Review of 'A gentle madness' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
A work of nonfiction that provides a steady stream of facts, and still manages to be engaging and enjoyable throughout, earns a five-star rating from me. Nicholas Basbanes spins many tales about the origins of famous libraries, and the migration patterns of some of the oldest books in existence. Reading this added to my must-see bucket list.
Toward the end of this tome, there is a very long section on Stephen Blumberg, the man known as the most successful bibliokleptomaniac in history. It is a spicy tale...fortunately, he respected the books he was hiding, and they were returned, eventually, to all the victimized institutions--all across the country and in Canada, as well. (He was sentenced to almost six years in prison and heavily fined.) Blumberg would not have been caught had a "friend" not turned him in for a bounty.
Basbanes mentions many smaller but intriguing collections, such as the …
A work of nonfiction that provides a steady stream of facts, and still manages to be engaging and enjoyable throughout, earns a five-star rating from me. Nicholas Basbanes spins many tales about the origins of famous libraries, and the migration patterns of some of the oldest books in existence. Reading this added to my must-see bucket list.
Toward the end of this tome, there is a very long section on Stephen Blumberg, the man known as the most successful bibliokleptomaniac in history. It is a spicy tale...fortunately, he respected the books he was hiding, and they were returned, eventually, to all the victimized institutions--all across the country and in Canada, as well. (He was sentenced to almost six years in prison and heavily fined.) Blumberg would not have been caught had a "friend" not turned him in for a bounty.
Basbanes mentions many smaller but intriguing collections, such as the Mulholland Library of Conjuring and the Allied Arts. This was exciting for me, because my husband and I have had the opportunity to see this. I had heard a couple stories about how David Copperfield came to buy the entire Mulholland collection, but I did not know the reason it was sold. The back story involves a banker who was implicated in the savings and loan scandal. It seems that this collection was a bank president's private--perk. When that bank collapsed in 1990, the late John Mulholland's collection was seized by a government agency to recoup the bank's losses--and it did. The last owner paid $575,000 for the original collection, and his famous curator, Ricky Jay continued to enhance it over a period of years. In the end, about $850,000 had been spent on a collection that was then sold to Copperfield for 2.2 million dollars! Nice return.
Another collector who gets space in this book is Fred J. Board, who collects "oddities." This man makes his own rules. The oddest thing he owns, in my opinion, must be the book printed on pasta, fastened with steel bolts. (Not sure I'd drive to Connecticut to see that.)
There are many human interest type stories included in this fabulous reference book, since the passion for collecting cannot be separated from the personalities of these bibliophiles. They are the reason that so much history has been preserved and is available for study.
Since this is a reference book, it need not be read from cover to cover (I did that out of habit). It's well organized and indexed. I'm glad to have this in my collection, and would certainly recommend it.
Ricky Jay is a famous magician and also a most engaging writer. I highly recommend Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women. (And he is no longer the curator of the Mulholland Collection.)
p.s. well-indexed means 100 pages of index. Lest anyone think I'm a speed reader, I am not.
