The Thieves of Book Row

I have just finished reading The Thieves of Book Row written by Travis McDade, and stating first that I enjoyed it immensely, I was amazed at the incredible amount of book stealing that went on from the public libraries in the early decades of the 20th century. A vast amount of rare and valuable books were pilfered from public and University libraries, particularly on the East coast, and the involvement of many so called reputable book sellers is called into question in the story. Makes me wonder about some of the missing books that still may be lurking out there in the dark, so to speak, waiting to be rediscovered, hopefully returned to rightful institutions. I am sure that it still happens even now, but with the high tech security measures we have now, thankfully it doesn't happen as much. Highly recommend this book.

An aside here, The Island of Lost Maps is another similar story but involves map stealing instead of books, and also The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is another great read in this line of Bibliocrime, (a new word?)

A famous relatively recent case in Sweden:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/books/swedish-royal-library-recovers-stolen-15...

http://art-crime.blogspot.se/2013/06/history-of-art-crime-arca-student-m-c.html

I read the first couple chapters of The Thieves of Book Row and enjoyed them very much. I'll get back to it at some point.

I have read all of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much and thought it interesting. In that case he kept many of the items he stole. For Thieves it seems that the whole business was to steal books, sometimes "on order," from institutions wherever they could get away with it.

James