Irony

I just read the the #1 shoplifted book is The Bible.

Hmmm.

I've been to several library conventions and conferences and I've spoken to many of the vendors. I can't walk through the exhibit area without feeling the overwhealming urge to buy something.

Books call to me like an addiction. I have shelves and shelves of them and I only keep the ones that I plan on reading again. But it is clearly impossible since I still have stacks of books that I haven't gotten into yet and regularly buy more. I can't walk into Barnes & Noble without buying at LEAST one or two things.

I read about 100 books a year but I buy at least twice that many. In addition to one entire bedroom of our home that has been converted into a library (see photo at left), I have boxes of books stored in closets and the attic that I may never see again because there are so many new books coming out that command my attention.

So I thought, surely, these book sellers who have tables and tables of lovely books on all manner of things, and display them so temptingly in a bustling, confusing room filled with thousands of people who love books as much as I do; these vendors must lose quite a bit to the old "Five Finger Discount".

Consistently the vendors told me that this was not the case. None that I spoke to ever had a single book stolen.

"I guess thieves don't read much" one told me.

--Julian Franklin