I haven't tried to steal anything but I do feel that Larian should tweak the stealing settings. If an npc is around, they usually will say not to touch something. I can understand with opening chest or taking an object. I find it weird that they also consider stealing if you try to read the books that an npc has. You can't take it but apparently it's wrong for just trying to read it. I believe in the beginning when the game was first released, this wasn't the case. They can keep the red symbol to indicate stealing but allow us to read the books for lore.
