Hurry to steal books? I refuse (7)
I believe the answer is:
rubbish
'refuse' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'hurry to steal books? i' is the wordplay.
'hurry' becomes 'rush' ('rush' can be a synonym of 'hurry'**).
'to steal' is an insertion indicator.
'books?' becomes 'bb'.
'bb'+'i'='bbi'
'rush' placed around 'bbi' is 'RUBBISH'.
(Other definitions for rubbish that I've seen before include "Awful" , "Waste matter" , "'Trash, tripe (7)'" , "of exceedingly low quality" , "Worthless material or nonsensical talk" .)