About a year ago, I wrote about frequently stolen books. The Times just did an unscientific survey to discover the most-stolen book in the United Kingdom. The winner is a street atlas. Also on the top ten list are fantasy novels (Terry Pratchett is the highest-ranking author, but Tolkien and Rowling are right up there, too) and lots of reference books. (Do they not have Google in Great Britain?)

It's a really interesting piece that looks at petty offenders and big-time crooks:

Paranoia or conspiracy? In 2004 a man was jailed after it was revealed that he ran a gang of thieves who stole Lonely Planet travel guides to order. He had sold an estimated 35,000 stolen books a year.

In April last year, a Glasgow man was jailed for 26 months for selling stolen books worth £50,000 on eBay, under the pseudonym “easypeesy”. Gary Little, 44, admitted taking the books when he was working as a forklift truck driver at a HarperCollins publishing plant. When an annoyed book trader found deluxe bound editions of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion collection, which usually sold for £100, on offer at £30, he contacted Little's bosses and the jig was up.