Miscellany № 112: books!

It’s been a while since I crossed off some of the book-related items on my to-do list, so here are a few recent links worth talking about.

“Brazilian Caracara Eagle (Robert Havell Jr.) (After John James Audubon), M10298,” Harvard Art Museums collections online, Jul 24, 2026, hvrd.art/o/312043.

I write in The Book about John James Audubon’s The Birds of America, a massive artistic, commercial and technical undertaking which saw Audubon criss-cross the country to hunt, shoot, draw and paint birds of all shapes and sizes. Literally so: the final product, a multi-volume work sold by subscription, had to be printed on massive “double elephant folio” sheets to accommodate Audubon’s life-size illustrations.Read more →