Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding!! Like reading a AA Handbook and seeing yourself
Review: Just finished. Five stars. I am trying to email the author to thank him. Anyone interested in books (which includes you) deserves to read this book. The chapter on Blumberg is especially illuminating.
Rating:
Summary: If you read, this book will become a prized volume....
Review: Literally anyone who enjoys reading will prize this book. I had mentioned and quoted briefly from the book on my personal page, and received questions about the work, as well as many people who said they too had the disease.There is truly a Psychological condition that describes people obsessed with books, the condition is known as Bibliomania, derivatives include Bibliomaniac, and Bibliomane. The Author describes a condition of buying books you have no intention of reading. For most of us (I am afflicted) this means we buy and read books as much as we can. I have crossed over to collecting old books, and since they are in Latin, Greek, and other languages unknown to me, my defense that I will read them is weak. You will read about a man who "collected" over 23,000 books from various libraries and other book outlets just to possess them. His library grew as he traveled around the Country adding to his collection. His taste was excellent and his library contained priceless volumes by the hundreds. His story illustrates how easy access is to rare books and further how they can be purloined. It is not a how to steal books section, just one amazing tale. The book also documents the building/collection of some of the finest libraries in existence. The libraries are as varied as there are books. One women set out to build the definitive library of children's books, what she has collected will amaze you. The attitudes of the caretakers of these works view themselves as just that, keepers for a time, their feelings about where books should be, and should never be will surprise you. What is done with many collections after the original assembler dies will also surprise you. The book also educates the reader to the History of bookmaking, the few surviving Guttenberg Bibles, books from the cradle i.e. incunabula, produced prior to the year 1400ad. This book will probably set you off to an antiquarian bookfair, for lovers of books it's a special experience. Hold a first edition by Galileo, see 1 page of a Guttenberg Bible that for $25,000-$30,000 can be yours. Or for the upscale shopper you can bid against Bill Gates for the Leicester Codex of Da Vinci, in round numbers bring about $40,000,000. After you read the book, everything you read going forward will be enhanced. But tread carefully; the collection of old books is not an inexpensive hobby. On the other hand holding a book that is 500 years old can be a pretty heady experience. Every library will be enhanced by this book.
Rating:
Summary: A passive aggressive gentle madness
Review: There hasn't been a shortage of titles in over 100 years and the people who must have certain books seems to be a broad based intensifying cluster or a new segment of society. With the recent shift away from books the collector will certainly become a more common obsessive category of oddball offender. The darker side encountered has tabloid appeal-lust over time greed unseen.This book is entertaining, erudite and encompasses a large topic-sometimes going down one road rather than another. There is ample topic unexplored;tidbits of roadsigns not followed. This mapless journey flows past several very interesting topics. A return to this overwrought metaphor will undoubtedly lead to a successful sequel-the editor of this book must be like a diet guru attending a Thanksgiving feast. Refusing to give in yet appalled at the blister of forgotten tastes. I vote for a series. Very nice cover-makes an excellent gift-although I doubt if this book will be collected. Worth reading,buying and sharing.
Rating:
Summary: Book collecting, a cultural phenomenon
Review: This is an erudite account of various aspects of book collecting, its practitioners, and their collections. Basbanes covers in detail the histories of some of the greatest collections, and those of the individuals behind them. His thoroughly researched work also explores two collectors whose activities might be more accurately described by changing to "real" the "gentle" of the book's title. A piquant note is added by the fact that true to form one of these two wrote a pseudoanonymous review for Amazon.com but could not resist to reveal his identity by listing his address as "heaven", a take-off on his name "Haven". The author's many years of successful non-fiction writing for the media have resulted in gripping accounts; a must for anybody who shares his - and my - love for books.
Rating:
Summary: Why do people read?
Review: This massive tome is a pleasure from the very start to the very end. If you are a book lover and buy no other collection of book lore this is the new standard in the genre.
Rating:
Summary: A Bibliomaniac's Delight
Review: This massive tome is a pleasure from the very start to the very end. If you are a book lover and buy no other collection of book lore this is the new standard in the genre.
Rating: 
Summary: started out interesting.. bogged down somewhere
Review: This started out as an interesting look at books and the passions that surround them. When he got into the 20th century and started detailing the obsessive behaviours of certain more contemporary collectors at excessive length, I lost interest. I've been working on it gradually for several months because I'm no longer able to read more than a few pages at a time, and still haven't finished.
| 
