Degrees of theft

A piece at the Guardian Books blog about stealing books, which you might remember I covered properly in my post on bibliokleptomania at the Descant blog. I've stolen quite a few books in my time, not so ashamedly. I think I stole my copy of Happiness is a Warm Puppy from a dentists' office, and Love Story from a desk in my geography class when I was twelve. During the last month I have actually stolen a copy of The Animals of that Country by Margaret Atwood, or rather I liberated it, for it was being ill-treated by its former carers, stuck on a shelf with Barbara Cartlands and its cover torn off. I promise you that they will never even know that it is missing. And that I only steal from those weird sad dump-off libraries that nobody loves. And that once I committed the utter opposite of book stealing, which was donating my books to a charity shop and then deciding that I couldn't live without them and buying my books back again.