Booksellers have a hard time of it between a decline in sales in the industry and the ongoing headache of theft of stock. Dublin bookseller Mr Fred Hanna (snr) says that shops in the trade expect to lose 2-3 per cent of stock, valued up to many thousands of pounds.

"The law now is for the thief. It is not for the shop owner or house owner," Mr Hanna told The Margin.

The funny thing about books, though, is that they attract a wide variety of thieves. This is maybe why a London seller of religious antiquarian books has resorted to a good, old-fashioned 16th century Spanish curse to stop clergymen stealing from his shop. It reads: "For him that stealeth a book from this library, let it change into a serpent into his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted . . .

Let there be no surcease to his agony till he sink in dissolution." - You've been warned!