Sensational Books, ST Lee Gallery
27 May – 4 December 2022, Oxford - England

Sensational Books is co-curated by Kathryn Rudy, Professor of Art History at the University of St Andrews and Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Oxford. Of the exhibition, Emma Smith said: This exhibition will give visitors a chance to rethink how we interact with books. The joy of reading them is only one small part of how we experience them. It will touch on our ever-changing relationship with printed works, including how modern technology is shifting our connection to them.

Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, said: We are thrilled to finally be able to realise this exceptional exhibition. The Bodleian has always been a celebration of the book, but now we are inviting everyone to celebrate the act of reading as a multi-sensory experience. Sensational Books has been expertly curated to bring the public back to the joys of the physical book, and in the challenging times we live in, it reminds us that books are and have always been for everyone.

About the Bodleian Libraries
The Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford is the largest university library system in the United Kingdom. It includes the principal University library – the Bodleian Library – which has been a legal deposit library for 400 years; as well as 27 libraries across Oxford including major research libraries and faculty, department, and institute libraries. Together, the Libraries hold more than 13 million printed items, over 80,000 e-journals and outstanding special collections including rare books and manuscripts, classical papyri, maps, music, art, and printed ephemera. Members of the public can explore the collections via the Bodleian’s online image portal at digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk or by visiting the exhibition galleries in the Bodleian’s Weston Library. For more information, go to visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/sensational-books and / or https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/sensational-books