The only reason I cold stretch to give this book 3 stars is because I like the premise of the content - and only the premise. As another reviewer pointed out, the title of the book speaks of the Collyer Brothers. The author chose to tell more about his uncles than the Collyer Brothers. I did not start to read this book to have to read the author's memoir of times with his uncles - the title should really be changed to reflect that this is really what the book is all about.
Additionally, the book was poorly written - it was difficulty to stay with the author since the paragraphs were dysjunctive and at times, nearly incoherent.
Now that I'm writing this review, I think I'll have to reduce my rating to 2 stars. ( )

I loved reading about the history of the Collyer brothers and the history of Brooklyn; however, the story was a bit confusing at times. The author's uncle had the same hoarding illness as the Collyer brothers. During the story he would flip back and forth between his family and the Collyer brothers. I was difficult at times to keep up with which family he was writing about. ( )

The sad, strange true story of the Collyer brothers, famous recluses and notorious hoarders. ( )

5141. Ghosty Men The Strange but True Story of the Collyer Brothers, New York's Greatest Hoarders An Urban Historical by Franz Lidz (read 29 Mar 2014) This tells of the Collyer Brothers who died in 1947 in their junk-filled four-story home in Harlem in New York. I have long been interested in this amazing event, and read on 11 Jan 2004 with appreciation Marcia Davenport's novel, My Brother's Keeper, based on the weird happening. This book is true, but tells the story mixed with humor and also tells of the author's nutty uncles, who also collected junk. There are humorous events, mostly about the author's uncles, and I found I resented that story being mixed in with the Collyer story. One stands in amazement that the frightful conditions existing in the Collyer home persisted as long as they did. I have known of situations of people living in junk-infested homes and they have been forcibly removed because they were a danger to themselves--as the Collyer brothers certainly were. On the other hand, one should not find a person mentally ill just because they have an unusual attitude to the way they want to live. But at some point society failed the Collyer brothers in letting them endanger and then lose their lives in the junk which filled their huge home. I would have preferred a more documentary type book, and some pictures of the people and the home would have been welcome. ( )

This short book is a good, not great, introduction to the fascinating Collyer brothers of Harlem, who mesmerized New York in the 1930s and 40s with their extreme eccentricities and mysterious house. Turned out the house was filled with well over 120 tons of junk. Lidz spends 40% of the book discussing his own uncle, also a hoarder, as a means of getting inside the heads of these long-dead men, who left no biographies. It doesn't quite work. A fuller story waits to be told about Homer and Langley Collyer. This provides just enough to leave this reader wanting more. ( )