'The Man Who Loved Books Too Much'September 19, 2009, 10:00AM
As both a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America and a friend and colleague of the booksellers who finally caught the often-charming book thief John Charles Gilkey, it's fascinating to finally read a story that I experienced, only a few years ago, as e-mail alerts and dinner conversation at book fairs.
Allison Hoover Bartlett's "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession," is a book about entering a world that is new to her, the world of serious book collecting. Befriending both Ken Sanders, the bookseller who for six years headed security for the ABAA, and Gilkey, who methodically stole from some of the best of those booksellers, she unravels tales of private obsession and touches deeper issues and themes that inform our understandings about people who collect -- not merely gather or assemble, but consciously and systematically collect -- rare books.
Read On
