Aw! How can you say that?
Posted on 09/03/2007 2:27:31 PM PDT by decimon
Book Store Owners Protest 'Decline In Reading'
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The owner of a midtown bookstore set fire to hundreds of books on West 39th Street on Sunday.
"We hope to spark a conversation about the importance of books in the face of a marked shrinking in reading trends, and staggering waste streams of actual books," said Prospero's Books owner, Tom Wayne.
Prospero's has publicized for months that it was looking for a good home for thousands of books, and saying it would burn the books if no one wanted them.
Prospero's maintains three outdoor shelves of books for insomniacs, families with loved ones at the nearby KU Medical Center, early riders of the Kansas City bus system or simply those needing a book but who can't afford one. "Payment is on the honor system," said Prospero’s co-owner, Will Leathem. "Several mornings a week, we find dollars shoved beneath our door. It has been a great lesson in human nature." Click here to find out more!
The bookstore owners said they received thousands of e-mails and phone calls with suggestions what to do with the books. But few people offered to take them.
"With all of the public outcry, I thought more people would step up to give these books a home," said Wayne. "Maybe people thought being outraged would accomplish something."
"We're a small used bookstore," noted Wayne, "most of the ideas we've received would cost us thousands of dollars and dozens of hours, or would have us provide our inventory to organizations that compete directly with used bookstores."
IIRC, selling books without their covers is illegal.
I’ve heard of burning books to prevent people from reading them, but burning books because people won’t read them-well, that’s a new one. Censorship by popular apathy?
I see nothing wrong with burning these books. Most contemporary books are unreadable and poorly written, mirroring the decline in the English language over the past half century. Of course, the article does not state how old these books are, but my guess is they were mostly “modern” books.
I was too brief. It was practice to remove the front covers from the unsold books before discarding them. That practice was to prevent the books being retrieved from the trash to be sold.
In the New Testament in the Book of Acts, they burned books. These must have been occult books and full of slutty junk.
Prospero's sounds like the Strand Bookstore in NYC. They buy and sell used books but probably have more of overstocks. What they can't sell must eventually get trashed so burning them instead is nothing but a symbolic statement. Right, wrong or otherwise, Tom Wayne wants to make a statement.
Aaaaaagain? What a nerd. He did this once already this summer. He can take them to Half Price Books and sell them for money...I think he is losing it.
I see nothing wrong with burning these books. Most contemporary books are unreadable and poorly written, mirroring the decline in the English language over the past half century.
BURN ALL BOOKS UNDER 50 YEARS OLD!
Maybe he's just a firebug. In any case, I think he's a competitor to Half Price Books.
Let's say you own some junk (of questionable value), which you cannot dispose off. After waiting a while, you decide to burn this junk. So what? Nothing is lost. No big deal. Life goes on. It is not like these hicks in Kansas went and burned the collection of Renaissance paintings in Europe or something.
Yeah, it’s not like there aren’t any nursing homes, prisons, schools or military bases in the area that would welcome a truckload of free books.
Yikes. I'll have to go back to buying COBOL books instead of modern technology books.
It is. I think the idea was that he was giving them away, but making sure no one else could then resell them where he could not.
Yikes. I’ll have to go back to buying COBOL books instead of modern technology books.
COBOL? Decadent filthy pervert! You’ll be buying wholesome APL books.
How insensitive to expect the owner of the junk to incur expenses of transportation and distribution of said junk to parties who may or may not be interested in acquiring this junk, in addition to the expenses of junk storage that he has already incurred.
Aw! How can you say that?
...or he could just call them up and say, “Hey, I got free books. Come and get’em.”
” I was too brief. It was practice to remove the front covers from the unsold books before discarding them. That practice was to prevent the books being retrieved from the trash to be sold. “
I may be misinformed, but it was my understanding that publishers would reimburse sellers for certain unsold books; the sellers were to remove the covers and return them to the publisher, and destroy the remainder of the book. It was illegal to then sell the coverless book under that program.
I do have a few of those.
Hey! you can’t post FUNNY STUFF on here! It’s a snooty, wicked serious site. Now I have to go readjust my harumph.
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