A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books

xxix, [3], 638 pp. Includes new preface prepared for the paperback edition. The quintessential 'book on books'. Basbanes recounts his personal experiences as a bibliophile, and explores the history of mankind's addiction to the printed word. Includes two sections of black & white photographs, extensive notes, bibliography, and index. "The passion to possess books has never been more widespread than it is today; indeed, obsessive book collecting remains the only hobby to have a disease named after it. A Gentle Madness, finalist for the 1995 National Book Critics Circle award, is an adventure among the afflicted. Richly anecdotal and fully documented, it combines the perspective of historical research with the immediacy of investigative journalism. Above all, it is a celebration of books and the people who have revered, gathered, and preserved them over the centuries."