The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

For book lovers everywhere, there's nothing more pleasing than to hold a treasured book, to inhale its scent, to caress its pages. A home library reveals much about one's life, and avid readers can talk for hours about the titles, authors, and characters that changed their view of the world. Books are much more than objects that deliver content. Collected, savored, and loved, they shape identity, and readers have a rich and complex relationship with their books.

Rare books hold even more power, providing a physical link to the past. Those who acquire a centuries-old manuscript or a signed first edition know their place in the chain of possession of a valuable artifact. For John Charles Gilkey, a man enthralled with books and aware of how they might express his ideal self, this relationship turned dark as he stole hundreds of thousands of books from rare-book dealers across the country. Bartlett's debut tells Gilkey's story, and the story of Ken Sanders, a book dealer with a penchant for detective work, who caught him.