Series: standalone
Author: Allison Hoover Bartlett
Publisher: Riverhead Books (Penguin)
US Release Date: September 17, 2009
Genre: Adult True Crime
Content Rating: Older Teen (unrepentant criminal activity)
Format Read: Paperback
Find On: Goodreads
Purchase: Indiebound | B&N | BookDepo | Azon
Summary:
In the tradition of The Orchid Thief, a compelling narrative set within the strange and genteel world of rare-book collecting: the true story of an infamous book thief, his victims, and the man determined to catch him.
Rare-book theft is even more widespread than fine-art theft. Most thieves, of course, steal for profit. John Charles Gilkey steals purely for the love of books. In an attempt to understand him better, journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett plunged herself into the world of book lust and discovered just how dangerous it can be.
John Gilkey is an obsessed, unrepentant book thief who has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rare books from book fairs, stores, and libraries around the country. Ken Sanders is the self-appointed "bibliodick" (book dealer with a penchant for detective work) driven to catch him. Bartlett befriended both outlandish characters and found herself caught in the middle of efforts to recover hidden treasure. With a mixture of suspense, insight, and humor, she has woven this entertaining cat-and-mouse chase into a narrative that not only reveals exactly how Gilkey pulled off his dirtiest crimes, where he stashed the loot, and how Sanders ultimately caught him but also explores the romance of books, the lure to collect them, and the temptation to steal them. Immersing the reader in a rich, wide world of literary obsession, Bartlett looks at the history of book passion, collection, and theft through the ages, to examine the craving that makes some people willing to stop at nothing to possess the books they love.
* * *
According to the back cover, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is a True Crime / Biography about John Gilkey, book thief. But while it did go into too much minute detail about Gilkey's life and his many, many unrepentant exploits, to me it was mainly an exploration of the world of book collecting - its dealers, wares, and the thieves they endure.
Gilkey was a morally warped (his word) individual with an unsettling view of the way things should be. To him, it wasn't fair that there were nice things he wanted but couldn't have, so he had no compunctions in acquiring them through illegal means: by theft of the actual items themselves, or purchase using bad checks or stolen credit card numbers. He didn't feel like he was really hurting anyone, or if he did that they deserved what they got for keeping what he wanted from him. It was obvious that he loved to brag about his criminal accomplishments and rationalizations, and the author unfortunately seemed content to write out every little detail as if recording it for his personal posterity.
But Gilkey wasn't just what this book was about. In a not quite linear and oftentimes slightly confusing structure, Bartlett's book jumped around between the thief, the bibliodick who "caught" him, the author's researched knowledge and personal recollections, and the experiences of other bibliophiles she met along the way. This was an obvious move to generate enough content to fill an entire book that originally started life as an article, but after a while the book felt less like the story of the thief and his detective and more the author's vehicle to ramble about book collecting. While I agree Bartlett had more than a single article's worth of content with Gilkey's story, as a book that constantly meandered off-topic it was somewhat disappointing.
Still, despite its problems I surprisingly made it through this work of non-fiction in just a few days and was intrigued by many of the tales within. Overall, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much was an interesting look into the world of book dealers and collectors of the past few decades from a different perspective than the typical bibliophile. And it certainly whet my appetite to delve deeper into the obsession of antiquarian books.
Scribble Rating:
3 of 5 Scribbles
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