Five best books on bibliomania

Allison Hoover Bartlett is the author of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession.

For the Wall Street Journal, she named a five best list of books on bibliomania. One title on the list:

Books: A Memoir
by Larry McMurtry (2008)

Larry McMurtry, the author of "Lonesome Dove" and "The Last Picture Show," grew up in a virtually bookless home. His first encounter with storytelling was listening to the adults in his family gossip on their Texas porch. This was probably to his advantage—certainly to ours: his ear for the seductive rhythm and pace of aural tradition graces this memoir of 50 years of hunting, buying and selling books. While maintaining a substantial used-book business in Archer, Texas, he also added to his own collection—about 28,000 volumes at last report. How he built both is a captivating story populated by legendary bookmen, enterprising scouts and endearing eccentrics. What makes McMurtry different from other book collectors is that his love of acquiring books is matched, maybe even surpassed, by his love of actually reading them.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue