Reddit reviews Introduction to Manuscript Studies

Books by Christopher De Hamel, David Thompson, Janet Backhouse, and Marc Drogin are all wonderful. For an overall I would start with http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801487080/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

Here are a couple sites you might find interesting, even if not directly pertinent. Let me know what you think or PM me if you want more information?
The Maciejowski Bible ...This is the cheesiest website ever, but it has excellent scans of the Maciejowski Bible, which is a heavily illustrated (and very beautiful) middle ages bible.
Medieval Writing An introduction to medieval writing and paleography.

If you're looking for books, you should really check out Basbane's A Gentle Madness which is quite excellent and really just a fun book to read (I have no idea why Amazon doesn't have it; check ABE Books). I recommend An Introduction to Manuscript Studies which is basically indisposable for anyone with interest in medieval/manuscript studies. The ABCs of Book Collecting comes up constantly in most courses I take and is basically just a guide of different terminology. (Also available here ).

Gaskell's A New Introduction to Bibliography and Steinberg's 500 Years of Printing got me through my first year of grad school, too - they're chock-full of fantastic information and background, but are drier than a week-old brioche.



Lately I've been reading a lot on illustration in manuscripts, so I've been working on Sealed in Parchment: Rereadings of Knighthood in the Illuminated Manuscripts of Chretien de Troyes and The Blackwell Companion to Medieval Art

Also, just for coolness/interesting-ness, check out The Voynich Manuscript and the Gigas Codex (just google them). Fascinating stuff, but way more "wiz-bang" than the average book history person gets to play with.

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot the MOTHER of all book history books, Elizabeth Eisenstein's The Printing Press as an Agent of Change ...this is like, the de-facto standard of book history studies.