The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

By Allison Hoover Bartlett

This was an interesting one. The premise is the tale of a guy who loved rare books but is unable to afford them. He resorts to stealing them. This one was written differently from any other crime tale I've read. It's told mostly first person. But from the author's point of view, as she reviewed rare book dealers and the thief in question John Gilkey. By the end of the story even the author herself has become a part of the story.

I enjoyed the book. It was a quick read and introduced me to the world of book collecting. Rare books. First editions. Old and unpublished manuscripts. Yet most of the collectors don't even read the rare book. They might read a less valuable copy but then sometimes they don't even do that. It's the mere appreciation for the book as an object.

The thief, John Gilkey doesn't really have a specific genre that he looks for. He does hope to get the 100 best books he found on a list. He's more interested in getting books others list as desirable or worthy of praise. He uses stolen credit cards, bad checks, and five finger discount to acquire his books. He is also one of the rare book thieves that is caught, tried and sentenced. Most, if ever caught are only given fines.

I can say I love books and I love reading. I love reading the books I have. Which makes it a little bit hard to understand spending thousands or hundreds of thousands on a book you'll never read.

One intriguing bit I learned is that besides gilded edges some books of yore also had pictures on the page edges that were only visible by fanning the edges of the book. Called fore-edge. I'd never heard of this before. Here take a look.