Intellectual thieves

Anna Goodal says in The Independent, “Shoplifting in bookshops is on the rise – and you'd be surprised at how literary the thieves' tastes are.” And a book that's popular with the thieves: Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

The report says that most bookshops have to write off thousands every year to account for theft. It does look like book thieves have good taste, and one would imagine they would actually read the book and display it on their shelves after that to impress friends -- not so much what they have stolen, but what they have read.

The most stolen books in New York are Bukowski, Kerouac and Burroughs, which could lead to profiling: anyone who still dresses like a 60s hippy might get frisked at the door. The book most lost in London’s larger stores is the A-Z. Thoroughly understandable, that. It is the first thing one needs on landing in the city, and if one doesn’t have money, one steals it. This is closely followed by trade paperbacks.

“In general, though, it is the smaller, "curated" (hah, that’s a nice word) bookshops where you find the more discerning thieves.” the story says. That is, independents. Top books stolen in a bookshop in Hackney are Penguin and Wordsworth classics. A shop in Brick Lane has lost A-Zs and Dostoyevsky.

All this is, of course, completely understandable. A non-reader wouldn’t know what to look for in the first place besides the ‘latest in thing’, which -- even if he nicks it -- will end up in a bin somewhere. But a discerning thief, a reader, is something else. He knows what he wants, and will do everything he can to get it. They are like art thieves.

Remember the scholar book thief of Bodleian Library? (http://silverfishnews.blogspot.com/2009/01/book-thief.html)

The Independent