NEWS: Indignance Burns at 451º Fahrenheit

CULTURE: Indignance Burns at 451º Fahrenheit

Books cost less to feed and take up less space than your average orphan, and in an ideal world they would never be without a loving home, but what happens when nobody wants them? If you're Tom Wayne, bookstore owner extraordinaire, you grab a gas can and make a statement.

In a rather dramatic statement to onlookers, Wayne referred to his literature barbecue as a "funeral pyre for thought in America today," citing a diminished presence of bookstores as well as a recent study which shows that fewer than half of American adults read for pleasure nowadays. The St. Louis Fire Department was unimpressed by Wayne's theatrics, and showed up dutifully to put out the flames. Not that he's planning on stopping this until his point has been made. Or when it stops being fun. Whichever.

Yeah, fun. That's cute. I'm not sure if he's referring to the reaction he's getting, or if he's just a pyromaniac of some sort, but I'm not sure "fun" is the right word for anything within a mile of burning books.

The one good thing is that Wayne is actually making headway on raising awareness with this endeavor: people have come forward and bought stacks upon stacks of books in the name of saving them from an ashen grave. (The fact that he's still selling them rather than giving them away, when he was just going to light 'em up otherwise, is making my eyebrow twitch, but I guess a guy's got to make a living.)

Still, increased awareness or not, something about it isn't sitting right with me; it seems that burning books is still burning books, whether it was Clancy burning or Chaucer, and no matter how noble the cause. Could anything else have been done, that isn't quite as indignantly self-righteous? Call me sentimental, but it seems like such a waste.

BUY THE BOOK or we burn it.

20,000 books is a lot of fire. Get over it. Libraries throw out books all the time. Try recycling, ass.

+1 !
but that would be boring.

The printed word takes up space, kills trees, and can't easily be reissued without an investment in a new edition. Publishing houses have long been the roadblock in distributing our best ideas.

The printed word is dead. Long live the printed word.

I use old books for papier mache. I'm thinking I could build a sofa with enough of them.

I never wanted to read stupid shit like Tom Clancy, much less inhale its fumes.
Shouldn't this guy be busy reading, or actually learning how to use the internet, instead of setting crap on fire?

Way to waste energy and pollute the air, drama queen.

It sounds to me like the bonfire is more advertising than an honest statement. He wasn't getting paid for burning the books, so why should people have to pay to liberate the books he as going to burn.

I agree with the intention though. Book and Music stores are going the way of the Dodo. It's sad that people can no longer make a living off of independent stores. I don't know what I would have done growing up if I didn't have a bookstore to hang out in with a cup of coffee.

such a waste... I prefer the "read them in front of the fire" over the "lets throw them IN the fire" mindset. You would think that there would have to be some sort of charities... I know the Navy could use them in our barracks "Reading rooms"...

my job is selling books that are given by donation to in turn fund the building of schools in nicaragua (initially). how about send the books my way. i can think of countless other possibilities of usage as well, but at least the reactions so far have proven worthwhile.

I don't care how much you support the written word guy, "a bound report from the Fourth Pan-American Conference held in Buenos Aires in 1910." is just not gonna be an easy sell.

+1

The man's got it completely wrong. He should wait till winter, and use them for his stove. Would save him some money, and save some fossil fuel.

As a statement I guess it's kind of funny, though you've got to wonder whether or not he understands the concept of ebay. It might have been just as interesting to try and sell all 20,000 books as a lot... someone else could have started their own bookstore for cheap, he'd have made a buck, some poor UPS may have gotten a helluva backache, but our precious fragile green earth would have been spared the sadness of having its tree brethren burnt atop its soil...

The whole thing smells suspiciously like a publicity stunt.

Esp. when you can't charge much for it because four other dealers have it priced at less than $10. Its hard to make money warehousing obscure books that aren't worth much.

Likewise for mass produced books that are near worthless like, "The Hunt for Red October" with a dozen online sellers selling a hardcover edition for $1.00. One dealer, who likely has an endless supply, is selling it for $.01 expecting to make maybe a buck from their shipping price.

The book market is glutted. We're up to our ears in kipple.

Hm. Maybe the answer is to avoid the mass-produced stuff?

Would it be cost-effective as fuel? $.01 buys you 400 pages of meaningless drivel; that might not be cheaper than coal, but at least nobody has to read it...

Seriously, give me the books

Granted, I do have a degree in literature and do actually read for pleasure,even though it's not that common anymore. Leave out the drivel, but some of the more obscure books peak my interest as a literati.

Come on, couldn't he give the books away to a poor school district, a third world country, sell them on the internet for .01 a book (plus shipping, that's how you make the money), or something???

I have a knee jerk reaction against burning books of any kind...I'm not sure why. I guess that part of me hasn't quite caught up with the electronic age, and to me anyway, burning books elicits thoughts of the 3rd Reich and the Romans burning the Library at Alexandria . I just don't see the point of COMPLETLEY wasting the books instead of getting them to an organization that could actually use them. I mean, I was cleaning out a few months ago, and I came upon about 200 books or so that I would never use again, so instead of burning them, I boxed 'em up and brought them to the library. I've never heard of a library refusing books, he probally wanted them to take the whole 20,000 or none at all, thus giving him an excuse for a publicity stunt...what a fucking knob.

its the rare stuff that would be a shame to lose. hears hoping he starts with L. Ron Hubbard kiddleing is about all its good for

this article is wrong. he contacted libraries and schools in an attempt to give them away.

his calls were never returned.*

*according to CNN tv

A lot of libraries to refuse free books and sell off their books regularly. This is because they have to pay a licensing fee per book held per year. The fee is quite low per book, but high over the year for the library, so they try to maintain a level rather than have copies of everything. Still, there are so many literacy programs etc- given time and persistance he could have given those books to people that wanted them. Definitely a publicity stunt.

He'd have to pay to have them recycled. Burning costs nothing.

I hope none of those books have pictures of naked ladies in them.

I don't think destroying books is a good way to get people to read them. Kinda hard to enjoy a story when it's a small pile of ash.

But whatever, he owns the things, so if he wants the wreck them, I guess that's his decision.

Fuck that jazz, why not just design a car that could run off burning books?
Hell, why not make one that runs off childrens broken dreams too? (I actually like my last idea... PATENT PENDING!)

That doesn't sound right... Link?

the thought of burning books makes me cringe on the inside.

it's like blasphemy. only wronger.

Any odds takers on when he'll start burning people?

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