Skip to main content

Irvine Welsh thinks we should all shoplift books, and here’s why he’s wrong!

By May 21, 2021Authors, Bookshops, News

One of the team spotted a section of a newspaper article this week, by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh. Welsh is one of the best known Scottish authors of all time, and writes some pretty radical characters but today it’s him who’s pushing radical thoughts as he says he’s proud to have written one of the most shoplifted books of all time.

Regularly in studies, Trainspotting comes up as the book most stolen from bookshops, but Welsh says he doesn’t care, in fact he says when people come up to him and tell him they stole his book, he says that’s good and he’s happy about it as he still receives the royalties even if they steal it. In the article he almost seems to be encouraging book theft.

Here’s the piece, so you can read it for yourself.

We’re here to say Welsh, ‘you’re wrong’, sorry but indie bookshops are struggling to keep going, particular with the restrictions from the pandemic, without you encouraging people to shop lift! If Trainspotting is shoplifted from a shop and then the bookshop owner has to pay you then they miss out twice, and chances are that an author with several adaptations to his name, is going to be in a much better position to shoulder the loss than most small bookshops do!

It’s unlikely anyone is going to be shoplifting Trainspotting from Amazon, who are one of the few booksellers who are big enough to take the hit, but even if you could, we wouldn’t be encouraging it as theft puts the prices up for us all!

There are so many second hand bookshops, and even little free libraries, and actual libraries. If you want a copy of a book you can’t afford then try one of those places!

What do you think of this story?



Leave your vote

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.