What man of letters might be looking for from reserve's lists of contacts (7,5)

'lists of contacts' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot judge whether this works.

'what man of letters might be looking for from reserve's' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'man' could be 'bo' and 'bo' is present in the answer.
'of' could be 'o' and 'o' is found within the answer.
'reserve's' could be 'ress' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'ress' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?