Journeys is the seventh annual exhibition of new works by the Altered Book Group. This year’s theme reflects on real and imagined journeys, the artist transforming the original content or structure of a book into a unique, purposeful, or whimsical expression. Among the works exhibited are elaborate folded book sculptures, tea cups and miniature “tea books,” and a wide range of fascinating books and scrolls made with mixed media collage techniques, paint, encaustic wax and stitching. The artists are: Judith Angelo, Catherine Anson, Cynthia Beeker, Phyllis Brody, Sarah Clague, Gene Epstein, Pat Pitingolo, and Anne Weissman.

All NOBS Forums are FREE and open to the public.

The forum will be held at Loganberry Books, 13015 Larchmere Boulevard, Shaker Heights 44120. There are many events at Loganberry Books. See their website for more details on upcoming events, including NOBS Forums.

So far she has written about Caliban Books, the Jane Austen Book Store, Kevin T. Ransom–Bookseller, The Toolshed, Curious Cat Books, Monmouth Fine Books, and the Guild of Book Workers and there are more forthcoming!

Check out these gems at the NOBS Facebook Page.

Saturday is Bag Dag. Fill a grocery bag for $3 (bags provided). Saturday after 2 pm is free to teachers & non-profits.

Items for sale come from donated and library withdrawn materials. Regular prices from 40 cents to $1.00. Special items priced as marked (most under $6).

For more information call: 330-688-3295.

Novelist, essayist, teacher, and speaker Joanne Dobson is the Kent State University Libraries’ 2013 Borowitz Lecturer. She will be presenting on bibliomysteries—mystery stories in which books or manuscripts are significant features of the plot, as in her own novel The Maltese Manuscript (2003). For many years, Dobson was a professor of English at Fordham University. She has also taught at Tufts University and Amherst College. Her scholarly work focuses on Emily Dickinson, popular American women’s literature, and the history of the book. In 1989 she published Dickinson and the Strategies of Reticence: The Woman Writer in Nineteenth-Century America. Her scholarly edition of E.D.E.N. Southworth’s The Hidden Hand was published in 1988.

Dobson is well-known for her series of mystery novels set at a fictional New England liberal arts college and featuring Professor Karen Pelletier, who, in the midst of teaching and working toward tenure, finds herself involved in a number of campus murder mysteries, all of which intersect with scholarly research, manuscripts, and academic politics. To date the series includes six novels: Quieter Than Sleep; The Northbury Papers; The Raven and the Nightingale; Cold and Pure and Very Dead; The Maltese Manuscript; and Death Without Tenure. Dobson’s latest novel, Face of the Enemy, is the first book in the New York in Wartime series, co-authored with Beverle Graves Myers.

The Borowitz Lecture is a program of the Kent State University Libraries and is held in honor of the Borowitz Crime Collection located in the Department of Special Collections and Archives. This year’s lecture will be held on Tuesday, April 9, at 3:00 p.m. in the Read Special Collections Classroom, room 1018 of the Kent State University Library. The event is free and open to the public. In tandem with this lecture, Special Collections and Archives is currently featuring selected examples of the bibliomystery genre in its exhibit Bibliomysteries: Bound by Crime. The exhibit will be open for viewing before and after the Borowitz Lecture. For more information, please contact the Department of Special Collections and Archives at 330-672-2270 or visit the department online at www.library.kent.edu/specialcollections.

REPAIRING CLOTH BOUND BOOKS: When your books fall apart, don’t throw them away. This class will teach you how to replace those detached covers, resew loose pages and repair broken spines. Work on your own book repair project, with the opportunity to observe and learn additional techniques as other participants work on theirs. Previous experience in book binding required.

The class will take place on 4 Saturdays in May, 2013, from  11 am – 2 pm.

The cost of the class is $150.

For more information contact Strong Bindery (13015 Larchmere Blvd., Shaker Hts., Ohio 44120) at 216-231-0001  or  strongbind@hotmail.com.

Cleveland Botanical Garden’s Eleanor Squire Library opened to the public on December 4th, 1930 in a renovated boathouse. After 80 years, the library still continues to serve gardeners, Garden members, and the general public, and is embarking on an exciting chapter with a new location. Join librarian Gary Esmonde in a slideshow presentation on one of the oldest and finest gardening libraries in the world.

All NOBS Forums are FREE and open to the public.

The forum will be held at Loganberry Books, 13015 Larchmere Boulevard, Shaker Heights 44120. There are many events at Loganberry Books. See their website for more details on upcoming events, including NOBS Forums.

Book artist Bonné de Blas is a self-taught artist and the Artists’ Books editor for Kattywompus Press. The founder and former director of Arts Books Cleveland, her artists’ books are in the Special Collections of the Cleveland Public Library and galleries in Paris and Guadalajara, and has had work exhibited throughout the Americas, Europe, and Australia. Her books play with texture, shape, time, and history. A transplant from Phoenix, Arizona, where she earned an undergraduate degree in Art History, she received her JD from Case Western Reserve University School of Law despite spending most of her time in the galleries at the Cleveland Museum of Art once discovering it was just across the street from the law school. Being the daughter, granddaughter, and sister to architects is apparent in her work, as well as having fallen in love the physical book before learning how to read its contents by herself.

All NOBS Forums are FREE and open to the public.

The forum will be held at Loganberry Books, 13015 Larchmere Boulevard, Shaker Heights 44120. There are many events at Loganberry Books. See their website for more details on upcoming events, including NOBS Forums.

What Are Old Books Worth? By Jim Best

This talk will focus on what factors – supply, demand, condition and content – determine the value of old and rare book and paper ephemera. Many examples will be discussed.

 Jim Best: I have been an antiquarian book dealer since 1978, specializing in pre-WWI books on travel and exploration, science and history. More recently I have been dealing in manuscript materials, particularly travel diaries of people traveling abroad before 1930. In addition to buying and selling books and paper ephemera I have been a consultant to auctioneers and done estate appraisals. I have published a book on Scribner’s Illustrated Classics and another on the history of American Illustration.

 Moveable Books (Childrens’ Books) by Larry Rakow

Novelty books that move and pop-up are almost instant collectibles…the very notion of giving delicate pop-ups to children almost guarantees that few will remain intact! Nevertheless, paper engineering has a long and fascinating history dating back several centuries. We’ll explore that history (with real examples dating back to the mid-19th century) and discuss creating and maintaining a collection in this presentation.

 Larry Rakow is a past-president of NOBS and the owner of Wonderland Books, dealing almost exclusively in rare and collectible children’s books. He has collected and sold pop-up and movable books for more than 35 years and is a member of the Movable Book Society.

Coffee, Chocolate, and Opium: Books about Plants that Changed History by Paul Bauer

Paul Bauer will present a talk about the literature of economic botany. Food, beverage, medicinal, and other plants have spurred exploration, ignited wars, fueled economic development, and inspired artists from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Hector Berlioz. Bauer will discuss books about coffee, chocolate, opium, spices, the potato, the apple, the tulip, and the plant most closely associated with Akron–rubber.

 Paul Bauer is a botanist-turned-bookseller. He is the coauthor of Frazier Robinson’s autobiography, Catching Dreams: My Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues. His most recent book, written with Mark Dawidziak, is the award-winning Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler. He lives in Kent, Ohio.

The Friends Members Preview will be Wednesday from 3 pm – 8 pm. The sale will continue on Thursday, from 10 am – 8 pm, Friday from 10 am – 5 pm and Saturday (bag day) from 10 am – 2 pm.

The Friends can be contacted by phone at: 440-585-0010.

Get anything great for Christmas? Now’s the time to share your interesting, unusual, and otherwise noteworthy reads with other bibliophiles at our semi-annual Show and Tell session.  Anything goes: you can bring treasured tomes and tell us about them, or you can bring odd curiosities you know nothing about and let group members tell you what they think.  Either way, there’s always something to learn and some great books to discuss.  Bring a book and join us!

All NOBS Forums are FREE and open to the public.

The forum will be held at Loganberry Books, 13015 Larchmere Boulevard, Shaker Heights 44120. There are many events at Loganberry Books. See their website for more details on upcoming events, including NOBS Forums.