Jane Austen's Bookshelf, Private Presses, and Libraries in Fiction: February Books Roundup

Our ongoing look at new books that have recently caught the eye of our print and online editors.

Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend by Rebecca Romney

Expect a slew of books this year about Jane Austen in her 250th anniversary year, but this is a great one to set the ball rolling, a look at the women writers who were Austen's favourites and why they seem to have gone out of fashion. Romney reads the likes of Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth, and connects them to Austen. Published by Simon & Schuster

Small Presses in the Rocky Mountain West by Richard L Hardesty

From Rising Wolf Press, this encyclopaedic look at the small/private press movement the Rocky Mountain states focuses on the history of four important presses - Black Stone, Calliopea, Kutenai and Dooryard - plus publication checklists and images of title pages/covers. The text is set in Golden Cockerel.

Shelf Life: A Journey Through the Past, Present & Future of Bookselling and Publishing in Britain by Michael Robb

Publisher and former bookseller Robb looks at the how books were sold and published over the last 2,000 years, particularly the last 40 years, where we are now, and what's coming towards us this century. From The History Press.

Dorothy Parker in Hollywood by Gail Crowther

Parker's ups and downs in Hollywood are put under the microscope, including her work on the screenplay of the 1937 A Star Is Born, her involvement with anti-fascist groups, and her work in the civil rights movement. Publisher: Gallery Books

The Grammar of Angels: A Search for the Magical Powers of Language by Edward Wilson-Lee

Wilson-Lee explores Renaissance intellectual Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and his investigations into the power of language and philosophy to answer our most fundamental questions about life, the universe, and everything. From HarperCollins.

What in Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost by Orlando Reade

Lit crit meets political history in the story of John Milton's epic poem, how he came to write it, and the influence it has had on the world down the centuries including its impact on the likes of Malcolm X, Thomas Jefferson, George Eliot, Hannah Arendt, and C.L.R James. Reade also uses his own experience of teaching  Paradise Lost in New Jersey prisons. From Astra House.

A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker edited by Kevin Young

Seamus Heaney, Louise Glück, Randall Jarrell, Langston Hughes, Derek Walcott, Sylvia Plath, E. E. Cummings, Sharon Olds, Sandra Cisneros, Amanda Gorman, and many, many more, arranged according to times in the day from 'Morning Bell' to 'Night Shift'. Published by Knopf

Women Booksellers in the Twentieth Century: Hidden Behind the Bookshelves by Samantha J. Rayner 

A new title in the always excellent Elements in Publishing and Book Culture series from Cambridge University Press. This one celebrates British women booksellers who set up successful book businesses but have since been largely forgotten.

E-books and ‘Real Books’ by Laura Dietz 

And in the same series, a look at how people perceive online book reading compared to 'real books' and the cultural value of e-books.

Books, Readers and Libraries in Fiction edited by Karen Attar and Andrew Nash

Essays on how these three subjects have appeared in fiction since medieval times right up to the present day, primarily in British fiction, looking at common themes including gender, genre and the relation between reading and writing itself. From University of London Press, puublished in association with the Institute of English Studies

The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History by Selena Wisnom

Assyriologist Wisnom introduces us to ancient Mesopatamia via the 7th century BCE library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal which was burned to the ground but survives in part on clay tablets preserved by the heat. Published by Allen Lane

Literary Illusions: Performance Magic and Victorian Literature by  Christopher Pittard

A fascinating look at the connections between Victorian literature and 19th century conjuring
 and conjurors, Charles Dickens' interest in the art, and what it all meant for ideas about authorship and intellectual property. From Edinburgh University Press.

Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women by Hetta Howes

An investigation into the lives of medieval women through four who committed their experiences to paper, poet Marie de France, mystics Julian of Norwich and Margary Kempe, and court writer Christine de Pizan. Published by Bloomsbury.