Central Ohio’s Bibliophilic Society
Welcome to your Central Ohio connection for book lovers. The Aldus Society brings literary events and programming to book lovers and educational opportunities to members. Some of our members are serious book collectors, some of us are merely lovers of the printed word in all its forms. Note: 2025 is our 25-year anniversary, and we’re kicking it off with a brand-new logo! Special thanks to Michael Daines for his beautiful design. Watch for more special programming and projects.
Programs are free and open to the public. Free parking.
Thurber Center
91 Jefferson Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43215.
(next to the Thurber House).
7 p.m.: Doors open, socializing.
7:30 p.m.: Presentation begins.
Upcoming 2025 Programs:
Thursday JAN 9, 2025: Our annual favorite: Aldus Collects! Aldus members discuss their private collections. It will be a night of fun and books and getting to know the presenters a bit, including some brand-new members. This year’s participants are:
- Scott Williams, talking about the “Great Postcard Revolution.”
- Jenna Nahhas, a new member, with “Binding & Beyond: Book Arts.”
- Jay Hoster, discussing “John Stubbs—The Man Who Gave His Right Hand for Freedom of the Press.”
- Helena Von Sadovszky, another new member, whose topic will be “Exclusions of Chivalry: An Exploration of How the Enemy is Demonized or Heroized in Depictions of the Third Crusade.”
- Harry Campbell joins the program to discuss “Doubting Shakespeare?”
Thursday FEB 13, 2025: Roger Jerome. Dickens in Ohio. Few people know that the great novelist visited most parts of Ohio in 1842 and wrote about it. “American Notes for….” Roger has studied his travels in detail and promises original details.
Thursday MAR. 13, 2025: Alan Farmer. Builds on recent advances in estimating the numbers of lost books to consider how lost books might reshape our view of the early modern English book trade and the cultural history of England from the mid-16th to the mid-17th century.
Thursday APR. 10, 2025: Rhiannon Knol will speak about the role wrong ideas have played in Renaissance and early modern science, focusing on the writings of Aristotle, Christopher Columbus, and Athanasius Kircher—and reactions by their readers, from Galileo and Harvey to Sor Juana de la Cruz—and on the ongoing negotiation of authority, empiricism, and imagination in scientific and philosophical discourse.
Thursday MAY 22, 2025: Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour discusses literature derived from the 32 Ohio counties “nestled within the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.”
These programs have been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy Demands Wisdom. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed do not necessarily represent those of Ohio Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Aldus is an affiliate of the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS).