C'mon, it's the death of the written word. Gotta send this along...
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Mo. Man Burns Books as Act of Protest
By DAVID TWIDDYKANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Tom Wayne amassed thousands of books in a warehouse during the 10 years he has run his used book store, Prospero's Books. His collection ranges from best sellers like Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October" and Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities," to obscure titles like a bound report from the Fourth Pan-American Conference held in Buenos Aires in 1910. But wanting to thin out his collection, he found he couldn't even give away books to libraries or thrift shops, which said they were full. So on Sunday, Wayne began burning his books protest what he sees as society's diminishing support for the printed word.
"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books.
The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn't have a permit to burn them.
Wayne said next time he will get a permit. He said he envisions monthly bonfires until his supply - estimated at 20,000 books - is exhausted.
"After slogging through the tens of thousands of books we've slogged through and to accumulate that many and to have people turn you away when you take them somewhere, it's just kind of a knee-jerk reaction," he said. "And it's a good excuse for fun."
Wayne said he has seen fewer customers in recent years as people more often get their information from television or the Internet. He pointed to a 2002 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, that found that less than half of adult respondents reported reading for pleasure, down from almost 57 percent in 1982.
Kansas City has seen the number of used bookstores decline in recent years and there are few independent bookstores left in town, said Will Leathem, a co-owner of Prospero's Books.
"There are segments of this city where you go to an estate sale and find five TVs and three books," Leathem said.
Dozens of customers took advantage of the Sunday's book-burning, searching through those waiting to go into the fire for last-minute bargains.
Mike Bechtel paid $10 for a stack of books, including an antique collection of children's literature, which he said he'd save for his 4-year-old son.
"I think given the fact it is a protest of people not reading books, it's the best way to do it," Bechtel said. "(Wayne has) made the point that not reading a book is as good as burning it."
2 comments:
Yeah, it's pretty awful how little people read these days. My 17 year-old cousin was psyched to see 300 and demanded that I take him. So I told him he had to read the graphic novel first. You'd have thought I asked him to eat a turd sandwich from the look of horror and revulsion on his face.
This bothers me so much. I had already heard about this book burning guy when you posted the story and it's just been gnawing at me. I find it difficult to believe that reading has dropped that much given that almost every strip mall I drive by has a B&N, Borders, Books-A-Million or some other bookstore chain. That said, I try to avoid those places like the plague, perferring to shop at the almost extinct independent bookstores, like Women & Children First here in Chicago, or at a used bookstore. I ALWAYS buy books as gifts for my friends and family and easily lose track of time in even the smallest bookstore. I spend more money on books than I would ever admit.
Is the problem really that people aren't reading OR is the problem that between Amazon.com and these huge chains that can offer obscene discounts, the independents & used bookstores can't keep up?
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