book thefts

"Rick Gekoski has been traversing the rocky terrain of the rare book trade for over fifty years. The treasure he seeks is scarce, carefully buried and often jealously guarded, knowledge of its hiding place shared through word of mouth like the myths of old. Gekoski invites readers into this enchanted world as he reflects on the gems he has unearthed throughout his career. Hunting for literary treasure is not without its battles and Gekoski boldly breaks the cardinal rule never to engage in a lawsuit with someone much richer than yourself, while also guarding his bookshop from the most unlikely of thieves"--Provided by publisher.

Liesl Weiss is happy to be the magic behind the curtain working in the distinguished rare books department of a large university, managing details and working behind the scenes to make the head of the department look good. But when her boss has a stroke, Liesl is left in charge. She soon discovers the library's most prized manuscript is missing, but when she reports it to the police, she's told to keep quiet and to keep the library's doors open. Another librarian goes missing, and Liesl begins to investigate and finds herself coming face-to-face with the dark underbelly of the university.

". . . a coming-of-age crime memoir centered around three childhood friends: Warren, Spencer, and Eric, who, disillusioned with freshman year of college and determined to escape from their mundane Middle-American existences, the three hatch a plan to steal millions of dollars worth of artwork and rare manuscripts from a university museum"--Adapted from back cover.

"While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. ... Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe's libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own that they could use to wage an intellectual war on literature and history. ... But when the war was over, most of the books were never returned. ... Now Rydell finds himself entrusted with one of these stolen volumes, setting out to return it to its rightful owner. It was passed to him by the small team of heroic librarians who have begun the monumental task of combing through Berlin's public libraries to identify the looted books and reunite them with the families of their original owners. ... And as Rydell travels to return the volume he was given, he shows just how much a single book can mean to those who own it"--Amazon.com.

Daniel Spiegelman helped himself to rare books, manuscripts, and letters from Columbia University's Butler Library. While not a sophisticated thief with academic knowledge in this area, he was clever in the methods he used. The thefts remained undetected for months by library staff because there was no trace of a break-in. Only when a librarian went to get a rare book that she was working on, and found it missing, did the thefts come to light. Spiegelman was caught in Europe as he was trying to sell some of the material.

Journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett uncovers a subculture of literary fanatics when she follows Ken Saunders, an amateur detective and collector of rare books, while he pursues Gilkey, a book-loving thief.

The story of an infamous crime, a revered map dealer with an unsavory secret, and the ruthless subculture that consumed him. Once considered a respectable antiquarian map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley spent years doubling as a map thief until he was finally arrested slipping maps out of books in the Yale University library. The Map Thief delves into the untold history of this fascinating high-stakes criminal and the inside story of those who deal in the collecting and sale of rare and priceless maps. Moreover, although Smiley swears he has admitted to all of the maps he stole, libraries claim he stole hundreds more and offer intriguing clues to prove it. The Map Thief interweaves Smiley's escapades with the stories of the explorers and mapmakers he knew better than anyone.