A very enjoyable read. I liked the fact that Blom wrote some about the psychology of collecting as well as the history of curious collectors. Recommended. ( )

[this originally appeared as an entry titled "A Needle in a Haystack" on my blog, Rampant Biblioholism]

I tend to skip around a lot in my reading. Anything that catches my eye is likely to end up on my list, regardless of topic. So I've been thinking about just what it is that's likely to catch my eye. The book To Have and to Hold: An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting does it just right.

Firstly, it's pretty. Just look at it: it's interesting, it's a bit creepy, and it's completly appropriate for the topic of the book. Once the cover has seduced me into picking up the book, I take a look at the back cover. The description sounds interesting, and as a bonus, it has a nice quote from an author who I've read and enjoyed (in this case, Jenny Uglow, author of The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World).

So now I open the book and take a look at the table of contents: The Dragon and the Tartar Lamb, The Mastodon and the Taxonomy of Memory, This Curious Old Gentleman, Why Boiling People is Wrong, Three Flying Du...wait, what? Why Boiling People is Wrong? You've got me; I'm in. I've just got to know the answer to that question, so onto my reading list it goes.

How about you? What catches your eye when browsing for books? How do you find something new? What makes you pick up a book from an author you've never heard of or on a subject you normally wouldn't be interested in? ( )

This book is about the madness and obsession of collecting possessions, objects, items, treasures and peculiar things through the ages. The key question is what drives seemingly sane individuals to collect and amass things, often objects of little use. The author ranges widely through time, past and present to find out about quirky people and their even odder collections from books, to strange creatures from Egyptian mummies to skulls and plaster casts, form milk bottles to advertising labels. The most successful of collectors were those who wrote about their collections or created museums that preserved the collection beyond their lifespans . One of my favourite London museums is the Lincoln's Inn Field Sir John Soane museum. The book is well researched, with many interesting facets to collecting explored. Ultimately the purpose of collecting is driven by a desire to impose order on a chaotic world and perhaps to understand the world better and secondly, to purchase longevity through collecting; if you cannot live forever at least your collection will speak in your voice for the next generation.
However this is a poorly produced book as the illustrations which could have brought life and delight, are small dark and poorly reproduced miniature inserts. These do not do justice to the travels and hard work
of the author. ( )

A dense and delightful guided tour and detailed history of brilliant and obsessive collectors and their amazing collections To Have and To Hold held my attention ably. This book made me even more curious about the curious, and made me want to read more about the fascinating characters, the museums that house some of the collections, or the artifacts themselves. For anyone who loves to ponder the items in a curio cabinet or the halls of a museum or the corners of the world, this book is an absorbing diversion, and a great companion to A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes. Each contain chapters that stand alone as fascinating vignettes, and I'm certain to browse both books again and again. ( )

At first I thought this was going to be a survey of some eccentric collectors in history, on which is does not disappoint, but it turns out to be a lot richer and contain some real pearls of wisdom about life in general, and flashes of historical insight.

Reading through the chapters of this book was a lot like rummaging through a private collectors cabinet of curiosities. The chapter titles alone don't reveal its direction and only after a few pages does it begin to reveal its treasure. Chapters cover aspects of collecting as diverse as: people who collected experiences with women (Casanova), the collecting of body parts (religious relics), collecting memories, American billionaires who bought up European heritage (JP Morgan, Hearst), collectors of mass-produced items (milk bottles, food wrappers), Princes and Kings such as Rudolf of Hapsburg (17th C) who filled his castle with the worlds greatest collections and slowly went mad, collecting as a madness, as a substitute for love, as a form of autism, as psychology, as crime - and in the end, as a warning to all those who take it too far.

Required reading for anyone who is a collector, has collected, knows a collector or is considering collecting. ( )