JRR Tolkien book Beren and Lúthien published after 100 years

“A new book by Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien is going on sale – 100 years after it was first conceived,” BBC News has reported.

Image source: BBC News

Review #12 – The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard Feynman

Download the PDF here.

Review #11 – 84, Charing Cross Road (Slightly Foxed Editions) by Helene Hanff (2015)

Link to: Slightly Foxed Editions No. 32

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Review #10 – Poems That Make Grown Men Cry by Anthony and Ben Holden (2014)

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New Faber Members Collectors’ Edition of Seamus Heaney available

Faber & Faber has just announced the publication of their latest Faber Members Collectors’ Edition: Seamus Heaney’s New Selected Poems 1966–1987. This is the second Collectors’ Edition after The Buried Giant by Kazou Ishiguro that I covered in an earlier post. This looks absolutely wonderful. The price is £50.

Faber — “Our latest Collectors’ Edition presents Seamus Heaney’s own selection from the first half of his extraordinary career. Sewn and bound by hand in Yorkshire, and with a first impression of only 400 copies, this edition is exclusive to Faber Members.

From the outset, Seamus Heaney’s writing was ‘mature and certain in its touch’, as Austin Clarke conferred in the Irish Times, throughout a run of epoch-making volumes in the 1960s and ’70s: Death of a Naturalist (1966), Door into the Dark (1969), Wintering Out (1972) and North (1975). The bravura pieces of Field Work (1979) and Station Island (1984) that followed culminated in the Whitbread Prize for Poetry with The Haw Lantern (1987).

Since its original publication in 1990, New Selected Poems 1966-1987 has become a seminal edition, containing many of Seamus Heaney’s most cherished and studied poems, ‘Digging’, ‘Mid-Term Break’, ‘The Tollund Man’ and ‘Casualty’ among them. Together with its later, sibling volume, New Selected Poems 1988-2013, it opens the story on Seamus Heaney’s calling as a poet.”

Review #9 – My Brief History by Stephen Hawking (2013)

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Hay Festival from 21 – 31 May 2015

HAY FESTIVAL 21–31 MAY 2015: I would really love to go if I could afford it. This and The London Book Fair at Olympia are both what’s been on my mind for years. I guess booking flights tickets, hotel and all that wouldn’t come cheap. So it’s definitely something I need to save for in addition to all that book buying from Folio! One day though I will. This sounds like the perfect place for me! I love the poster. Don’t know who designed the poster but would love to have a higher resolution image.

If you’re so lucky to be in London, then remember to book your tickets early on www.hayfestival.com

Hay Festival—“Hay Festival brings together the best writers and readers to share stories and ideas. At Hay you can enjoy great writers and thinkers from around the world and discover new ideas in the arts and sciences, politics and history. Among the star writers speaking this year are Vikram Seth, Elif Shafak, Meera Syal, Asne Seierstad, Yuval Noah Harari, Azar Nafisi and Helen Macdonald. The festival celebrates the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta by inviting writers and thinkers to examine ‘what we would like’ in the fields of law, education, warfare, democracy and equality – and inviting Haymakers to pitch some demands for a new charter.”

Faber & Faber launches Faber Members

Faber & Faber has launched a wonderful collection of Collectors’ Editions available to Faber Members. Price for 12 books delivered every month is £500. That’s around £42 per book and Faber is offering free delivery to UK customers, £8 delivery to European customers. The inaugural first volume is Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant and can be bought separately for £50. No words yet on whether they are illustrated but what’s interesting is that one member from Twitter John Self has described these as: “Here’s lovely. Faber launches Faber Members, offering Folio Society-style beautiful editions of Faber books.”

You can read more below.

Faber and Faber – As the top tier of Faber membership, Faber Collectors receive 12 Collectors’ Editions over the course of a year plus a host of other benefits. In addition, the first 50 Faber Collectors will each receive an unreleased special edition of T. S. Eliot’s The Ariel Poems.

Collectors’ Editions are printed in England on a small, sheet-fed, Heidelberg press. Each volume is sewn and bound by hand, using a quarter-bound case of real cloth, and finished with full colour printed endpapers, head and tail bands and a ribbon marker. Collectors’ Editions are selected and introduced by Faber’s editors.

Your first Collectors’ Edition will be Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant. Subsequent books will include Seamus Heaney’s New Selected Poems 1966-1987, P. D. James’ Cover Her Face, Simon Armitage’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and, to celebrate three decades since its first Faber publication, Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Full benefits include:

12 Collectors’ Editions, one delivered each month for a year
25% off almost all books at Faber.co.uk; and 25% off Faber Academy courses plus a free 1-day course (subject to availability)
Invitations to Members-only events

To find out more, call us on 020 7927 3868 or email members@faber.co.uk.

Folio Society publishes A New Birth of Freedom: Selected Writings of Abraham Lincoln @foliosociety

Illustration © Folio Society 2015 from A New Birth of Freedom: Selected Writings of Abraham Lincoln

The Folio Society has released a press release announcing it’s newest edition of A New Birth of Freedom: Selected Writings of Abraham Lincoln, commemorating the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination.

The Folio Society – “The Folio Society publishes a new selection of Abraham Lincoln’s writings to mark the 150th anniversary of his assassination in April 1865. Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Award finalist Professor Fred Kaplan has gathered together Lincoln’s most celebrated thoughts and words along with many less well-known examples of his oratorical and literary genius. Kaplan also introduces the volume and provides a thoughtful commentary for each chapter.”

To read more, see their Press Release and PDF.

Product information

Introduced by Fred Kaplan
Quarter-bound in metallic buckram with printed Modigliani paper sides.
Set in Dante.
552 pages.
Frontispiece and 33 pages of colour and black & white plates.
10˝ x 6¾˝.
UK £49.95 US $89.95 Can/Aus $99.95

Available now directly from The Folio Society. Members’ launch price: £44.95 (10% discount) available until 10 May 2015.

Copyright: All pictures are copyrighted by The Folio Society and are shown on Books and Typewriters for illustrative purposes only.

Illustration © Folio Society 2015 from A New Birth of Freedom: Selected Writings of Abraham Lincoln

Illustration © Folio Society 2015 from A New Birth of Freedom: Selected Writings of Abraham Lincoln

Illustration © Folio Society 2015 from A New Birth of Freedom: Selected Writings of Abraham Lincoln

Illustration © Folio Society 2015 from A New Birth of Freedom: Selected Writings of Abraham Lincoln

Illustration © Folio Society 2015. Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry. Photograph by William Morris Smith, 1863–6. (Library of Congress)

Illustration © Folio Society 2015. Union army recruiting poster, September 1861. (Library of Congress Rare Book & Special Collections Division.

Illustration © Folio Society 2015. The Eagle’s Nest. The Union! It Must and Shall Be Preserved. Coloured lithograph published by E. B. and E. C. Kellog, 1861. (Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Divis, Washington, DC)

Illustration © Folio Society 2015. Mary Todd Lincoln. Daguerrotype by Nicholas H. Shepherd, 1846 or 1847. (Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Washington, DC)

Illustration © Folio Society 2015. The Tallest Ruler on the Globe is Inaugurated at Washington… Caricature (detail) by William Newman, April 1865. MS Lincoln 1. (Houghton Library, Harvard University)

Folio Society publishes Dune, @foliosociety

The Folio Society has released a press release announcing it’s newest collector’s edition of DUNE by Frank Herbert.

The Folio Society – “The Folio Society announces the publication of its much-anticipated edition of Frank Herbert’s classic science-fiction novel, Dune, illustrated by US artist Sam Weber. Through a series of acutely detailed illustrations, Weber perfectly captures the intricacies of Herbert’s vision. A limited edition poster of the striking cover image of Paul Atreides will accompany each book purchased from the initial print run.

To read more, see their Press Release and PDF. Product information

Illustrated by Sam Weber
Introduced by Michael Dirda
Afterword by Brian Herbert
Bound in metallic buckram, printed and blocked with a design by Sam Weber.
Set in Dante with Helvetica Neue and Black Tulip display.
Frontispiece and 11 colour illustrations including 3 double-page spreads plus a number of black & white chapter head illustrations.
Printed map endpapers by Martin Sanders.
Metallic printed slipcase.
10″ x 6¾”.
576 pages
£75. US $125.00 Can/Aus $150.00

Publication date 2 April 2015. You can’t order it online yet. They are anticipating a high demand, so are currently taking telephone pre-orders for this title: UK / EUR +44 (0)207 400 4200 | US +1 866 255 8280 (toll-free) | CAN +1 866 255 7314 (toll-free) or contact The Folio Society directly.

Copyright: All pictures are copyrighted by The Folio Society and are shown on Books and Typewriters for illustrative purposes only. Design by Sam Weber, via Folio Society.