat Rogers
FOURTH PART OF THE WORLD : THE RACE TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, AND THE EPIC STORY OF THE MAP THAT GAVE AMERICA ITS NAME by Toby Lester
A HISTORY OF PLAYING CARDS AND A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CARDS AND GAMING by Catherine Hargrave
REVOLUTION IN PRINT: THE PRESS IN FRANCE, 1775-1800 by Darnton et. al. (essays)
ANONYMITY: A SECRET HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE by Mullan
THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES: THE GOLDEN AGE OF GREAT AMERICAN BOOK PUBLISHERS, THEIR EDITORS AND AUTHORS by Silverman
INCLINED TOWARD MAGIC: ENCOUNTERS WITH BOOKS, COLLECTORS, AND CONJURORS by Meyer
THE ALEPPO CODEX : A TRUE STORY OF OBSESSION, FAITH AND THE PURSUIT OF AN ANCIENT BIBLE by Matti Friedman
THE BOOK THAT CHANGED EUROPE: PICART AND BERNARD'S RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE WORLD by Lynn Hunt, Margaret C. Jacob and Wijnand Mijnhardt
A HEAVENLY CRAFT: THE WOODCUT IN EARLY PRINTED BOOKS by Daniel De Simone, Lilian Armstrong and Daniela Laube
COPYRIGHT'S HIGHWAY: FROM GUTENBERG TO THE CELESTIAL JUKEBOX by Paul Goldstein
NO ART WITHOUT CRAFT: THE LIFE OF THEODORE LOW DE VINNE, PRINTER by Irene Tichenor
DOCTOR F.J. FURNIVALL: VICTORIAN SCHOLAR ADVENTURER by William Benzie
CHRISTOPHER PLANTIN by Colin Clair
THE STATIONERS' COMPANY: A HISTORY, 1403-1959 by Cyprian Blagden
THE AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED BOOK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY edited by Gerald W. R. Ward
BY ITS COVER: MODERN AMERICAN BOOK COVER DESIGN by Ned Drew and Paul Sternberger
