An article in a recent “Publishers Weekly” discusses the ongoing problem of theft that book sellers have to deal with. What’s fascinating is not that shoplifting is going on, but the nature of what’s being stolen.
Bibles.
Bibles and books about faith.
‘Tis truly a wonderment, the irony-free sensibilities of people who steal a book that’s fairly renowned for the instruction from on high about “Thou Shalt Not Steal.”
PAD
• 
A person who would steal a Bible is a person who most needs to read it.
davidh
Oh, yeah, I know this is true. I used to work for Barnes & Noble and bibles and religious materials were swiped in much higher numbers than anything else.
But what would REALLY frighten you is what magazines we’d find in the men’s room to be used as..er…sexual aides. *shudders*
And there’s also all those bootlegged copies of The Passion out there.
David
I believe it. When I worked at Books-A-Million, bibles and pørņ magazines were stolen the most. And Pokemon cards.
You see, Alanis? It’s everywhere!
Now, I could understand it if they were stealing self-help books…
That’s almost as funny buying “Self-help,” or “Do it Yourself” books. I mean, if you wanna do “Self-help,” or “Do it Youself,” why are you asking for the author’s help? 🙂
Or even better, asking where to find them:
“Excuse me, can you direct me to the Self-Help section?”
“Sure. But wouldn’t that defeat the entire purpose?”
Maybe the thinking is “Well, if I’m gonna steal something I should steal something that’s supposed to be good for me.”
Wait…maybe there’s a secret underground of bible burning Satanists out there! They definately wouldn’t pay for a bible sos they could burn it!
It all makes sense!
Ah!
I don’t find this ironic at all.
I mean, we’re all aware that such rules “from on high” only apply to everyone *else*, right.
Salutations,
Mitch, from that sad sad world we live in.
Do you ever wonder what the hëll people are thinking when they do that?
Probably the same things they think about when they steal anything liftable from a library without “security measures” in place.
One thought – are these people stealing Bibles for themselves? Presents for their mama, maybe? Or selling them to other people? I just can’t believe people would steal a Bible for themselves.
One scam that has been noticed in the book selling community was people who troll the parking lot for reciepts that list cash as the means of payment. They then go into the store, pick up the book(s) on the reciept, and return them for cash. Harder to do at the chains since they keep computer records of returns and they do notice the trends of returns more than the independents.
Any one have statistics on how many copies of Abbie Hoffman’s “Steal This Book” actually get stolen?
Yeah, that is ironic.
Incidentally, I remember reading in the local paper about a similar trend in terms of Christian music and person-to-person file sharing.
I don’t know how often Steal This Book was actually stolen, but the movie version, Steal This Movie, was so bad, we couldn’t give it away. A steaming bowl of irony, as my friend used to say.
And Alanis’ song actually had no irony in it, which is kind of ironic, really.
Ben Hunt
Mayhaps it is those that *sell* Bibles that are the real thieves. Is it not questionable that a business should profit from the faith of others? Perhaps the real irony is in putting a price tag on belief. One might even argue that the businesses are sullying the pure intent of the book, and that the books are actually being “liberated.” Ever wonder what happens to an edition of the Bible that doesn’t sell? Many books get sent back to the distributor. But what happens then? Do you suppose they get destroyed? What a horrible fate to befall such a… good book. You can’t put a price on belief. Or rather, you can, but people aren’t willing to pay for it. Faith should be free.
Of course, by not paying for the book, the people who end up suffering are the ones that make this brand of faith available to the masses. Publishers, translators, and those scholars who have to analyze every line and make the book twice as long in footnotes. If people didn’t buy bibles, the only place they find ’em would be churches and the like. Stealing bibles from a church… now *that’s* irony.
Any one have statistics on how many copies of Abbie Hoffman’s “Steal This Book” actually get stolen?
Probably none, reverse psychology working it’s wonders. Like Al Franken says, “we should tell our youth not to vote,” or something to that effect.
I used to work for Chapters and Indigo (before, during and after the merger) up here in Canada, and we routinely caught people trying to steal anything that wasnt nailed down, under glass, or guarded by 15 attack lattes. Both the Old and New testaments, were some of the worst for attempted theft. I once came on shift one day to discover an entire shelf full of bibles had simply vanished. In fact I eventually quit the job because I just couldn’t watch what some people would do in the stores to ordinary books, let alone ones of religious signifigance. (Bad mental image: Kids books in the mens room with the pages stuck together…use your imagination if you dare). To this day I still can’t go into one of those stores without feeling uneasy.
One of the worst things I ever saw was when customers would browse the books and see one that has whatever information they wanted in it and instead of buying the book or pulling out a notepad and writing down notes, they would just RIP out the pages they want and then walk out without paying for the book. I saw books damaged in this way on a regular basis, and sadly when we did catch people in the act they simple went to a different store (either another Chapters/Indigo or one of the few remaining independents) and kept right on doing it. Or they would deliberately damage the cover of a previously pristine book, then demand a discount for the damaged book.
And people wonder why books are so expensive these days.
Oh we have a serial “this book is damaged” customer when I was a manager at a Borders. She was clever to not go for the same manager who has to approve such things. We shut her down by saying that we could order her another copy which would take a couple of days since we couldn’t sell her a book in such condition. She was finally caught red handed in her activity and was banned from the store after about 6 months of details of her antics. Takes up a lot of time but she was going for the art books which were very pricey.
Scott Iskow,
Get a grip. Stealing is wrong, whether you feel booksellers are “putting a price on faith” or not.
Didn’t Jesus say, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s”?
In that same vein,give the publishers and booksellers what is rightfully theirs, and express your faith however else you want for free.
All of which brings up the subject of stealing in independent comics retailers’ outlets. You should see what some so-called fans do (or try to do) in those establishments!
I have the PERFECT solution to the problem of stolen bibles. Put a community college courtyard in front of every book store. You can’t cross one of those things with being offered religous text. When I was at Montgomery College, within a fourty foot walk I got offered, The Bible, The Book of Mormon, The Satanic Bible, The Koran, and the entire works of L. Ron Hubbard. The Buddhists text were ten bucks a pop, but came with free jelly. I kid you not.
Security did nothing to stop this, because they were all busy on the other side of the courtyard which got taken over by the Lyndon Larousche campaign, Crazy Ranting Preacher Guy and at this guy who threw eggs at the other two.
Once, one of the people who passed out bibles unzipped my pockets and put a bible in there against my will. I had security haul them out. On the plus side, I never ran out of coasters or napkins.
The irony to me is that there’s not shortage of free Bibles out there. The Gideons want you to take the Bible from the hotels. The American Bible Society helps to give them away, too, IIRC. And I would guess a lot of churches give them away as well.
So why steal one at all?
Re: “putting a price on faith,” please consider the cost of printing and binding the books in question. I doubt that the publishers are making any huge profits on them — and, it’s likely the proceeds go to charities or the like.
As far as the mentality of the people stealing the Bibles… perhaps they’re taking a view along the lines of “the Word of God belongs to everybody”…
Thou Shall Not Steal
Bookstore thieves go for Bibles and religious texts…
Thou Shall Not Steal
Bookstore thieves go for Bibles and religious texts…
I think you all are forgetting one important reason why people might be doing it.
Irony.
I and a number of people I knew as teenagers stole bibles BECAUSE it was ironic, and because it was a funny thing to steal. You’re not stealing because you want anything, but as a message to the machine that “you can’t keep us down!!” It’s a kid thing, and a rebellion thing as far as I’m concerned. And it’s a good thing too if that’s the reason behind it. It’s a small way that kids might take back the sense of self that’s bred out of them at such an early age. They’re stealing something that has staying power. There’s the built in chance that they might read a couple stories from it and find something that makes their lives better for the reading. And they’re not having it shoved down their throat by some corporation of God.
If they were stealing earrings or jackets or purses, you don’t get that kind of possibility, but with a Bible or the Baghavad Gita, or the Koran, you get the chance that they just might find out something about the universe that they didn’t know before. And I’m not talking about some silly morality. I’m talking about practical ways of dealing with the world that aren’t taught to them by a preacher as ‘the only right way to be’ but as something that they read in a book that they grabbed, took as theirs, because it is. It is theirs for the taking. (not the book itself, but the ideas contained inside). The ideas in a book stolen in that way could change a kid’s way of looking at the world. Jesus was a non-conformist. Buddha was spat upon and derided as an atheist. These are the guys who teenagers can relate to, and I say if they’re stealing books about these guys, they aren’t going far wrong.
Of course they could just be stealing them to carve out the middles and hide their weed in there. Ðámņ those kids!!! Lock ’em up!!!
Well, I was beaten to the punch by another poster about free Bibles, but I’d like to add that the Salvation Army gives them away in their thrift stores. And they have locations everywhere, so there’s really no excuse for stealing them. Except….
…perhaps people don’t think the Word of God should have a monetary price tag attached to it.
But still, it’s a dumb thing to do.
-Dave O’Connell
Well, I was beaten to the punch by another poster about free Bibles, but I’d like to add that the Salvation Army gives them away in their thrift stores. And they have locations everywhere, so there’s really no excuse for stealing them. Except….
…perhaps people don’t think the Word of God should have a monetary price tag attached to it.
But still, it’s a dumb thing to do.
-Dave O’Connell
Say wouldn’t a blible be considered a “sel-help” book?
What’s really ironic is that a book that teaches mostly through allegories is taken so literally.
>Like Al Franken says, “we should tell our
>youth not to vote,” or something to that effect.
I thought it was Arthur Penn that said that.
>Like Al Franken says, “we should tell our
>youth not to vote,” or something to that effect.
“I thought it was Arthur Penn that said that.”
many people have probably said that, so maybe he did as well: PAD?
I forgot to capitalize at the Beginning of my sentence!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! This, right after writing “it’s” instead of “its.” I really should check more carefully for typos and such.
Great, now I capitalized where I shouldn’t have. I need to go steal some self-help books or something.
People who steal bibles from bookstores can’t afford the price of a hotel room. But if you call (or worse, e-mail) one of the organizations that will give you one for free, you’ll be hearing from those folks for the rest of your life.
In that same vein,give the publishers and booksellers what is rightfully theirs, and express your faith however else you want for free.
I don’t steal books. Never have, never will. Never even said I did. I was just attempting to explore how people would rationalize doing such an… ironic… thing. Trying to understand the criminal mind, I suppose. I bet there are people out there who steal bibles for the very reasons I mentioned earlier.
>Like Al Franken says, “we should tell our
>youth not to vote,” or something to that effect.
“I thought it was Arthur Penn that said that.”
many people have probably said that, so maybe he did as well: PAD?
I had Arthur say it back in the original edition of “Knight Life,” which was…what? Fifteen years ago? He looks straight into camera and says, “Young people of America: Don’t vote. Do not, under any circumstance, go to the polls.” The result is a massive upsurge in youth voting.
PAD
At my job (retail store) tonight, someone had stolen a CD from the group Mary Mary, a Christian group. That amazes me: If the person’s a fan of Christian music they should, theoretically, not want to break the commandments. And if it’s a gift for someone, a fan of Christian music probably wouldn’t appreciate a stolen gift.
Boy, a few things to address:
At the Waldenbooks I work at the things most stolen are manga and the more goth sort of trade paperbacks like Johnny and Squee. Adult magazines and sex advice books get stashed in the kids section.
Your basic bible is not very expensive, usually around $7.99. They don’t get pricey until you add bells and whistles like chain reference. And if you want them available to buy in whatever version is your flavor, somebody has to pay a little bit for the cost of printing, shipping and stocking them.
Video game hint books are good for getting their pages ripped out. The more brazen ones will ask for a pen and a piece of paper to write down the cheat codes they need. Another good one, tearing off the bar code of a book or magazine so the alarm won’t go off.
Sean Archer, were you ever motivated to start reading one of the bibles you and your friends stole? If a teen wants to learn about the ideas in these books, there are places they can go that aren’t high pressure, join the cult kind of places.
I’d disagree, there would never be any good from this. Many stores have a computer maintained inventory with their point of sale systems. If a book is stolen, and it takes a while for the staff to realize it, the computer system is watching that phantom book sit on the shelf unsold for some time and will eventually determine that the store doesn’t need to stock it and move it to the return list. Then it is gone and no one can just walk in and pick it up off the shelf. Despite being big corporations, there isn’t that huge a profit margin on books and every one that grows legs adds to the cost of doing business.
The local librarians tell me some of their most stolen items are the books on alternative religions like Wicca. Either to prevent people from being able to check them out, or because they are wanted by someone who can’t or won’t pay for them. The interesting thing is most practitioners would tell you to beware the karma of using stolen materials.
Cal,
Indeed I did read the bible I stole. That’s why I posted as I did. Thing is, I wouldn’t steal a bible today. Doesn’t make sense to me according to who I want to be. But at the time, it was a funny thing to do, and I was in high-school. I’m not saying it’s not a crime, or that it doesn’t hurt the retailer. I’m sure it does. I’m just saying I still have that bible and that in all of our choices lie some perfection. If someone is stealing a bible, maybe they’ll read it and it will impact them in some way. No accidents and no coincidences.
I hear what you’re saying about “places that aren’t high pressure, join the cult kind of places,” but in my experience it’s not that that is the problem. Hëll, if they joined a Manson-esque cult they might have an experience that would shock them out of the mediocrity that they are fed everyday by their public school teachers. What I’m talking about is the other side of the coin. The places you’re talking about aren’t necessarily the kind of places that they’d find. They might, and they’d be lucky to find them, but more than likely they’d find some preacher who’s more interested in the tithe bowl than in helping someone to come to their own idea of God. They’d more often than not find someone who would tell them that the only true interpretation of the bible is the one “my church” hands out, or that the only truth lies in this book or that.
And there’s perfection in that too. I’m not judging that point of view, because it very well could be right. But the things I’ve seen in this world more often than not do not get covered in just one text. Much less one text that was written thousands of years ago and interpreted literally word for word as fact.
If you’re looking for a good time, and you’re up for laughing a little about religion, go see “Saved” which just came out this weekend. Good flick, and it’s something you can take the entire family to.
I guess I’m more than anything just trying to say that religion is one thing that shouldn’t be foisted on anybody. Much less kids who are more interested in pleasing their parents than curious about God. When a kid asks questions, hand them a library card and maybe give them the Bible, the Koran, and the Baghavad Gita. Tell them that all the answers aren’t written inside, only more questions, and that the greatest thing in the universe is not to know. The point to life is just to be, and to always know that the mystery is the point. not the solving of the mystery.
Or tell them that all the infidels are coming after them, and the terrorists are everywhere and the only thing that’s going to save them is the one true God, not the God that the other side prays to, but OUR God, and put a gun in their hands and tell them that it’s God’s will that they kill their brothers.
If I put a hammer through the head of my enemy, I have put it through my own head, because in killing my enemy, I ensure my enemy’s brother will come after me, if not in this life, then in the next.
God knows why I’m posting this on a blog. It’s 12 a.m. and it’s Memorial Day and my grandfather who was in WWII is dead now. His stories about the war were never “Man, we killed those Krauts” kind of stories. They were more, “I saw a man dying on the ground from a bullet wound straight through his helmet. He asked me for ‘vasser’ and I handed him my canteen. He died and he thanked me for sharing my water with him,” kinds of stories. They were stories told with a faraway look and a sad, “what a waste” tone of voice.
Not saying anything except it would be really nice if instead of memorial day, we had just another day where we thank god we’re living on a planet where no one thinks it’s a good idea to go slamming a hammer in his own dámņëd head.
Not going to argue with anybody, because obviously that’s just the way I feel, but if you feel like saying something, I’m all ears. That’s the great thing about Non-violence. it allows you to listen to everybody’s story, and love all the stories you hear.
Best,
Sean
“It’s a small way that kids might take back the sense of self that’s bred out of them at such an early age.”
Speaking of irony, Sean…
You and your friends were “reclaiming [your] individuality” by all stealing Bibles – by all doing *the same thing*?
How individualistic… {insert wry grin here}
Posted by Robb P. at May 30, 2004 12:04 AM
Why steal Bibles? Why not just go to a Christian bookstore and ask for one? I mean, they can’t refuse, can they?
You’re right. and hospitals can’t charge to make people well or when they die.
“You’re right. and hospitals can’t charge to make people well or when they die.”
Not in Canada anyway.
The bookstore I worked at had a problem with manga being stolen too. It really pìššëd me off. I mean, what, they think they shouldn’t have to pay because it’s a mere comic? And considering that the comic/manga industry doesn’t make as much money as the pictureless book industry, each stolen book probably hurts them much more.
Jonathan,
I don’t believe I used the words “reclaim individuality.” I reread what I posted and didn’t find those words anywhere. When I spoke of taking back a sense of self, I don’t mean an individuality, I’m speaking more from a spiritual sense. The educational system in this country forces kids to become a certain person in order that they might make good grades. The questioning person that all of us are when we’re kids is turned off so that the information can be poured in as fast and as watered down as possible. Not saying there aren’t good teachers around. They exist, but you have to be lucky as hëll to find a continuous streak of them for your entire trip through the public school system. More often than not, kids find out what works in order to get good grades and they do the minimum that’s expected of them. At some point they may find that they actually like learning about things and they may start seeking knowledge on their own, but it may take a while for this to happen.
The sense of self I was talking of, was less a sense of individual self than a sense of the child who didn’t just sit back and notice the sky, but asked “WHY” at least a thousand times a day. It was that sense of self that we were asserting. That sense of WHY should I do something just because some guy in a suit tells me to do it (or not do it)?
Once again, not saying it’s right or wrong. Just saying those were the reasons I see looking back on it.
And yes, I see the funny if we were doing it in order to stand out as individuals. I wouldn’t deign to say that I was that smart. I had a mullet in seventh grade and I wore my hair long in Highschool. I was a total idiot rebel with the crowd, so I can’t claim utter uniqueness by any means.
Though I did like the Blues when it was really cool to dig on Motley Crue so I’m not completely daft.
Best,
Sean
Scott,
Every once in a while, I take the time to point out to the fans who are squeeling in excitement that we finally have “Squee” or “Johnny the Homicidal Maniac” or the new “Inu Yasha” the chain of events that shoplifting can cause. It’s touchy because the first thing many will jump to is that you are accusing them. But, after I reassure them, I say that if they ever overhear somebody else bragging about taking “Lenore” (first time we got it in, a copy was stolen within two days) they could point out how it screws everybody else. Problem is that same mentality may find it a bonus reward to discover what their actions cause and that they are keeping others from having the same book.
And actually, on this level, I think a lot of the theft comes from the fact that they see something they want and don’t have enough money for everything they covet and a lot of them don’t have a real strong sense of right and wrong when it comes to stealing from a big company. I had my church high school age youth group read an article on Harlan Ellison’s legal battle and most of them just couldn’t see the creator’s side. That would mean no free music downloads after all.
Discovered I’m short a copy of “RPG World” today. Some days this sort of thing is really aggravating.
Cal, would you like me to pass the word to Roman at the next Comic-Con? I bet he and Jhonen could come up with some really creative ways to discourage recidivism… 😉
Jonathan
Go right ahead. At the very least it would be interesting to see what they said or did. It can be frustrating sometimes because it is definitly certain things that attract 5-finger discount kind of attention. Which would seem to say something about the particular audience for those items and leads some to suggest that you not carry those things thus eliminating the hassle and aggravation. And of course not every person who reads science fiction is a geek or every person into Johnny is a thief.
If I didn’t say it before, we have had bibles stolen as well.
thanks,
cal
I managed discount retail book stores (for a now-nonexistent chain) for about 10 years. For a while, I worked in a store in Manassas, VA, once listed in Ripley’s as having have the most churches per square mile in the U.S. It was there that I encountered two gents who persistently switched price tags between Bibles, and tried to convince me that the big leather-bound job with color illustrations and the good paper was intended to sell for $1, not the $50 that the publisher designated for it. These were the same gents who complained bitterly that we shouldn’t carry the Readers Digest condensed Bible, as this was “abridging” (their term) the word of God.