A review by seereeves
Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession by Craig Childs

3.0

I folded over a lot of corners in this book because there was a story or a quote that I found particularly thought provoking. However, the book quickly becomes very repetitive. He makes his point very early on about how he feels about artifacts, his conflicting thoughts, his ambivalences, etc. Then he continues to belabor that point in between the little vignettes that I think are supposed to help illustrate his thoughts. Even the vignettes start to get repetitive after a while. Also, there is one detail included in the book that makes me question all the other details. He is talking in broad strokes of Mormon families picnicking in areas filled with potshards (or has he says potsherds) and arrowheads. He describes picnic blankets and shovels and then he throws in a thermos of coffee. They're Mormons. No coffee. Unless he is trying to highlight his view of their pot hunting as "illicit" by indicating they are doing other illicit things, he just screwed up and had a hypothetical Mormon family drinking coffee. So if he can't get that detail right, can I trust all the other details in the book?