Wherever on the continuum between "normal" and "excessive" book love one personally happens to be, there likely is a modern author who has addressed a book (or two...or three...) directly to you.
One of the most popular contemporary authors on the subject is Nicholas Basbanes, an award-winning investigative reporter and nationally syndicated columnist whose many books about the love of books have attracted a strong worldwide audience:
Basbanes writes of book love, however obsessive, with great empathy and respect. Even bibliomaniac book thieves, like the infamous Stephen Blumberg (arguably the most successful book thief of the 20th century), are treated with understanding.
A more personal chronicler of book love is Alberto Manguel, whose many books on the subject also have managed to attract a worldwide following:
Manguel, who was born in Argentina, and who--through one of those twists of fate so loved by book lovers--spent four years of his youth reading to the blind Argentine writer Jorge Louis Borges--is a strong advocate for the centrality of books to a well-lived life.
A lesser-known chronicler of book love, though one of our personal favorites, is the former editor of The American Scholar, Anne Fadiman. Anyone who has ever married someone whose personal library is as large as, if not larger than, his or her own will immediately recognize themselves in one of Fadiman's wittiest (yet most poignant) essays, found in her 1998 book, Ex Libris:
Bibliomania has even managed to infiltrate the world of manga, as anyone who follows the exploits of Yomiko Readman will be aware:
Where are you on the continuum between bibliophile and bibliomaniac...?
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