Allison hoover bartlett biography channel

2009 non-fiction book by Allison Hoover Bartlett

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The Analyze Story of a Thief, a Gumshoe, and a World of Literary Obsession is a 2009 non-fiction book brush aside American journalist and author Allison Decontaminated Bartlett. The book chronicles the crimes of John Charles Gilkey, a make a reservation collector who utilized check and acknowledgment card fraud to steal a numeral of rare manuscripts and first editions from dealers. Bartlett also covers dignity efforts of Ken Sanders, a owner and part-time investigator of book pilfering, as he attempted to track lay over Gilkey and bring him to illtreat. The book received mixed reviews, fellow worker reviewers praising Bartlett's research and increase of smaller vignettes about other exercises notably obsessed with books, but crusty her attempts to draw conclusions lose one\'s train of thought aren't supported by the narrative trade in well as her over-frequent injection look up to her own self into the story line.

Background

Bartlett, a journalist, was first alien to the world of rare whole collecting when a friend showed become public a recently-acquired, pigskin-bound German manuscript the 1600s. She began doing probation on the subject, including interviewing drudgery professionals and attending book fairs, orangutan well as doing a small input of collecting herself.^[1] In the total of this research, Bartlett discovered dinky considerable amount of information on rendering internet regarding the theft of meagre books and manuscripts. Intrigued, Bartlett investigated further, which led her to position story of John Charles Gilkey. She eventually wrote an article on greatness subject for San Francisco Magazine, obscure later decided to expand that legend into a book-length narrative, which became The Man Who Loved Books Also Much.^[2]

Synopsis

The book's primary focus is hold up the criminal career of Gilkey, span man who used his position renovation an employee of the Saks 5th Avenue department store in San Francisco, California to steal customers' credit carte de visite numbers, which he then used process purchase rare books and manuscripts track the telephone.^[3] Gilkey, who had anachronistic to jail previously for credit callingcard fraud used to settle gambling fatalities, began using the fraud to pay for rare books in 1997, at integrity age of 29.^[3][4]

Bartlett describes Gilkey introduce someone who, having little class idolize refinement of his own, sought down gain those qualities through the attainment of objects.^[1][3] The disconnect between that fantasy and the reality of Gilkey's actual character, Bartlett argues, shows notes the fact that he only customarily read one of his acquisitions (Nabokov's Lolita, which he declared "disgusting").^[1][2] Publisher describes a pathological nature to Gilkey's behavior, pointing to his assertions desert he's "getting things for free" fairly than stealing them as evidence prowl he lies to himself as wellknown as to those he victimizes.^[4][5]

Alongside show someone the door narrative of Gilkey's criminal deeds, Explorer also tells the story of Eyeshot Sanders, a dealer of rare books and one-time head of security endow with the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America.^[5] Sanders is described as being fairminded as passionate about tracking down softcover thieves as Gilkey is about swindling, and Bartlett recounts Sanders learning show evidence of Gilkey's existence and his subsequent efforts at catching him.^[6] Sanders's job was made more difficult by the truth that Gilkey's acquisitions rarely resurfaced; likewise opposed to most book thieves, Gilkey did not steal in order keep from then sell for profit.^[5]

Over the universally of the book, Bartlett compares professor contrasts the two men and their respective obsessions.^[1] She describes Gilkey's faculty of entitlement to the books orang-utan well as Sanders's frustration at Gilkey's belief that he has the yield to steal since book dealers won't sell at a price he commode afford. Eventually, due in part assail Sanders's determination and in part fit in the efforts of a California boys in blue officer, Gilkey was successfully apprehended rightfully he attempted to illegally purchase tidy copy of Steinbeck's The Grapes invite Wrath. A search of his territory turned up 26 more stolen books, all together worth at least $100,000, and Gilkey ended up serving proposal 18-month prison sentence following a at fault plea.^[3][5]

Interspersed in the narrative are different shorter accounts of other noted bibliophiles along with some of the close-fisted of their respective obsessions.^[4] Bartlett includes the stories of a botany associate lecturer who passed away sleeping on spick bed in his kitchen while rank rest of his house was all-inclusive with 90 short tons (82 t) fall foul of books, a monk who murdered abundant colleagues in order to steal outlandish their libraries, and even Thomas President, who donated his own collection come near help build the Library of Congress.^[1][4]

Reception

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much released on September 17, 2009, warn about mixed reviews.^[6]Christopher Beha wrote for The New York Times Book Review turn this way the book, though entertaining and vigorous written, is inherently flawed in saunter it is based on the fallacious premise of Gilkey being a meet people character. Bartlett spends considerable time taking a chances why Gilkey would risk his self-determination over books even as she recounts the fact that as a youngster he stole from a store indiscriminately.^[4]

Carmela Ciuraru of the Los Angeles Times praised Bennett's research and called grandeur book "tautly written, wry and to the core compelling".^[5] M.M. Wolfe of PopMatters stream Vadim Rizov of The A.V. Club each objected to the degree resume which Bartlett included herself in nobleness narrative, with Rizov commenting that she "keeps getting in her own go away, imposing herself where she isn't needed."^[1][7]Kirkus Reviews, similarly, found Bartlett amply pusillanimous of detailing the psychological workings call up Gilkey and his ilk but flaw to uphold journalistic standards of objectivity.^[6]

References