The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession
Allison Hoover Bartlett has written for a variety of publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Salon.com. This book, her first, was based on an award-winning article for San Francisco Magazine in 2007.
The Topic: The Renaissance philosopher Erasmus is reputed to have said, "When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes." There are plenty of tales of obsessive bibliophiles throughout history, and Allison Hoover Bartlett touches upon many of them. But her primary aim is to tell the story of one particularly baffling book thief, John Gilkey, and the bookstore owner dedicated to tracking him down. Since he was free for part of the time she was writing the book, Bartlett was able to conduct extensive interviews with Gilkey, a man whose desperation for rare texts--if not his actual appreciation of them--rivaled that of Erasmus. She even followed him through some of the venues he once victimized, drawing perilously close to the battle line between the criminal and his victims.
Riverhead. 288 pages. $24.95. ISBN: 9781594488917
Los Angeles Times
"Tautly written, wry and thoroughly compelling, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much unfolds like a great mystery. ... Bartlett is an appealing storyteller who becomes more personally entangled in her narrative than she had wished, which adds to the drama." Carmela Ciuraru
Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Eventually, Bartlett has to ask herself: When does the journalist move from fly-on-the-wall to tacitly complicit? Her moral dilemma gives this true-crime book a sharp edge." Laurie Hertzel
San Francisco Chronicle
"Ultimately ... it's the writing that deserves your attention. It's much to Bartlett's credit that she's taken what could have been a book for a highly specific audience and created a compelling read for anybody who loves a good story." Jory John
Oregonian
"Initially, Bartlett's narrative provoked doubt, even squeamishness, as she articulates her identification with Sanders' wild need to catch Gilkey and, even more, when she is trying to understand Gilkey's obsessive need to steal. That being said, she understands that she is a novice and masters her most perilous inclinations with the broad, self-correcting impulses of a reporter striving for objectivity." Fran Arrieta-Walden
NY Times Book Review
"If [Bartlett's sketches of bibliomania] ultimately fail to cohere into something more, the fault rests at the book's center, with Gilkey himself. It's not that his actions aren't interesting, but that they don't mean any of the things Bartlett wants them to mean." Christopher R. Beha
Onion AV Club
"The crudity of Gilkey's cons--semi-elaborate forms of credit-card fraud--is riveting; the trivia about the atmosphere, mentality, and history of book collectors is absorbing. ... But Bartlett keeps getting in her own way, imposing herself where she isn't needed." Vadim Rizov
Critical Summary
Bibliophiles themselves, reviewers clearly wanted to like The Man Who Loved Books Too Much. The degree to which they actually did depended on how they viewed Bartlett's authorial choices. Several critics were drawn in by Bartlett's own involvement in the story, as in the scene where she follows Gilkey through a bookstore he once robbed. But others found this style lazy, boring, or overly "literary," and wished Bartlett would just get out of the way. A few also thought that Bartlett ascribed unbelievable motives to Gilkey. But reviewers' critiques reveal that even those unimpressed with Bartlett's style found the book an entertaining true-crime story.