Book Lovers

Here's an intriguing book: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much--The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession. Written by Allison Hoover Bartlett, this fascinating true-story reads like a detective novel and relates the cat-and-mouse story of a famous book thief, John Gilkey, and the Book Detective, Ken Sanders, who follows him around the world trying to catch the guy who uses phony identities, credit card numbers, and stories to get his hands on valuable first-edition books.

Reading Bartlett's journalistic foray into the obsessive world of book collectors helped me to realize that it would be so easy for me to fall headlong into this obsession, too. But my collecting fever was cooled early by the poverties of being a seminary student. Thank God.

I do remember one lapse, however. It was in the summer of 1983, and I frequently drove to downtown Asheville, N.C. in the evenings to visit the incredible array of used and rare bookshops that littered the town. What little money I was making through my Duke Summer Internship I was spending on books. I hunted for rare first-editions that I could afford (and bought a few I could not afford), but in the end I realized that book collecting was for wealthy folks who also had money for food, clothing, and other assorted necessities. My obsession ended abruptly when I found that I could not afford a hot dog one afternoon. And if a seminary student can't live on wieners . . . heck, what's he gonna eat?

I went cold turkey and steered clear of the old bookshops after that. No more 1873 editions of Aesop's Fables; no more 1895 editions of Uncle Tom's Cabin; no more Romantic Poetry Collections . . . though I still have all of these on my shelves, along with dozens of other first-edition prizes that I will never relinquish to Half Priced Books.

Sure, I still collect . . . and from time to time I do find and purchase some incredible volumes. But I'm not obsessive about it. I save my obsessions for other things these days: writing late at night, drinking protein shakes, making love to my wife twice a year.

Some things you just gotta have.