A review by kurtwombat
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett

4.0

The subtitle of this book is a little misleading. The "Detective" ostensibly refers to an actual Police Detective involved in only a very small portion of the book and/or a zealous book seller who mainly just publicized the thief of the title. The true detective of the piece is the author who puzzles together a nice character study of THE MAN WHO LOVED BOOKS TOO MUCH. The book thief runs the gamut from mysterious man of intrigue to pitiable fool then back somewhere in the middle where his is really just a self deluded jerk. How and why he so easily runs-amuck in the tender world of book collectors and book sellers unfolds gradually revealing as much about the victims as it does the thief. Before reading, I was expecting more of a cat and mouse game across international borders. It is instead a very domestic affair with Book Sellers members of an insular family embarrassed about any wrongdoing among their brethren. They suffer from an old school honor system--seemingly drawn from the antique books they handle--that makes it difficult for them to see the world in terms of strict capitalism. The author touches on a rich history of people loving books too much but show how only recently the sky-rocketing values and slick modern fraud/purchasing possibilites are dragging this world into a new glaring light. Very interesting stuff and worth the journey.