It’s a Fair Cop

The Chronicle, determined to make us all squirm in our seats, wants to know what books we’ve stolen.

Almost everybody still has a book from an ex. A smaller number have shoplifted directly from bookstores. A few, I was more surprised to discover, have even taken volumes directly from the libraries of their friends.

Oh. Oh. We’re counting books from exes? Really? PULL UP A CHAIR, ladies. This might take a while. Break my heart, lose all twelve volumes of “A Dance to the Music of Time.” Deal with it. “Possession” is nine-tenths of the law, you know. (sorrysorrysorry)

Okay, let’s hear it. Grade school libraries? High school? While underpaid at a bookstore? From…friends? What are you, a monster? A monster who loves Alice Munro stories? A sympathetic, relatable monster?