Rare book collectors know the crown jewel of any library would be a complete Gutenberg Bible. Johannes Gutenberg produced perhaps 180 copies. Today, only 21 are known to exist. As you can imagine, it’s news — and indeed history-making — each time a Gutenberg changes ownership. Most are stored meticulously in secured vaults regulated for temperature and humidity and rarely touched by human hands.

A new book, "The Lost Gutenberg" by Margaret Leslie Davis, weaves a fascinating tale of the 500-year journey of one of these Bibles from owner to owner, including Estelle Doheny of Los Angeles, widow of an oil tycoon who achieved her lifelong dream of owning a Gutenberg Bible in 1950. The book reads like a detective novel, but is really a love story professing the far-reaching and personal impact of the Bible.

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