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3.34 AVERAGE
3.34 AVERAGE
An interesting item this time: The man who loved books too much by Allison Hoover Bartlett.
This book is not something I would usually have picked up, and I did in fact buy it thinking it would be something else. Whereas I was expecting a thriller, it is actually more of a documentary on the book collection industry.
It is the story of a book thief, Charles Gilkey. The author tells the story of the hunt for Charles Gilkey and the man who has caught him, Ken Sanders.
Besides the obvious – the hunt for a criminal – what makes the book interesting is the fact that Mrs. Bartlett does extensive interviews over time with Gilkey, Sanders and others in the book collecting business. This yields some interesting insights.
For one thing, Gilkey is not actually a reader, and this seems to be the case with a lot of the book collectors. He is much more interested in owning the objects, much as one would want a sculpture or a painting. And of course, since the value of these items is huge, one would never actually touch them. Several of the book collectors interviewed in the book talk about having their collection and reading books… but of course, not reading the collection books, for they are for safekeeping.
Ken Sanders is elected the security chair of ABAA, Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America. In this capacity, he receives and distributes warnings about scammers and thieves. Selling collectors’ items in this business would be as complicated as unloading a stolen race horse or the Mona Lisa, if not for the fact that the booksellers seem to be extremely private with their information, and a lot of Sanders’ efforts go into lobbying the business to share their experiences about the people ripping them off.
Interestingly, Sanders comments on the fact that it is a challenge to make the police take this kind of crime seriously, even if the value of the first edition of a classic can get extremely high.
Gilkey’s personality adds a lot of flavor to the story. A man with a well-behaved and cultured appearance, he manages to cheat the booksellers out of works of a considerable value. A little way into the story, he is caught, imprisoned, released – and goes back to stealing books again! Over time as the author talks to Gilkey, he seems increasingly insistent that life owes him. Whenever he is arrested, put in prison or just slowed down by events, he feels that life owes him another success. And so, he goes at it again.
It seems clear that Allison Hoover Bartlett start out trying to find out how this collectors’ mentality actually works; and while going into this, she not only comes across some fascinatingly bizarre/bizarrely fascinating personalities, but also gets into the business in such a way that she can’t help exploring it more deeply. The book is a spinoff of an award-winning magazine article, which she decided to expand upon.
Sometimes I feel a poor book critic for insisting on writing about books that I like. I have, in fact, read a lot of books that I don’t like – I am the kind of person who keeps going, because a lot of books start out slowly and gradually gain speed or the author feels that the right approach is to (very) gradually home in on the main theme, and if that takes the first 100 pages, well, so be it. What this also sometimes means is that you will keep going, hoping for more… and keep going… and hoping… and the book ends. So be it. But I can’t be bothered to write about those, in part because it depresses me, and in part because there is no reason to emphasize the negative when I can just as well praise those who deserve it.
And so, to make a long story short(er): I rather like this book. I am sure that the ‘I’ form will annoy a lot of readers deeply, as recently discussed on the Litopia podcast – an author interviewing people, gathering the puzzle pieces of a story and then telling them from a first-person perspective, talking about the characters, but also about her own reactions: Fascination, doubt, frustration and just that little bit of collectors’ mania, which all the people she interviews have.
I quite like her personal approach, and I recommend the book to those who have accumulated a lot of books as readers and are just a little bit curious about the darker side of collecting.
This book is not something I would usually have picked up, and I did in fact buy it thinking it would be something else. Whereas I was expecting a thriller, it is actually more of a documentary on the book collection industry.
It is the story of a book thief, Charles Gilkey. The author tells the story of the hunt for Charles Gilkey and the man who has caught him, Ken Sanders.
Besides the obvious – the hunt for a criminal – what makes the book interesting is the fact that Mrs. Bartlett does extensive interviews over time with Gilkey, Sanders and others in the book collecting business. This yields some interesting insights.
For one thing, Gilkey is not actually a reader, and this seems to be the case with a lot of the book collectors. He is much more interested in owning the objects, much as one would want a sculpture or a painting. And of course, since the value of these items is huge, one would never actually touch them. Several of the book collectors interviewed in the book talk about having their collection and reading books… but of course, not reading the collection books, for they are for safekeeping.
Ken Sanders is elected the security chair of ABAA, Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America. In this capacity, he receives and distributes warnings about scammers and thieves. Selling collectors’ items in this business would be as complicated as unloading a stolen race horse or the Mona Lisa, if not for the fact that the booksellers seem to be extremely private with their information, and a lot of Sanders’ efforts go into lobbying the business to share their experiences about the people ripping them off.
Interestingly, Sanders comments on the fact that it is a challenge to make the police take this kind of crime seriously, even if the value of the first edition of a classic can get extremely high.
Gilkey’s personality adds a lot of flavor to the story. A man with a well-behaved and cultured appearance, he manages to cheat the booksellers out of works of a considerable value. A little way into the story, he is caught, imprisoned, released – and goes back to stealing books again! Over time as the author talks to Gilkey, he seems increasingly insistent that life owes him. Whenever he is arrested, put in prison or just slowed down by events, he feels that life owes him another success. And so, he goes at it again.
It seems clear that Allison Hoover Bartlett start out trying to find out how this collectors’ mentality actually works; and while going into this, she not only comes across some fascinatingly bizarre/bizarrely fascinating personalities, but also gets into the business in such a way that she can’t help exploring it more deeply. The book is a spinoff of an award-winning magazine article, which she decided to expand upon.
Sometimes I feel a poor book critic for insisting on writing about books that I like. I have, in fact, read a lot of books that I don’t like – I am the kind of person who keeps going, because a lot of books start out slowly and gradually gain speed or the author feels that the right approach is to (very) gradually home in on the main theme, and if that takes the first 100 pages, well, so be it. What this also sometimes means is that you will keep going, hoping for more… and keep going… and hoping… and the book ends. So be it. But I can’t be bothered to write about those, in part because it depresses me, and in part because there is no reason to emphasize the negative when I can just as well praise those who deserve it.
And so, to make a long story short(er): I rather like this book. I am sure that the ‘I’ form will annoy a lot of readers deeply, as recently discussed on the Litopia podcast – an author interviewing people, gathering the puzzle pieces of a story and then telling them from a first-person perspective, talking about the characters, but also about her own reactions: Fascination, doubt, frustration and just that little bit of collectors’ mania, which all the people she interviews have.
I quite like her personal approach, and I recommend the book to those who have accumulated a lot of books as readers and are just a little bit curious about the darker side of collecting.
An addition to the "true crime" genre for book lovers. The subtitle is misleading: the "detective" is essentially a side character in the book, while the author perhaps plays too prominent a role. This book suffers from the author's perhaps too-delicate handing of Gilkey, and the lack of any real insight into him or his crimes.
Most true crime books struggle to find balance between the author, the investigators, and the perpetrators of the crime. The characters must be rendered compelling enough to interest the reader, a necessity often at odds with the facts. [b:The Man Who Loved Books Too Much|6251543|The Man Who Loved Books Too Much The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession|Allison Hoover Bartlett|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255837669s/6251543.jpg|6434434] is no exception to this struggle.
For readers interested in this topic, I would recommend [a:Miles Harvey|62960|Miles Harvey|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1239340123p2/62960.jpg]'s [b:The Island Of Lost Maps|108762|The Island of Lost Maps A True Story of Cartographic Crime|Miles Harvey|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171591269s/108762.jpg|104814] instead.
Most true crime books struggle to find balance between the author, the investigators, and the perpetrators of the crime. The characters must be rendered compelling enough to interest the reader, a necessity often at odds with the facts. [b:The Man Who Loved Books Too Much|6251543|The Man Who Loved Books Too Much The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession|Allison Hoover Bartlett|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255837669s/6251543.jpg|6434434] is no exception to this struggle.
For readers interested in this topic, I would recommend [a:Miles Harvey|62960|Miles Harvey|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1239340123p2/62960.jpg]'s [b:The Island Of Lost Maps|108762|The Island of Lost Maps A True Story of Cartographic Crime|Miles Harvey|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171591269s/108762.jpg|104814] instead.
Books can be too much fun, right? This crime story was mostly intriguing because it involved books, though otherwise there isn't a very original portrait of a criminal described in the book. The audiobook version was well read but surprisingly short.
I was bothered by the author's presence through the first half of this book, but it started to make sense after that and, by the end, seemed necessary.
More than anything I'm now thinking about books as artifacts vs. their content. On the whole, I come down on the side that books are important for the words. I love language and ideas, and those are present in any form. But it's also true that some enjoyment of reading comes from the sensual immediacy of a book in hand that won't ever be replicated by my Kindle.
More than anything I'm now thinking about books as artifacts vs. their content. On the whole, I come down on the side that books are important for the words. I love language and ideas, and those are present in any form. But it's also true that some enjoyment of reading comes from the sensual immediacy of a book in hand that won't ever be replicated by my Kindle.
Meh. It was just meh. The idea of someone going out of their way to steal (or actually pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for) books they're never going to read kind of annoys me, which is the main reason I didn't like it. But the pacing and story sure didn't help me like it any more.
I loved this book. It was interesting to get a look into Gilkey's mind and see his reactions to the wealthy. It was fascinating to read about a criminal who did not think he was doing anything wrong.
This is probably because I had a pretty big reading slump in the middle of this book but I'm finding this book pretty forgettable. Sure it was medium-enjoyable as I was reading it and I have clear problems with the book but I just don't find the story as interesting as I was hoping. This is also 0nly the second true crime story I've read and I didn't love the first one either so it could be this genre is not for me. That said, I learned a lot about rare book collecting reading this.
I did enjoy it, but it wasn't all I had hoped for. The author based the book on a magazine piece she had written and I had hoped the book would take on some more depth. I didn't read the magazine piece, so maybe the book technically did. But the overall feel was just like a 200 page magazine article. Skimming surface human interest material. While interesting to read about the rare book world - and in fact it inspired me to maybe dabble myself - and interesting to read her musings on what makes people collect things so obsessively, they were just that: musings and observations, with little more behind them. I think I would have liked this better if Hoover had really dug more into the psychology of collection as related to obsession, weaving in studies and science and such - using the story of this book thief as an illustration. Instead it was using the fact that people like to collect things to illustrate that this guy was obsessive. (ie, a lot of people like to collect X, but most people don't steal for it, like this guy does let me tell you about him).
What was also most interesting, that you don't get from the dust jacket, is the degree the thief doesn't recognize what he does is wrong. That was really interesting - but again Hoover doesn't explore further than make guesses as to why he doesn't think what he does is wrong and relating all the times she tried to talk to him about that in particular and he avoided the question.
So good, worth a read probably, but don't have high expectations of analysis.
What was also most interesting, that you don't get from the dust jacket, is the degree the thief doesn't recognize what he does is wrong. That was really interesting - but again Hoover doesn't explore further than make guesses as to why he doesn't think what he does is wrong and relating all the times she tried to talk to him about that in particular and he avoided the question.
So good, worth a read probably, but don't have high expectations of analysis.
http://www.literaryfeline.com/2011/02/review-man-who-loved-books-too-much-by.html