The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

Yesterday, I completed (and started, not coincidentally) my first book of 2010, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett. It's the true story about the rise and fall of John Gilkey, a sad and obsessive man who stole an estimated $200,000 in rare books.

Many rare book thieves have found that it is far easier to pilfer and resell a rare book than say, a Tiffany necklace, and therefore make a profit. But Gilkey's motives were not financial. Instead, he appears to have stolen because of his obsession with books, and his ambitions to have the kind of library John D. Rockefeller would have had.

But perhaps most fascinating is the glimpse that Bartlett provides into the occasionally seedy world of rare book collectors, dealers, and mediators. Most of these people will never read the books they collect* and instead merely want them for display or merely to experience the satisfaction of knowing that they are one of only three people who owns the First Edition of the Cat in the Hat.

* The rarest books are frequently the most controversial ones. When book-bannings and book-burnings happen, they create a lower supply; and so these books are the most heavily sought. One man described a book he had just purchased for more than $100,000 as "pure filth" and that he would never allow himself to read such garbage. Imagine your priest purchasing a Farrah Fawcett autographed Playboy simply because he liked rare things, and there you are.

Gilkey himself, is a haunting character. Harmless, but convinced he hadn't done anything wrong (just making things fair, he would explain), Gilkey doesn't believe he's committed any moral transgressions, and seems likely to do it again. He explains that if you want something, but don't have the money to purchase it, than what other possible recourse would you have?

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I read the book in its entirety will sitting in Barnes & Noble. I selected it when I arrived and reshelved it on my way out. I wonder if that makes me a different kind of book thief, but I don't really feel guilty about it.