Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and Their Makers | 
"At some point before his death in 1345, Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham (1287-1345) composed his Philobiblon ('Love of Books'), in which he set out to 'clear the love we have had for books from the charge of excess.'
I love de Bury's treatise: it is a battle-hymn for the value of books and learning: 'in books we climb mountains and scan the deepest gulfs of the abyss'."
Edith Rickert died a few months before the first volume of the edition was pub lished, and Manly six months afterwards. (Predictably, Rickert's work was undervalued, as it still is today. In the introduction to the edition, Manly praised Rickert for having a 'woman's capacity for enormous drudgery, and to this day, Manly has an entry in the Dictionary of American National Biography, but Rickert does not.)
*boo hiss*
A big breakfast for a big book...
This is Elisabeth Danes's book, he that steals it shall be hanged by a crook...
pickThis was just the sort of thing I wanted right now during my exam revision period; I don't have the brainspace to get absorbed in people's emotional ups and downs too much, I just want to read about interesting things. I really liked the section on the family's letters, which was not what I expected from this book... really wished it would discuss the Gawain-manuscript or something instead of Beowulf like everyone else does.
Great article - especially love the description of the ‘actor‘ making a whole act of every word on the page - and in doing so loosing the story!
Tagged is a book I loved on audio!
https://www.vulture.com/2022/05/audiobook-performer-actor-reader-good-bad.html?u...
A great read about the general unreliableness of anything you read in print! Pretty cover, really engaging narrative - spotlighting the role of women that is so often written out of the story - plus fab photos!
pickI knew next to nothing about ancient manuscripts & Wellesley takes us on a fascinating journey meeting authors, scribes, collectors, religious folk, historians & illustrators. She makes it so engaging - in detective mode she examines the words on the page, the stories behind those words and what's missing. She relooks with a modern eye, bringing diversity & women back into the history of time. It was both informative and engaging.I learnt to much!
I‘ve just finished a novel that was beautiful and heart wrenching. So next up - something that feels a little bit safer emotionally! Although I could be wrong !
