The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: A True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession

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Title: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: A True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary ObsessionAuthor: Allison Hoover Bartlett
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Year: 2009
282 pages

I liked reading this, though it's not really about a man who loves books too much, but rather is about The Man Who Couldn't or Wouldn't Stop Stealing Something. If that "something" weren't books, but, say, pipe cleaners or cashews, it wouldn't be much of a story. Instead, it would be an episode of Hoarders, where much is made of motivations and the psychodynamic meaning of the object. Since the meaning may well be an explanatory narrative developed post hoc, one might ask, both for the television show and for this book, might a little bupropion take care of that?

Since the thief's object is  books, however, the author has license to explore and describe the world rare book collecting. This is interesting, but not sufficient to integrate the two elements of the story. In addition, while Bartlett has some negative feelings about her protagonist, it's also clear that she enjoys him, fining him attractive or compelling in certain ways. This reminds me of a similar dynamic in Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, though there, at least, the thief's motives were a better match with the comparably detailed and obsessive world of orchid breeders and collectors.