On the full Strawberry Moon, which happened to fall on the summer solstice in 2024, I spent time with a stack of books — all of which contained a volvelle — in the Rare Book Room at the Library of Congress in DC. 

Authors ranging from Athanasius Kircher, the Jesuit scholar and polymath, to Freud’s niece, a talented artist called Tom Seidmann-Freud. Did I mention that I checked out a contemporary book artist’s volvelles too? Emily Martin’s cheekily quotes Oscar Wilde and his characters in Oscar Wilde: In Earnest and Out.