Book stealing in Britain

In an earlier story we looked at how Iranian businessman, Farhad Hakimzadeh, stole pages from valuable books from the British Library and the Bodleian. Murad Ahmad of Times Online looks at books most often stolen. He says: "An estimated 100 million books -- a black market worth about £750 million -- are stolen from bookshops in the UK every year." So why do people steal books when they can get it from a library for free?

The most stolen book in Britain is the London A-Z. Understandable. This is the first book I buy every time I land in London. (I keep losing my copies, or forget to pack them.) 'Patrick Neale, who worked at a Waterstone's in London before setting up Jaffe & Neale bookshop in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. "A-Zs were like porn - you had to keep them under the till."'

A curious bunch, these book thieves. There is a story of how someone stole The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World from Red Lion Books in Colchester, Essex. I have a copy of that book. It is really big and heavy. It is amazing, how did they do it? (I am sure it was more than one person.)

Then there was this "unassuming, doddery old lady" who went into Bakewell in Derbyshire every week and stole a novel by Terry Pratchett. The police found 60 Pratchett books on the old lady's shelves. In 2004, there was a man who ran a gang of thieves that stole Lonely Planet travel guides to order, selling 35,000 stolen books a year. A religious bookshop in Herefordshire had to move away from a cathedral because the priests were stealing too many books.

This is a hilarious story. Read it at:

Times Online