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Bookstore Owner Burns Books
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon May 28, 2007 08:43 PM
from the you'll-never-see-this-book-alive-again dept.
from the you'll-never-see-this-book-alive-again dept.
Several readers sent us links to an AP story about a pair of Kansas City booksellers who staged a book bonfire, claiming to protest declining literacy. The story doesn't convey a sure sense of the booksellers' motives for what could, in fact, be a PR stunt or a subtle act of extortion against book lovers — it does mention that people were buying books out of the piles awaiting immolation. The bookstore's own site tries to sound sincere, but it offers visitors a chance to save books from the flames for $1 each plus postage.
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So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
If no one else has noticed, the world is AWASH in books. Technology has made book production so cheap that any idiot can publish a book.
Come to think of it, maybe this guy is onto something. With the price of firewood so high, maybe I can get a bunch of used books for less money to burn.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:So what? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:So what? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But that's interesting because it proves his original point wrong, no? There are many people who care about books.
On the other hand, his article got mentioned on Slashdot and now everyone knows where to go for $1 books if they happen to live in his area. So it might be a brilliant publicity stunt that's worth about $20,000 ($1 x 20,000 books) t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
FWIW, I know a couple who have an internet bookselling business. They started in the used book business years ago, pre-Web, selling rare and collectible books. The main way they procured a lot of their books were through estate sales, and usually ended up with large amounts of books that were of no value to them.
When the Web came around, they started doing a bit of business in the collectible books, but they soon found that there was a far larger market for the "garbage" books at $3-5 a book, and they s
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree it is a publicity stunt. At the same time he is buying worthless (to him) books, he is selling signed copies of Harry Potter (literary garbage, even if it has entertaining values).
Is he worried about literacy ? Let him burn high profile, expensive books that have low literary value, like his "The Da Vinci Code Advance Reading Copy" or his signed "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets".
Actually, if you consider storage space costs money, it is very likely that he is saving money by burning these books.
He also says for people to buy and donate the books to promote literacy (or some crap like that). Well, why is he burning the books instead of donating them ? Well, lets review:
1) Publicity
2) Saving storage space
3) Getting people to "adopt" some of these books
Which translates to:
1) Profit
2) Money saving
3) Profit
Not a bad deal, hum ?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
he is selling signed copies of Harry Potter (literary garbage, even if it has entertaining values).
That's what the "cognoscenti" said about Huckleberry Finn, Lord of the Rings, Wizard of Oz, and [name your classic children's book]. The Harry Potter is destined to become a classic. They might not please the intellectual elite, but their incredible depth and breadth of plot along with its self-consistent world is an amazing achievement. And if you think they're shallow, as many do, then I respectfully sub
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as literary value is concerned, they have almost as much as a Spiderman comic book, which I do love, and still think has no literary value.
So you point is what exactly ? That every good book has good literary value ?
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
No.
Nope. Great book, tho. Read it 7 time already, in 2 languages.
I have to admit never reading Wizard of Oz (only saw the movie). And I dislike Dickens, so I'm biased there.
You are correct as far as "classic" goes.
It sure will be a classic. No doubt about that. Heck, some people already consider Mists of Avalon a classic.
Ok, not for the big question:
Literary is a complex classification, so I'll explain my PoV in two parts. First by explanation, then by giving some examples. Please, bear with me.
A literary work first must have intrinsic artistic value. Then, it must have intellectual value. Then, it must be creative. Entertainment value doesn't enter the picture here, as far as I'm concerned (from what I've seen).
For my examples, I'll try to pick, probably without much success, some non controversial names.
Some good books with poor literary value:
- Any good technical book
- Harry Potter (controversial, but already stated)
- Lord of the Rings (boy, you guys are going to kill me)
- 1984
- Anything by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Some good literary works, but poor books:
- The Lusiads (name 1 person who actually enjoyed the book)
- Midnight Summer Dreams (not a book, but a play, so it can't be a good book)
- Most of Shakespeare work (for the same reason)
- Anything by Dostoevsky
Some good literary works that are also good books:
- Brave New World
- Dracula
- Frankenstein
- The Three Musketeers
- Mobydick (which I actually didn't enjoy)
Bad literary works and bad books:
- Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol) [Worst book ever, as far as I'm concerned]
Time is only a factor if you consider "surviving the test of time", which is usually the case. Since I don't think it is always the case (many good books and authors end up forgotten, for whatever reasons), I didn't list it before. But it is a valid clue.
I hope this helps to clarify my point of view, even if you don't agree with me (not my intention to convince anyone).
Parent
Re:So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
'Intrinsic artistic value', inasmuch as it means anything at all, means that it is capable of moving people, changing them; and that people like the experience. And entertainment is, must be, part of this.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They have both entertaining and intellectual value. They just don't have literary value.
won't RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:won't RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:won't RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
1. I'm dated. I grew up reading books on paper, pre-Internet. This is not true of new generations. I had a vertigo moment the other day when I was on a train and I heard a young girl who was maybe eight years old telling her grandmother, with full confidence, of information she had found on this and that web site. There was no awe in her voice, this was all very matter of fact. In her world view, the Internet was simply an assumed platform, not something new. There are cognitively mature people alive today who have never known the Internet NOT to exist.
2. Surely within the next couple decades electronic book reading technology will get parity on heft, size of screen, resolution, and outdoor viewing.
I think I'll go read a book now for old times' sake.
Parent
eBooks won't catch on until... (Score:4, Interesting)
Long-term they will take over primarily because you can store an entire library in a unit the size of a single paperback. But the publishers need to accept progress, otherwise the market is going to be dominated by pirated books that have simply been scanned, OCR'ed, and shared via P2P.
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Re:won't RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:won't RTFA (Score:4, Funny)
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Question 27 (Score:3, Funny)
a. Re:won't RTFA
b. Wooden Food
c. Fighting Fires with Books
d. Fahrenheit 824291
e. The Cowboy Neal Code
Re:won't RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
His bookstore doesn't sell as many books as he would like, and he is taking in more books than he is selling. He wanted to get rid of some of his backlog of books, by taking them to other bookstores and libraries and such, but none of them wanted his books (they probably had their own backlogs and stock to deal with).
He flipped his wig and started throwing them into a huge cauldron, burning them. He announced that people could "adopt" them for a buck apiece, and save them from the fire, in a ghastly "Give me a dollar or the book gets it!" kind of thingy.
Because our culture is relatively horrified by the idea of book burning, seeing as how it is tied directly to certain extremely evil periods in the past, and totalitarianism, and censorship, he came up with a delightfully nutty excuse for his bonfire. Specifically, he said that his bonfire was a protest against illiteracy, amazing when books like Farenheit 451 were about how book-burning were all about FORCED illiteracy.
He made some stock complaints about how estate sales usually had five TV's and three books, blah blah blah, and threw some more books on the fire.
Then the fire department got fed up with the mess and put it out, telling him to knock it off and get a permit next time (of course, when he asks for a permit, they're going to deny it for some logistical reason, so no more book burning for him!).
I think that about wraps it up.
Short version: Ding Bat Goes Bananas Burns Books Annoys Fire Department Gets 15 Minutes of Fame and is Promptly Forgotten.
Parent
Wonder what books they burned... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No self-respecting nerd/geek should miss this reference to the classic http://www.amazon.com/Fahrenheit-451-Ray-Bradbury/ dp/0345342968/ [amazon.com]
Maybe, but this is the 21st Century; no "self-respecting nerd/geek" would refer to "Fahrenheit 451"! -- Now, "Celsius 233", maybe.
;-)
Or, better still, "Kelvin 506".
"T_Planck 3.57*10^-30"?
PR stunt (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell, why didn't he just ship the books to Hay? I'm sure they have room for Yet Another bookstore - there must be something there
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My understanding from the article is that he did try to give them away but nobody would take them. Which, if true, is indeed a sad reflection on our times. That this is occurring at the same time the Hay on Wye Festival is taking place (one of the largest and most important literary festivals, in a town where you can't move for book stores) makes it positively sick and twisted.
Some books are literally not worth the paper they're printed on. Like "a bound report from the Fourth Pan-American Conference held in Buenos Aires in 1910", for a specific example from TFA. Saving books just because they're printed words bound into a cover is overly reverent of print for print's sake. How about saving every newspaper ever printed? Magazines? Catalogs? Monumental stacks of how-to books for defunct software (Lotus 1-2-3 for Dummies [DOS] [amazon.com])? Where do you draw the line?
Triad of Inquisition (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Triad of Inquisition (Score:5, Interesting)
Theres a great way to save old books--BookMooch [bookmooch.com]. People list their unwanted books to give away to other users of the website. It's pretty simple--list your books for 1/10th point each, receive 1 point for giving a book away, and spend 1 point to get a book from another member.
...and thats my pimping BookMooch speech.
I'd doubt that there is enough profit at $1 a book to organize and store the books--you're talking about a lot of books. Most older books just don't have much of a market value; I assure you that nothing you would want to read was destroyed (although, I still cringe on the thought of burning books).
Parent
Did he buy his carbon offsets? (Score:5, Funny)
Note the paragraph halfway thru the story... (Score:3, Funny)
> The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the
> Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne
> didn't have a permit for burning.
So, Bob's your uncle.
Books are re-usable commodities. (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is that the vast majority of books become useless once you've read them. Especially mass market fiction like Da Vinci and Potter. No one wants them because everyone that wanted to read them has, so there's an enormous surplus. With sights like Amazon.com selling books like these essentially for shipping charges, why would buy them at a brick-and-mortar? It's cheaper and easier to just pull up Amazon, click 3-4 times and wait a week. Most of the time you're buying from a used bookstore just like this guy with a surplus of that book and just wants to get rid of it and make a dollar on the shipping.
Re:Books are re-usable commodities. (Score:5, Funny)
Now there is a book I'd like to read!
Sam
Parent
Donate Them or Recycle the Paper (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of the big box chains (Borders, Barnes & Noble) could be why his sales are down. Same for Amazon.
Personally, I think it's a publicity stunt.
Dont know about B&N... (Score:4, Interesting)
While many adults buy plenty of product, there is apparently a large decline in teens buying the latest album or DVD box-set.
Hmmmm. I bet all those kids are legally paying for their multimedia on Amazon and E-Bay... wait... no I don't.
Either way, burning books is stupid.
Regards.
P.S. Apparently you will see Borders diversifying heavily over the next couple years. They have already slated 1/2 of the Waldenbook operations for closure even though they are marginally profitable. Apparently not having floor space to diversify into higher tech stock was the death knell for those stores. There is even a rumor of download kiosks & cell phone kiosks slated for test markets. *ROFL* There was a rumor of a partnership w/B&N floating around earlier this year.
Parent
Re:Donate Them or Recycle the Paper (Score:5, Informative)
Book donations can be both helpful to libraries or a really big drain on time and resources. Occasionally, someone donates a rare book, or a book we find we need or want, or one we've been trying to get. More often, though, by the time people donate copies of a book, the library has purchased, catalogued, and processed (put all the stickers and security items, etc. on the book) copies of that book already. Unless the library's copy is missing or in very poor condition, it doesn't make sense to take the staff time and use the extra processing materials it would take to add an extra copy that probably won't circulate much. (If 50 people are going to check out a certain book, and the library already has a sufficient number of copies to meet that demand, adding another copy isn't doing anything except taking up often precious shelf space. It doesn't mean more people get to take out the book.)
All that, of course, is assuming the book is in mint condition. While you were a good citizen and donated books in good condition, other people try to use libraries as a dumping ground. I've seen books covered in cat urine, mold, food, and some things we couldn't even identify that were given to libraries. My old library had to contract with someone to come and haul away the books that couldn't even be sold at the book sale. Sometimes they had to call and ask for a special pick up, because the items were making us sick. And sometimes, people donated items that no library would add and no one ever wanted to buy, like encyclopedia sets from 1972 or health textbooks from 1980.
Keep in mind that every item donated requires someone to look at it and make a decision. That's taking the time of someone who has to know the library collection and the reading patterns of the patrons pretty well. Many libraries no longer accept donations to put in the collection simply because they were not cost effective--paying a staff member (in large libraries, volunteers often do not know the collection well enough) to sort through the dross was costing more than the library was saving through the addition of the few books it found worth adding. Some accept them only for sale in book sales or book stores because then they only have to weed out the completely unacceptable donations, which requires no knowledge of the library collection, just common sense.
So if a beautiful book you donate to the library ends up in a book sale, please don't be upset. Chances are it finds a good home with someone who enjoys it for years to come, and the library gets money it needs to buy needed materials. It may not be quite the way you envisioned it, but many times, the library is actually getting more value from using your book this way.
Anyways, I hope my explanation helped explain why some libraries might not accept donations (especially in bulk from a store owner), or why donations might end up in a book sale rather than on a library shelf. Please know that we DO appreciate the people who donate their books in good condition to the library, and in a perfect world we'd like to put them all on the shelf, but we lack the time, space, and materials to do so, so instead we do the best we can.
As to the book store owner who tried to donate all his extra stock to libraries and was upset when they wouldn't take them, I'd like to repeat that libraries are not a dumping ground. We don't need 150 copies of The Da Vinci Code any more than you do. We have our copies already, and we're not going to have any more luck selling those copies at book sales than you had. Essentially, he overestimated how many copies he could sell and ended up with stock problems which he is blaming on society, and when he couldn't make nonprofits fix the problem for him, he came up with a way to make it a marketing campaign. I don't really have much sympathy for him.
p.s. If you want t
Parent
Book sales (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the profit margin on in the publishing industry is relatively small. (I want to say around 7%, but that could be wrong, and of course it varies somewhat by publishing house.) For booksellers, I'm not sure--a very large percentage of a book's sale at list price is above what the bookseller paid for it, but I don't know how overhead and employee salaries figure into the equation.
That being said, while book sales are increasing (and have almost every year since we started keeping track of them), the amount of time we spend reading has started to decrease drastically. (Look up the NEA "Reading at Risk" study.) Similarly, the breadth (and I believe quantity) of books ordered by library collections has decreased. And the budgets of educational libraries are increasingly being swallowed up by effectively monopolistic journal publishers.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I guarantee you, though, the major chains are not doing well. See my post elsewhere in this thread. Borders just rolled their entire upper management over AGAIN, began plans to spin off all international operations, and is closing 50% of the Waldenbooks & BX branded stores.
Getting to be a revolving door in Ann Arbor, and with good reason.
Regards.
Send'em to Iraq... (Score:5, Informative)
There are a whole lot of libraries (or what's left of them) in Iraq that got burned involunarily in the "stuff happens" period following the U.S. invasion that would probably love to have a bunch of material in English -- "I for one welcome our new English-speaking overlords" -- and if this guy wants to make a statement, why not just load all of the stuff in a cargo container and ship it over there?
I've actually been to this place. Unlike most /.-ers, I live in the benighted state of Kansas and this place is just two blocks from the University of Kansas Medical Center, where I've spent more time than I would have liked... It's quite a groovy little bookstore -- reminds me a lot of City Lights in San Francisco. Yes, even in Kansas we know about things like City Lights. We also walk on two legs, but only because the Chinese invented the wheelborrow. About 4,000 years after Creation.
In principle, it is a bookstore well worth supporting. But in light of all of the folks in the world who would love to use these books to improve their English, this book-burning gesture seems misguided. To say nothing of reinforcing the view of Kansans as more or less like Neanderthals, but with less intellectual sophistication. Though truth be told, this bookstore is a full 50 meters on the Missouri side of the state line, so don't blame Kansas. Please. Now excuse me while I go club something for dinner.
Neither original, nor even persuasive. (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds cool. (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, that helps. I'm going to shoot some people and scream at the top of my lungs about gun safety.
Es brennt!
Fuel for the fire? (Score:5, Funny)
How much to donate books? I can get my hands on few by Ann Coulter :-)
Re:Fuel for the fire? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Ok, maybe a little extreme.... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, this guy just wants to generate more sales, and to do so in the most inhumane, barbaric, evil way possible. People who burn books are disguisting, and honestly, if I lived in this area, the thought of a book store owner, of all people, who was willing to burn a book, would ensure that I would never, ever, ever purchase anything at his establishment ever again. Burning any book, good or bad, whether you approve of it or not, is a crime against humanity; it is a violation against the essence of human genius, creativity, and generation, be it hate speech or a widely acclaimed work of art (hell, even a Tom Clancy novel). And for a book store owner, whom one would assume would be a bibliophile, to do this, is monstrous. Like I said: shoot him.
First thing I thought of (Score:3, Insightful)
I have written a thoughtful letter to the bookstore asking that instead of staging another burning, that he look around the Kansas City area to find an organization that would haul the books away to Greensburg to help them out. I live in Kansas, and when I get a few free days, I'd be more than happy to load up my station wagon with books and drive them down to Greensburg.
I heard of a French wine boycott a few years ago.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I heard of a French wine boycott a few years ag (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Granted, I keep copies of most of my reference books in electronic format, but they generally only get used if I'm away somewhere with my laptop.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They do when their favorite content is pulled.
http://digg.com/celebrity/People_Smash_XM_Receive
Re: (Score:3, Informative)