An acquaintance of mine, Margo Rabb, recently wrote a piece for the New York Times on which books are most often stolen from book stores. The Bible, along with books by Martin Amis, Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, Raymond Carver, Don DeLillo and Jack Kerouac, are at the top of the list. As Rabb points out, the most stolen books tend to be written by men, and this is probably because the shoplifters tend to be a certain kind of young man. That young man was identified in an article Ron Rosenbaum wrote years ago on a similar theme for the New York Observer. He is “Bukowski Man”:
Bukowski Man, sort of like our anthropological forebears Peking Man or Piltdown Man, almost a special subspecies of human. You’ve probably run into Bukowski Man in one form or another. He’s like, you know, a rebel, he’s not into conventional literature, man. Because it doesn’t tell the truth. The man can’t handle The Truth, which of course is all about (and only about) getting drunk and pissing and shitting and puking and fucking and passing out, not necessarily in that order, sometimes virtually simultaneously. What else do we know about Bukowski Man? He’s probably a suburban white boy who’s never been more down and out than a collect call to his parents. Usually there’s a surfboard or a skateboard or a Frisbee involved. His dog wears a red bandanna around its neck. Oh, and yes, he’s likely to be a shoplifter.
Anyway, I find the topic of most stolen books (and cars and records and other things) fascinating, and wish papers would run a “most stolen” list next to the bestsellers.
Post a Comment