Matthew P. Brown
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mpbrown.bsky.social
Matthew P. Brown
@mpbrown.bsky.social
210 followers 190 following 150 posts
english & the center for the book, uiowa / ed, ui press / author, *the pilgrim & the bee* (penn, 2007) and *the novel & the blank* (jhup, 2025) / opinions about drink are, in a certain sense, from my employer

https://english.uiowa.edu/people/matthew-brown
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mpbrown.bsky.social
in my book, books talk to other books.

grab *the novel and the _____* now at the @hopkinspress.bsky.social website with the discount code HTNAB25 #vastearlyamerica #bookhistory #18c #c18
a screenshot from a page of *the novel and the blank*, from a 1768 auction catalogue that imagines two books trash-talking each other across colonial and class divides in rhyming couplets
October 20, 2025 at 3:25 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
boycott Sinclair advertisers Menard's, Lebeda Mattress Factory, Wendy's, Liberty Mutual and let them know
The text of a message to Lebeda Mattress Factory: Due to Lebeda's support of the Sinclair-owned television station KGAN in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I will be boycotting Lebeda and will be telling my community of friends, family, and co-workers to do the same. Lebeda is paying for advertising with a Sinclair station. As such, Lebeda is supporting a company that is trampling on free speech rights. Sinclair is using its power to disallow comments that reflect anything but approval for Donald Trump and his administration's behavior. This is how an authoritarian regime works, not how a democracy works. Aligning yourself with the values of democracy will help your business prosper.
September 19, 2025 at 5:05 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
everything's awful but just a note to say my new book is a valentine to the amazing place that is the library company of philadelphia, here's their swag from a few years back on my noggin, the novel & the blank is out and you can get it using the discount code HTNAB25 at JHUP site all praise the lcp
a red bandana on an old man's head with the Library Company of Philadelphia logo and wordmark imprinted on it, in a fashion that in high school we called a tripping helmet
September 12, 2025 at 3:38 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
gotta rethink their adhesion optics
bottle of gorilla glue with is label detached
September 6, 2025 at 5:15 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
what is "small data" and what do archive rats do with it? *the novel and the _____* is out now! #bookhistory #18c #c18 #vastearlyamerica
August 29, 2025 at 12:55 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
my book launched yesterday and i was so busy with the first day of classes that i forgot my book launched yesterday. anyway here was my preferred cover image created by mel andringa and i'm glad it wasn't selected
mel andringa creates art by joining two jigsaw puzzles that have matching dye cuts but distinct images. this one combines the spirit of 76 painting with an early iconographic portrait of george washington
August 27, 2025 at 4:05 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
can monographs match the temporal experience of their subject matter? i give it a stab in *the novel and the blank*, dropping tuesday, august 26 from powerhouse @hopkinspress.bsky.social discount code HTNAB25 #skystorians #bookhistory #vastearlyamerica #18c #c18
August 25, 2025 at 4:55 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
felt the Bern in the quad cities last night. tbh, indivisible energy feels like it is meeting the moment more than bernie. but one effect of his doing town halls now is that it models peers (rather than electeds) leading a movement. #bernie #iowa #fightoligarchy
August 23, 2025 at 4:17 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
the book trades unconscious, whaaaa? check out The Novel and the Blank, dropping august 26 from mighty @hopkinspress.bsky.social #bookhistory #vastearlyamerica
August 8, 2025 at 7:42 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
ended yesterday with the beginning, starting today with the end...new book drops august 26 from mighty @hopkinspress.bsky.social. discount code is HTANB25!
#bookhistory #SHARP2025 #skystorians
wordle game board from july 9, landing on the answer "NOVEL" wordle game board, starting with first entry before bot assesses accuracy. that word is "BLANK."
July 10, 2025 at 5:56 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
zero bingo content in this banger
July 10, 2025 at 2:59 AM
mpbrown.bsky.social
how much good could a good book do if good book would get read
The cover image for Jonathan Blitzer's EVERYONE WHO IS GONE IS HERE, a history of immigration at the U.S. border with Mexico
June 6, 2025 at 5:48 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
my page proofs have a new fit!
the cover design for THE NOVEL AND THE BLANK, suitably bland with baskervilleisih font against brown paper and vertical registration smudges and the beginnings of replicated image stage right
May 3, 2025 at 3:31 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
what if we have benjamin franklin all wrong? stay tuned for *the novel and the _____*, coming this fall from @hopkinspress.bsky.social
screenshot from the page proofs of THE NOVEL AND THE BLANK, featuring a header on Benjamin Franklin's less known world view
April 26, 2025 at 6:26 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
iowa city showing up #fiftyfiftyone
h/t @ryancordell.org for the bad-ass poster
rallying protesters overtake joes place run-off, i.e. college town center skeuomorph at UIUC created a machine-inked and letter-pressed sign that reads “no tyrants & no kings”and shows an early national print shop aka bad-ass
April 19, 2025 at 8:42 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
goyfriend with a kugel
April 13, 2025 at 9:42 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
working backwards through proofs and i got to this page 🙌
table of contents page for *the novel and the blank*
April 11, 2025 at 10:27 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
guys come for the book trades yawning, stay for the sex-gender system critique, THE NOVEL AND THE BLANK forthcoming august 2025 from big ups publisher @hopkinspress.bsky.social
page proof prose from *the novel and the blank: a literary history of the book trades in eighteenth-century british america*
April 7, 2025 at 5:41 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
yesterday was the day we’ve all been waiting for
April 1, 2025 at 2:54 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
What do the shop habits of Hugh Gaine, the colonial New York City printer, have in common with early Asian book formatting? Look out for THE NOVEL AND THE BLANK, coming this fall from the crushing-it-publisher @hopkinspress.bsky.social
the first leaf of a 1765 almanac, which was assembled in modular gatherings that included or excluded an essay or calendar
March 20, 2025 at 8:45 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
who wants some mirepoix
carrots onions and celery sautéing in exact proportions which equals mirepoix
March 10, 2025 at 2:21 AM
mpbrown.bsky.social
guys pre-order *the n and the b* now please it helps with film rights
the table of contents for the next banger from johns hopkins university press called THE NOVEL AND THE BLANK
March 6, 2025 at 6:00 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
barry blitt ftw
Drawing of Ben Franklin moving supplies out of office after being fired by the fash Close-up of Ben’s four-color Bic pen
March 1, 2025 at 10:24 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
pro tip for professing sung-era china is imagining your mighty team teacher colleague as a scholar-official with comparable powers in our current moment
beth yale's laser eyes altering the course of human history, were she given the same power now as neo-Confucian scholars were in twelfth-century China
February 18, 2025 at 9:29 PM
mpbrown.bsky.social
i finally made it to the cover of the new york review
bleak guy on train close up of bleak guy
February 18, 2025 at 4:17 AM