It took Thatcher Wine a year to amass 2,000 well-preserved white vellum and cream-colored leather-bound books for a “gentleman’s library” in the Northern California estate of a private equity manager.

The Nympho and Other Maniacs. The Sun Is My Undoing. I Who Should Command All. All three are book titles from the far-flung collection of the Institute Library on Chapel Street, and all three catch ...