Bookstore Owner Burns Books

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.

Comments

So what?

[Reality Master 101]

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?

[daviddennis]

I think he's trying to take advantage of readers' affection for books. You could see that in the article, where a good number of people "adopted" them for $1 each.

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) to him.

D

Re:So what?

[QRDeNameland]

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 since set up a warehouse with a bar code system and soon that became the primary focus of their business. They still sell rare books but more out of passion than for the money.

They own a Lamborghini Countach, so I assume they're doing pretty good at it. Just an anecdote, I know, but a counterpoint to the argument that no one wants the "garbage" books.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Harry Potter (literary garbage, even if it has entertaining values) ...

Let him burn high profile, expensive books that have low literary value, like ... his signed "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets".

Why the hate for Harry Potter? Because it is not Beowulf or Shakespeare?

Re:So what?

[morcego]

Why should I hate it ? I actually read all the books, and got them for my daughter.
They have both entertaining and intellectual value. They just don't have literary value.

Re:So what?

[morcego]

Is that simply a function of how complex the grammar is?

No.

Does Lord of the Rings, one of the most horrendously written classics ever created, qualify as having literary value?

Nope. Great book, tho. Read it 7 time already, in 2 languages.

Wizard of Oz? Or heck, how about anything by Charles Dickens, who was immensely popular, but generally regarded as having no literary value in his time?

I have to admit never reading Wizard of Oz (only saw the movie). And I dislike Dickens, so I'm biased there.

As far as I can tell, the difference between literature and non-literature is the date on the book. If it passes the test of time, then it's considered classic literature.

You are correct as far as "classic" goes.

I don't know about anybody else, but there's no doubt in my mind that 100 years from now, HP will still be around as classic literature.

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:

So how do you define "literary" value?

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).

Re:So what?

[Rabbit Time!]

Erm...what? This whole set of opinions is, in my opinion, pretty off the mark. Apparently Shakespeare isn't entertaining (have you counted the number of raunchy jokes in his comedies?), Dostoevsky writes 'poor books' (those are fabulously well-constructed, nuanced works, and not usually a terrible slog to read, either), 1984 has no literary value, but Dracula and Frankenstein do. Oh, and plays have no literary value because they're not 'books.' Ack! I tend to say that with books, there is candy and there is steak. Tom Robbins? Candy. Harry Potter? Candy. Lord of the Rings is totally candy. Does this mean you shouldn't read them? No. Does this make them less worthy of existence? No. Should your diet consist only of candy? Emphatically no. Sometimes you have to read stuff that's only for fun, especially if you tend to read a lot of dense books, you need a break...but you need some sort of nutrition in your diet too. Now Joan Collins? That's simply crap, and you should probably stay away from that sort of thing. :-) I agree with you on disliking Dickens, though. Didn't surprise me a bit when I found out he often got paid a penny a work. Great stories, but I cannot stand to read them. Lots of people love them, though, so maybe I'm missing something. Also, that would be 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' and its Shakespeare, so it probably shouldn't be listed separately.

Re:So what?

[The One and Only]

No. There's a fine distinction between writing an entertaining or interesting book and writing a book that has literary merit, just as there's a difference between an entertaining film or a film that has artistic merit. Generally, the distinction hinges upon the work's amenability to literary analysis and evaluation--a novel can be deeply entertaining while having shallow, flat characters and saying nothing beyond a reaffirmation of the author's political biases (most Tom Clancy novels) or a novel can be a deep and insightful exploration of the human condition, capturing strong and sophisticated characters (most of Dickens' work).

Re:So what?

[Awel]

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). Have you read C.S. Lewis' An Experiment in Criticism ? He argues (in his capacity as literary don rather than as Christian apologist) that there is such thing as a literary or unliterary book, but only literary or unliterary readers. The literary reader reads and re-reads for the joy of immersion in the world of the book, for the language of the descriptions and to meet again the characters, and mulls over the book afterwards. The unliterary reader reads simply to find out what happens next. Thus a good book is one which rewards the first sort of reading, which still has benefit on second and subsequent readings, while poor books, once their plot is discovered, hold nothing more out to the reader.

'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.

Burn 'em all, move on to ebooks.

[Tatisimo]

I've been reading mostly ebooks for a while. They can be read on a cell phone, on a pc, on a PDA, and anything that can read ASCII or PDF and are sure easier to carry than normal paper books. Seeing that I now measure my reading habits in megabytes instead of pages, I think it's pretty unintelligent to say that because books are being sold less literacy is declining.

Re:Burn 'em all, move on to ebooks.

[bladesjester]

I tend to favor paper books. They're easier on my eyes, I can read them whether there's electricity or not, plus there's something to be said for tactile and scent memory being linked to information.

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.

Triad of Inquisition

[MSTCrow5429]

I read about this earlier, and have three questions: 1) Is this a sincere protest about a supposed lack of reading among the US population? Millions of new unsold books are pulped each year, so this just sounds illogical. or 2) Is this a bizarre marketing ploy? and 3) Is there a list of which books you can "save" for a dollar each? Can you select them? How much is shipping and handling? Enough to turn "saved" into "positive profit margin," I suspect.

Re:Triad of Inquisition

[zeroduck]

Theres a great way to save old books--BookMooch. 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).

Re:PR stunt

[jd]

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.

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 they can convert. A cafe or a pub, perhaps. (Anyone going there goes for one reason and one reason alone, and it ain't the food.) The idea that he couldn't give the books away is all fine and dandy, but is clear evidence of not trying very hard.

(There are even anonymous book clubs, where you go online and list all the places you've hidden books, and other members can go find them. Apparently, it's not just information but entire books that like to be free.)

Dont know about B&N...

[ushering05401]

but my lady worked @ BGI (Borders/Waldenbooks/Brentanos/Paperchase) for almost ten years, but recently left. The company is in dire straights even though they also sell multimedia.

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.

Re:Book sales

[ushering05401]

Hardcover sales are comping well. Paperbacks are generally not. Large chain profit margin on HC/CL (hardcover) >= 40%.

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.

Nobody's ever learning from history...?!?

[ArieKremen]

"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings."

Heinrich Heine

Re:Woah, wait a minute

[Technician]

Why don't they burn radios or TVs instead?

They do when their favorite content is pulled.

http://digg.com/celebrity/People_Smash_XM_Receiver s_in_Response_to_Opie_Anthony_Suspension

Re:PR stunt

[Dun Malg]

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])? Where do you draw the line?

I heard of a French wine boycott a few years ago..

[jrutley]

where they BOUGHT a whole bunch of French wine and poured it down the sewers. This book burning seems about as smart to me as that.

Re:Completely Offtopic:

[flyingsquid]

Susie: CALVIN, YOU BALONEY BRAIN!

Susie: You sent me a hate-mail valentine and a crummy bunch of dead flowers!

Susie: So here's a valentine for YOU, you insensitive clod!!

Susie throws a snowball at Calvin's face, at point-blank range. POW!

Susie thinks . o O ( A valentine and flowers! He likes me! )

Calvin thinks . o O ( She noticed! She likes me! )

Re:Completely Offtopic:

[cooley]

I wouldn't say the line "originates" in Calvin and Hobbes; Mad Magazine (Dave Berg, specifically) used this line back in the seventies. No, I have no cites.

Re:won't RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Something about turning a page, holding it in your hand, smelling the stale paper. I'm sure I read more on a computer, but when it comes to relaxing with a book, nothing beats black ink on paper. I'm all for replacing things like news papers(they are a waste when you think that 90% of them are used for one day then discarded). Walking into a book store is always much more fun that browsing amazon or a website. I can pick it up look it over, read the first page if I like. I can browse with a much better climate. I'll never forget those pick your own adventure books where you flipped around to different sections. I read them a ton when I was a kid. I don't think you could quite get the same experience out of it if it was online. Most likely click a link and your their. A book shelf would be worthless use of space, I guess you could store old computer parts on it or an aquarium but whats the point.

Books might be out dated legacy but they have been around for over 1000 years. For something to be that old and have that much relevance why would you want to replace that with a screen. Most books are small, fit in your bag, work without battery (unless you need a light).

I think you would agree, I just find it sad that one day books will most likely be replaced with a screen, or have already started to. No longer can you feel the weight of the book, crack the spine for the first time. Oh well times change. People get older technology gets replaced.

eBooks won't catch on until...

[Solandri]

eBooks won't catch on until they lose the DRM, or come up with a DRM that's standard and compatible across most platforms and transparent to most users. Right now the publishing industry is absolutely mortified that what happend to the RIAA is going to happen to them, and they're keeping a tight stranglehold on nearly all books published in electronic format. As long as the DRM makes you lose your books if you upgrade or the eBook breaks down, people aren't going to want it. The publishers also need to come back down to reality and start pricing them for less than regular books, not more.

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.

what's garbage?

[misanthrope101]

That's the salient question--what counts as garbage? HP Lovecraft was a pulp writer, but certain rarer editions of his go for over $100 on Ebay. That I don't want it may qualify it as garbage to me, but someone keeps buying Michael Jordan commemorative retrospectives and simular stuff. The Left Behind series, which is artistically horrible and even biblically unsound, sold a bajillion copies.

I personally like to hunt down hardback copies of books I like, even books I already own. A hardback set (with dustjackets intact) of the 1981 Random House edition of Proust might be garbage to some, because it isn't a first edition and isn't an investment, but I paid over twice what a new paperback set costs. Want a hardback edition of Finnegans Wake? How about a single-volume India-Paper edition of Shakespeare's works, with dustjacket? Hardback editions (Everyman's Library doesn't count) of all the Dostoevsky works translated by Pevear/Volokonsky? None of these are financially valuable, so they probably fall into the "garbage" category to anyone looking at books as a business, but as a reader, well, I love that stuff, and I'm willing to pay for it. I love sites like addall.com. There is still money in books, but small bookstores who expect to be able to charge cover price for new release bestsellers are going to falter.