The book explores the relationship of book collectors, book thieves, and the books they collect. The book is an examination on how books shape our lives and how we shape the books we read or collect. Thomas Jefferson Fitzpatrick desired to make a tomb by collecting so many books, when he died in 1951 he had so many books that he had to sleep on a cot in his kitchen.
I read and collect books because it is an elixir for my insecure post modern polluted mind.
Books provide a way to make a personal biographical museum of our interests and our loves tomes in one volume. Books serve as a vehicle for a public image shaped carefully by our selected works. We discard books as a way to say, "See how much I have grown, and look at the books I use to own." Words today are footprints of our fleeting thoughts, some holy-some not.
The book poses the question: "Are we shaped by the books we read, or do we shape the books we read?"
Andre Comte Spoonville states, "Religion requires a re-reading, to contemplate, we are bound together because we re-read."
Allison Hoover Bartlett's Blog for the "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much."
Check out my Post in 2009 on the Need for Books
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