The Man Who Loved Books Too Much Giveaway!

What would you do for the love of a good book?

For John Charles Gilkey, the answer is: go to prison.

Back in September '09, Riverhead Books sent me a "book lovers" book in the mail called The Man Who Loved Books Too Much:The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett. Allison is a great writer and the story of John Gilkey, a man who stole books for the pure love of the books, was so interesting! We had a lot of fun on the blog too, commenting on what books we would "steal" if we were a book thief! Here's what I wrote about the book...

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett is an adventure for all of us who love books! For those of us who love not just what's inside them, but the heft of them in our hands, the sensation of the texture of the pages as we turn them, the beauty of the book itself...

This story takes us into the lives of John Gilkey, an obsessed & bold book thief, Ken Sanders the man who made it his mission to catch Gilkey, and the journalist and author, Allison Hoover Bartlett, who explores the world of rare & beautiful books with the people who sell & collect them, including Sanders AND Gilkey.

In the opening of the book, a 400 yr. old book called a Kreuterbuch sits on Allison Hoover Bartlett's desk. I love old books, and just the way Allison described the Kreuterbuch in the prologue, "the pages, when turned, make a muffled crack... a dry woody smell..." I knew this would be a different kind of 'book thief' story. A book written by a person who truly appreciates & enjoys books - and not just for what's inside!

Read my Full Review from Sept. 9, 2009! Read the full list of the Books We'd Steal if we were book thieves from Sept. 18th, 2009! And in the meantime, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is finally out in paperback and to celebrate, courtesy of Riverhead Books, we're going to have a giveaway! You have a chance to win one of two copies! Here's how to Enter...

*For One Entry, leave me a comment with your email address!

*For a Bonus entry, tell me what book you would steal if you were a thief! (we all love books, so don't be shy!)

This giveaway is open to U.S. Only (No PO boxes). The book will be shipped to the winner directly from the publishers. Contest ends 11:59pm EST on Oct. 29th, 2010. I will randomly pick the winners the next day and email them! Good Luck!

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much Gives us a Reason to Celebrate! It's Another Blogoversary Giveaway!

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much Gives us a Reason to Celebrate!

It's Another Blogoversary Giveaway!

And the Winner is... Nunah! Congrats! Thank you to EVERYONE who joined in on the fun!

Rob of Books are Like Candy Corn, who just missed the deadline for entering the giveaway, found a great bargain for this book for everyone who didn't win the giveaway! Paperback Swap , which is a book swap site, is now selling new overstocked books and had The Man Who Loved Books Too Much for $6.49! Thanks Rob for letting us all know! You can follow the links above right to the site!

Back in September Lydia of Riverhead Books sent me a "book lovers" book in the mail called The Man Who Loved Books Too Much:The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett. Allison is a great writer and the story of John Gilkey, a man who stole books for the pure love of the books, was so interesting! We had a lot of fun on the blog too, commenting on what books we would "steal" if we were a book thief! Here's what I wrote about the book...

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett is an adventure for all of us who love books! For those of us who love not just what's inside them, but the heft of them in our hands, the sensation of the texture of the pages as we turn them, the beauty of the book itself...

This story takes us into the lives of John Gilkey, an obsessed & bold book thief, Ken Sanders the man who made it his mission to catch Gilkey, and the journalist and author, Allison Hoover Bartlett, who explores the world of rare & beautiful books with the people who sell & collect them, including Sanders AND Gilkey.

In the opening of the book, a 400 yr. old book called a Kreuterbuch sits on Allison Hoover Bartlett's desk. I love old books, and just the way Allison described the Kreuterbuch in the prologue, "the pages, when turned, make a muffled crack... a dry woody smell..." I knew this would be a different kind of 'book thief' story. A book written by a person who truly appreciates & enjoys books - and not just for what's inside!

You can read the Full Review at the Sept. 9th post! And you can read the full list of books we'd steal at the Sept. 18th post! Some of those included:

* A Soldier of The Great War by Mark Helprin

* A First Edition of Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

* A First Edition of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Jane was a popular girl, mentioned a few times!)

* A Handwritten draft by Jane Austen

* A First Edition of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

* a first edition of Paradise Lost by John Milton

Riverhead Books joins the Celebration by sponsoring a giveaway for a copy of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett! Riverhead Books has been dedicated to publishing extraordinary ground-breaking, unique fiction & non-fiction writers. Thanks Lydia and Riverhead Books for joining in on the festivities! If you love books, and you haven't read this book, YOU SHOULD! And here's your opportunity to win a copy! Here's how to enter...

*For One Entry, leave me a comment with your email address!

*For One more entry, Blog or tweet about this giveaway and leave me the link.

*For a Bonus entry, tell me what book you would steal if you were a thief! (we all love books, so don't be shy!)

This giveaway is open to U.S. & Canadian residents only.(No PO boxes). The book will be shipped to the winner directly from the publishers. Contest ends 11:59pm EST on March 2nd, 2010. I will randomly pick the winners the next day and email them! Good Luck!

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much AND The Books We'd Love to "Steal" If We Were Book Thieves!

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

AND The Books We'd Love to "Steal" If We Were Book Thieves!

There was a lot of book lust going on last week as the giveaway for The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett was going on! Thanks to everyone who joined in on the fun! What great books we all would 'steal' if we were book thieves like John Gilkey! Here's the list of what books we'd slip under our hats if we were so inclined! Oh, and I didn't list the identities to protect the innocent...

* A First edition of ANY F. Scott Fitzgerald novel (Famous for his novel The Great Gatsby!)

* The Very First edition of ANYTHING by Edgar Allen Poe

* The First edition of The Collected Works of Shakespeare published in 1623

* The Gutenberg Bible ( the first substantial book printed with movable type, completed in 1455. If your interested, here's a list of where the 21 remaining complete Gutenberg Bibles can be found)

* A Soldier of The Great War by Mark Helprin

* A First Edition of Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

* A First Edition of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Jane was a popular girl, mentioned a few times!)

* A Handwritten draft by Jane Austen

* A First Edition of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

* a first edition of Paradise Lost by John Milton

* An Original Copy of ANY Shakespeare play (another popular choice!)

* A First Edition of the Dick and Jane Reader (this one brings back fond memories, but not from when they were first used which was the 1930's)

* A Copy of Oscar Wilde and Me by Lord Alfred Douglas

* Who Killed Amanda Palmer by Amanda Parker and Neil Gaiman

* An Original Play by Henrik Ibsen (known for his successful Pillars of Society)

* An Original Copy of Grimms Fairy Tales (Would you like to read a few? Here's a site with all the stories available to read!)

* Emmuska Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel books

* The Tunnel Calamity by Edward Gorey

* The Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese “Book of the Tao” by philosopher Lao Tzu around 2500 BC

* Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

* First Edition of a Nero Wolfe novel, such as The Doorbell Rang (BTW, Rex Stout wrote the Nero Wolfe novels!)

* Cleopatra’s Daughter by Michelle Moran ( Enter my giveaway for a copy of this!)

* A Signed First Edition of Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

* A First Edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

* A Huge Bag Full of Books from Barnes & Noble Bookstore!

Here are some added favorites from other Chick with Books readers:

* Books from the Bronte sisters!

* The Wizard of Oz series!

Any other books that we should add to this list of great books we wish were in our libraries? Any John Steinbeck fans? Dr. Seuss? Jennifer won the giveaway for The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, but as of today it's available from your local bookstore! (and is Kindle Ready!) As for the other books mentioned... you may have a harder time finding them!

Happy reading...

Suzanne

The Sunday Salon... "Books with Buzz"

What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake...

It's been an interesting week, with a special giveaway underway courtesy of the author Allyson Roy for a signed copy of the book Babydoll and the wrap-up of the giveaway for a copy of Up For Renewal by Cathy Alter.... And there have been some interesting books I've seen in my travels this week (not to mention a few nice surprises in my mailbox!)...

If you love books, not just the inside of them but the whole "experience" of having a book in your hand,the beauty of the cover, the feel of the paper as you turn the pages, there's going to be another special giveaway this week for a copy of an ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) for The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett. "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." A book written by someone who really loves books! Read the review and enter the giveaway this wednesday! But hurry- this giveaway is running only one week! The end of the giveaway coincides with the release date of the book to the public the next day...

Another interesting book I came across this week is Voices of the Desert by Nelida Pinon. "From one of Brazil’s most beloved writers, a magical tale of lust, power, betrayal, and forgiveness set in the royal court of thirteenth-century Baghdad: a sumptuous retelling of the legend of Scheherazade that illuminates her character as never before..." We are all familiar with The One Thousand and One Night tales, and we know Scheherazade is the heroine of the story, but not much more is written about her. Voices of the Desert tells us the story of The One Thousand and One Night's from Scheherazade's perspective, alluding to her heroism for saving 1001 virgins that would have died had she not kept her 'husband' enthralled with her tales... this is what attracted me to the book, how the author takes this well known tale and puts life into the characters that take part in the story- not just the stories. I can't wait to read it!

A book with a lot of buzz around it recently is The Sound of Water by Sanjay Bahadur. This book was longlisted for the Man AsianPrize, (A literary prize designed for works created in Asia), and "provides an agonizing 360-degree account of an Indian mining disaster as seen from three perspectives: an old miner struggling to save himself and his coworkers hundreds of feet below the surface of the earth as water threatens to drown them; the company and government officials charged with managing the rescue efforts; and the miners' families anxiously awaiting word of survival or death..." The author, Sanjay Bahadur, is the former director of the Indian Ministry of Coal which lends quite a bit of authenticity to what he is writing about. How the author creates a full picture of an awful mining disaster thru the eyes of the victims, bureaucrats and the families involved sounds like an incredible task to take on, but to also give us an honest look of the conditions these miners must endure is truly amazing. I think we'll be hearing more about this book...

And finally one more book to check out before you turn the page... Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder. "Strength in What Remains is a wonderfully written, inspiring account of one man’s remarkable American journey and of the ordinary people who helped him–a brilliant testament to the power of will and of second chances. Deo arrives in America from Burundi in search of a new life. Having survived a civil war and genocide, plagued by horrific dreams, he lands at JFK airport with two hundred dollars, no English, and no contacts. He ekes out a precarious existence delivering groceries, living in Central Park, and learning English by reading dictionaries in bookstores..." And eventually overcomes all these obstacles to become a doctor! If this weren't true it would be hard to believe! An incredible true tale written like an adventure story! We are given a glimpse into the life & struggles of an immigrant as he overcomes incredible odds to survive and thrive.

Hope I've peaked your interest a little here! In the meantime, what are you cracking the spine on this week?! Let me know what books grabbed ahold of you this week! Remember to stop by this week to enter the giveaway for The Man Who Loved Books Too Much! There will be other reviews up this week too! And the short list for the BBAW awards (Book Bloggers Appreciation Week) will be announced too! I'll let you know what's going on there and how you can vote for your favorite blogs!

*P.S. Japanese Literature Update... I just picked up Strangers by Taichi Yamada thanks to a recommendation by Gnoe of Graasland, who is also participating in the Challenge. Thanks for sharing this with me- it looks wonderful! And look for a review in the future for Strangers!

Happy reading... Suzanne