Allison Bartlett - The Man Who Loved Books Too Much - The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Allison Bartlett - The Man Who Loved Books Too Much - The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: Старинная литература, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

In the tradition of
, a compelling narrative set within the strange and genteel world of rare-book collecting: the true story of an infamous book thief, his victims, and the man determined to catch him. Rare-book theft is even more widespread than fine-art theft. Most thieves, of course, steal for profit. John Charles Gilkey steals purely for the love of books. In an attempt to understand him better, journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett plunged herself into the world of book lust and discovered just how dangerous it can be.
Gilkey is an obsessed, unrepentant book thief who has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars? worth of rare books from book fairs, stores, and libraries around the country. Ken Sanders is the self-appointed ?bibliodick? (book dealer with a penchant for detective work) driven to catch him. Bartlett befriended both outlandish characters and found herself caught in the middle of efforts to recover hidden treasure. With a mixture of suspense, insight, and humor, she has woven this entertaining cat-and-mouse chase into a narrative that not only reveals exactly how Gilkey pulled off his dirtiest crimes, where he stashed the loot, and how Sanders ultimately caught him but also explores the romance of books, the lure to collect them, and the temptation to steal them. Immersing the reader in a rich, wide world of literary obsession, Bartlett looks at the history of book passion, collection, and theft through the ages, to examine the craving that makes some people willing to stop at nothing to possess the books they love.
From Publishers Weekly
Bartlett delves into the world of rare books and those who collect—and steal—them with mixed results. On one end of the spectrum is Salt Lake City book dealer Ken Sanders, whose friends refer to him as a book detective, or Bibliodick. On the other end is John Gilkey, who has stolen over $100,000 worth of rare volumes, mostly in California. A lifelong book lover, Gilkey's passion for rare texts always exceeded his income, and he began using stolen credit card numbers to purchase, among others, first editions of Beatrix Potter and Mark Twain from reputable dealers. Sanders, the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association's security chair, began compiling complaints from ripped-off dealers and became obsessed with bringing Gilkey to justice. Bartlett's journalistic position is enviable: both men provided her almost unfettered access to their respective worlds. Gilkey recounted his past triumphs in great detail, while Bartlett's interactions with the unrepentant, selfish but oddly charming Gilkey are revealing (her original article about himself appeared in
). Here, however, she struggles to weave it all into a cohesive narrative. From Bookmarks Magazine
Bibliophiles themselves, reviewers clearly wanted to like
. 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.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Sanders led me to the main part of the store. In addition to more than a hundred thousand books and other materials (“If it’s printed, it’s here”), there are busts of Mark Twain and Demosthenes, cardboard cutouts of R. Crumb characters, and headless mannequins modeling T-shirts printed with characters from Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang . The store reflects much of what Sanders cares about—books by Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, and B. Traven; music from the sixties; radical politics; the environment; and beautiful graphics. But of all that he cares about, it’s clear that his children are at the top of the list. Sometimes, Sanders’s daughter, Melissa, who used to work in the store, visits from California and lends a hand. When Melissa and her brother, Michael, were young, Sanders’s marriage fell apart and he took over their rearing himself.

“To have that kind of anchor . . . They probably saved my own sanity at certain points in my life,” he said. “It’s not easy for any single parent to raise children, whether it’s a mom or dad, it’s just more unusual for it to be the father. I have no regrets. I probably raised them like wild wolves, but I did the best I could. Melissa still remembers the summer I dragged them through Death Valley when it was a hundred and thirty-seven degrees. I made them get out of the car and walk in the sand dunes. ‘Dad tried to kill my brother and me,’ she says.”

Sanders will tell me this story several times, always with a proud and mischievous grin.

Next to the counter sat a gathering of armchairs and a few red plastic glasses left over from the evening before. At about five P.M. every day, Sanders offers wine, bourbon, and beer from a small fridge next to the counter to friends who drop by. One of those friends, “Captain Eddie,” digital artist Edward Bateman, told me that the bookstore is the nexus of Salt Lake City’s counterculture. I could see why. Sanders’s store has the appeal of an eccentric great-aunt’s attic, where in every corner you might just happen upon treasure. Add to that his raconteur’s charm, and it’s no wonder the store is a favored gathering spot. With the hum of slow-moving fans in the background, writers, authors, artists, and filmmakers sip and reminisce about recent readings in the store, the best of them raucous literary happenings, while Sanders starts planning the next one. Around them, the R. Crumb characters, the busts, and the faces of the Monkey Wrench Gang seem like ghostly participants in the conversation. On the wall behind the counter hangs a large portrait of Sanders that a friend of his painted. “I call it my Dorian Gray,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to get those Disney eyes for it—to watch the store.”

The store could use them. Before my visit, during our first phone conversation, Sanders had mentioned the Red Jaguar Guy, and during the tour, when I asked for details, he gave me a look that said, Are you ready for this? I had already heard enough of Sanders’s stories to know that I’d opened the door to a good one, and nothing seems to make him happier than finding a willing ear for his tales.

“It’s actually an embarrassing story. For six years I’ve been leading the charge against theft—how booksellers can protect themselves from credit card fraud—and this punk-ass kid in his twenties gets me. ‘Ryan’ comes into the store and tells me that he and his father are selling books online and being real successful at it. Over the next week or so he buys some copies of the Book of Mormon , some other books. Makes three purchases totaling five thousand five hundred dollars, and each time the credit card company approved the charge. Then I get a call from another Salt Lake City bookseller who complained to me that he had just received a chargeback for a Book of Mormon sale a month back. I was curious and walked over to his shop. The individual he described to me matched the description of Ryan. I began to get a sinking feeling. I called other shops and found that Ryan had been to at least two of them. So I called the credit card company, and they did nothing, those swine . I began alerting every book dealer from Provo to Logan and discovered that there were five of us who had been visited by Ryan. I then received a phone call from a Provo dealer who had seen one of my stolen copies of the Book of Mormon on eBay (an 1874 edition). Thinking I had found my thief, I called up the seller, who turned out to be an elderly man named Fred who mainly sold low-end books on eBay—and I put the fear of God into him. Fred says, ‘I didn’t steal your books, but I know Ryan.’ Says he meets him in parking lots and pays cash.”

Sanders coerced Fred into arranging a rendezvous with Ryan, then Sanders called the police. “Ryan agrees to meet Fred at three in the Smith’s grocery store parking lot,” explained Sanders. “Ryan says, ‘I’ll be driving a red Jag.’ I called the cops, who didn’t give a shit. They say to me, ‘Who are you? Why’d you call?’ Just try to find a cop who cares about stolen books. I tell him I’ve pieced it together: five booksellers, fifteen grand. I tell him, ‘If you’re not going to do anything about this, I’ll go over and take him down myself. ’ So the cop came to my shop and reluctantly agreed to set up the sting, with the admonishment that I stay away.”

Ambivalence is not in Sanders’s emotional vocabulary, and his storytelling engine was revved up, rolling forward in full fury.

“Fred calls me and says the cops just showed up in the black-and-whites and scared the shit out of Ryan—then he says, ‘Wait, he’s runnin’ away!’ So I get there as fast as I can and see—oh, I tell you, it was a beautiful sight—a brand-new red Jaguar from Hertz with its doors wide open.” Sanders leans forward and takes a quick breath. “There’s this kid in a squad car with his head in his hands, bawling. The officer says to him, ‘You know who this is?’ And the kid looks up at me with this look, like, Oh no, I’m doomed . Then, get this: the cops forget about me. They leave the doors wide open, and here’s this kid, so I get in his face and say, ‘WHERE THE HELL ARE MY BOOKS?!’ He tells me there’s this drug ring. Fourteen others involved. I tell you, he was scared. This kid was really scared, because he knows they’ll come after him. So the next day I call the cops to see what’s going on and they tell me they tried questioning him this morning, but he wants an attorney. I couldn’t believe it! Why didn’t they question him while he was scared? Why did they wait?” Sanders finally pauses to take a deep breath. “So, anyway, this morning, I get a call. It’s been six months since they questioned him. Turns out the kid’s from a well-to-do family. He was allowed to promise to go into drug rehab in exchange for not serving any time.”

Sanders ended this story the way he ends a lot of stories about book thieves. “Nothing—I’m telling you, nothing —ever happens to these guys.”

It’s a wonder Sanders’s business has been successful for so many years (he reports sales of $1.9 million in 2007), considering many of the decisions he makes. His devotion to fellow book lovers, for example, usually trumps any chance of profit. About midway through my tour of his store, he noticed a customer at the counter. The man had a copy of History of the Scofield Mine Disaster , by J. W. Dilley, published in 1900, which chronicles Utah’s most horrific mining catastrophe. The man said that his grandfather had been one of the few survivors. Sanders took the book from him and flipped open the cover: $500.

“You don’t want this,” he said, shutting the book. “I’ve got another copy, much cheaper, I’m sure.” He turned to his employee, Mike Nelson, and said, “Go look for another copy in the back.”

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x