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The Bible among most shoplifted books in the U.S.

The Ten Commandments may not count for much anymore, at least where nicking books is concerned. According to a recent New York Times article, the recent recession has resulted in a spike in shoplifting, with one bookstore – BookPeople in Austin, Texas – claiming that the Bible is the most frequently stolen title.

Apparently the thieves have not yet read the “Thou shalt not steal” part — or maybe they believe that Bibles don’t need to be paid for. “Some people think the word of God should be free,” [store owner Steve] Bercu said. As it turns out, Bibles are snatched even at the Parable Christian Store in Springfield, Ore., the manager told me, despite the fact that if a person asks for a Bible, they’ll be given a copy without charge.

Other authors whose work appeals to shoplifters include Martin Amis, Charles Bukowski, Raymond Carver, Jack Kerouac, and William S. Burroughs. The NYT article points out something interesting about the authors who appear overly attractive to book thieves: they’re all men.

“It’s mostly younger men stealing the books,” Zack Zook, the general manager of BookCourt in Brooklyn, suggested. “They think it’s an existential rite of passage to steal their homeboy.”

Neil Strandberg, the manager of operations at the Tattered Cover in Denver seconded this bit of reader profiling. “Our arrest record is very male,” he said.

Although it’s a difficult claim to verify, anecdotal evidence suggests that Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel The Virgin Suicides is the most-stolen modern book.

Eugenides had heard this for many years. “I just assumed that the book appealed to the young and sticky-fingered to a certain extent,” he told me, with some amusement. Years ago, Eugenides was at a literary conference with Paul Auster, another top choice among literary thieves. “Paul and I argued about whose book was stolen more,” Eugenides said. “He claimed he was stolen a lot, I claimed I was stolen a lot. Back and forth. It was one of those deep intellectual conversations.”

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