Sep 18, 2009 5:30 AM

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Too often true crime writing is big and overhyped. It glorifies the criminal. It ignores the convoluted nature of crime and criminal justice. In her new book The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession, Allison Hoover Bartlett doesn’t fall into this trap. Far from it. Her style is smooth and understated and readily acknowledges the complexities of crime and criminal justice. A short excerpt:

A couple of months after Gilkey's 2005 release from prison, I met him in front of 49 Geary Street, a building that houses several art galleries and rare book stores, in San Francisco. It was a September morning and he wore a bright white sweatshirt, pleated khakis, his beige leather sneakers, and the PGA baseball cap. He held a folder, on top of which lay a handwritten, numbered list, his to-do list for the day.


"So, how do you want to do this?" he asked.


Bartlett’s book is a quiet sort of thriller, a fascinating story about a compulsive book thief and the detective who finally caught him. Bartlett doesn’t shy away from inserting herself into the story, and it works. The story of her relationship to the book thief, John Gilkey, gives the book a tight narrative arc; it also allows for her to engage in interesting digressions on crime and books and the people who commit crimes with books.

The early reviews of the book have been excellent. “Allison Hoover Bartlett's The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is the enthralling account of a gently mad con artist and his fraudulent credit-card scams, but it's also a meditation on the urge to collect and a terrific introduction to the close-knit, swashbuckling world of antiquarian book dealers," wrote Washignton Post book critic Michael Dirda.

I emailed Bartlett a few questions last week. Her answers are below.

How did you first get interested in this story?

A friend of mine came across a large, beautiful 17th century German book, and the circumstances were fishy enough that I thought it might be stolen. I wanted to find the story behind it, so I looked up “stolen rare books” on the Internet and discovered a treasure trove. Although there was no information about the German book, there was one riveting story after another about rare book theft. The thieves who interested me most were those who stole not for profit, but out of a love for the books. The most prolific of them in recent years was John Gilkey, whose story I tell in The Man Who Loved Books Too Much.


Why is it important?

I learned that internationally rare book theft is more widespread than fine art theft, so there are a lot of book thieves operating in the world. And the recovery rate for rare books is nowhere near as high as that of fine art. While it’s often considered a victimless crime, this is not the case. The victim is the public, which loses access to important materials. This is a more obvious problem for libraries, but it is also an issue for dealers and collectors, whose collections often end up in public institutions. Pilfering from them is stealing from future scholarship—not to mention taking away our enjoyment of the books.

Beyond the theft problem, this story is important and timely because now that e-books are gaining in popularity, many of us are considering the meaning of books in our lives. When I started working on this book, I didn’t know anyone with an e-book, but now I know several, many of whom are authors. They enjoy their e-books for a number of reasons—yet they continue to buy books as well. There is something about the physicality of the book that is seductive, and that appeal doesn’t seem to be waning. If anything, the advent of e-books seems to be making people appreciate books even more.


Can you tell me more about the book's hero of sorts, Ken Sanders?

Ken Sanders is a rare book dealer who is as obsessed with stopping thieves as Gilkey was about stealing books. He is a lifelong book lover (his father jokes that he was born clutching a book), and nothing makes him more irate than someone ripping off booksellers. As the security chair for the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America, he spent years figuring out who was stealing so many books from his colleagues, where this thief was, and how to catch him.

Do you think law enforcement could do more to protect book owners--and pursue book thieves?

In order for law enforcement to help, they need to be informed when thefts occur. Historically, rare book librarians and dealers have tried to keep thefts quiet, but the good news is that this is changing. Just this year, the British Library did a media splash after they suffered a big theft. The thief was caught and sentenced to two years in prison. The Library went public with the news in order to make it clear that they will not tolerate theft. This would not have happened a few years ago. By the way, not all thieves end up doing much time. On the rare instances that they are caught, they are usually given extraordinarily light sentences, even when they’ve stolen millions of dollars worth of books. I think this is because the very qualities that help them steal rare books in the first place (they can be polite, erudite, adept at conning people) help them win over judges, convince them that they will never steal again.


In the book, you ask: "What sort of person returns to the scene of his own crime?" Gilkey is that sort of person. What does that say about him?

I think it proves that Gilkey still wants to be a part of the rare book world, and that he doesn’t fully grasp how angry dealers are at him. He loves books and wants to build his collection, so he continues to visit stores and rare book fairs. Like most obsessions, bibliomania is nearly impossible to tame.

It seems like your relationship with Sanders has had its ups and downs. How has he reacted to the book? And Gilkey? Does the story--as you say in the final pages-- never really end?

Sanders was difficult at times, but that’s because he’s a man of strong opinions, and we did not always see things the same way. That said, I have great admiration for his dedication to books, his family, and his colleagues in the rare book trade. Without Sanders’ dogged pursuit of Gilkey, my guess is that Gilkey never would have been caught. Sanders is also an adept storyteller, and without his generosity, I’d never have been able to write this book.

Sanders is very supportive of the book, as is Gilkey, although he has not yet read it. Gilkey did, however, read an article I wrote about him and was pleased with it.

So does the story end?

Of course, I cannot predict the future, but given Gilkey’s ardent love for books and his inability to resist stealing them, and Sanders’ impassioned drive to stop theft, my guess is that the story will continue.

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