The Barnes & Noble on Broadway and West 67th finally got wise to a regular customer giving himself a 5-finger-discount. After noticing a large number of "lost" books, the Lincoln Center store got the NYPD involved, who set up an undercover sting operation this past Sunday! What they found was 36-year-old Gowan Johnson going aisle to aisle, filling a duffel bag with heavy books (a routine that employees didn't spot earlier?). Later he delivered them to Mark Yearwood and Leonaora Richards, who in turn gave him cash and allegedly planned to sell the books at marked down prices.

The trio were taken in, and Johnson is being held on bail, while Yearwood made bail and Richards was released without it. But in these iPad and Kindle times, it is sort of nice to know people are still reading books!