Trap

ok, when you are a confirmed Bibliophile, and you see a book named "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much" and then find out it is a true story, and then find out one of the main characters is a Utah Local (and who you have sorta met at a movie screening for Paperback Dreams) - Do you really have any choice but to snatch it up and devour it? I first spotted this book on a friends desk. I said what is this? Is it any good? She said yeah. From that moment on, I HAD to have it. I went straight home and ordered it. STUPID MAIL ORDER. It took like a million months to get it. I felt like a little kid waiting at the mailbox every day, hoping it would come (and secretly worrying that it would not live up to expectations)

Today it came. NO - I have not read it all in one day and am here to give the low down. In fact, I am only on page 34, even though I have been reading it for two hours now. and NO I'm not that slow of a reader. Problem was at least 2 times a page something would jump out at me and I'd want to highlight it (which meant getting out of my hammock to do so) or something would spike my interest so much that i had to put the book down and research said thing on the Internet. Then well i wanted to share. Half of my love of books is sharing. So I'm afraid the next few blogs will be focused on this book and my discoveries.

This book is a true story of a book thief and the man that helped put him behind bars. With juicy booky stuff stuffed throughout.

It starts out at a the New York Antiquarian Book Fair in 2005. Just thinking about it makes me twitch with desire. The Author just goes from booth to booth picking up stories for all the dealers and collectors. Why am I not doing that? As per my luck the next closest one is next week the San Francisco Antiquarian Book Fair, the Seattle one is in October, I want to go.

Definitions of a Rare book:

A book that is worth more money now than when it was published - Burt Auerback, a Manhattan appraiser

A book Iwant badly and cant find - Robert H Taylor, late American collector

One story she heard was from rare book dealer Sebastian Hesselink of theNetherlands. He told a story of a thief and theft, that felt more like a Action/Adventure novel, that he and his children helped bust. Which led me to the notes at the end of the chapter, come to find out there is ANOTHER (great) book about Book Theft. The Book Thief: The True Crimes of Daniel Spiegelman - by Travis McDade. Great now I have to get that one.

As she talked about Ken Sanders (of Ken Sanders Rare Books in SLC)I decided to look him up so I could remember his face, as he was part of the panel during the Paperback Dreams screening I went to a couple of years ago. As I googled him, I found several other fascinating stuff. Including this web site - Book Patrol. What a bunch of COOL book stuff, including an article on this book and Ken Sanders (portrait by Dennis Millard) and 'the thief' even had a wanted poster for Gilkey.

Another entry that caught my attention was about a woman who has decided to sniff her way though the Museum of Modern Art , over 300,000 books!!! Her plan is to begin with the first book in the Library of Congress classification system. Morrison is also recording her impressions of each sniff in a journal.. Photo by: Michael Schmelling

And then I found this....Library Photos, how beautiful are those libraries?

And all that from just 30 little pages. Which is fine, I like reading slow makes it last longer.