My cousin Tod Goldberg has entered into a -- er -- heated discussion on his blog concerning a bookstore in the heartland that has taken to disposing of its excess stock by burning the books. Publicly. As a dialogue on the decline of literacy, according to a "friend of the bookstore" who has taken to debating Tod without revealing his real name.
I suppose burning books and then contacting the media about it is one way to get rid of one's unsalable books -- just like one way to cover the hole in one's coat sleeve is to wear a swastika armband. It gets the job done; but it also sends the wrong message.
2 comments:
Not sure I agree with you here. From the article I read, the bookstore guy has already tried giving his extra books away to schools, libraries, and other charities, but nobody will take them. If he can't sell them and can't give them away, it seems like burning them is more respectful of the books than dumping them in the garbage (kinda like you're supposed to burn old flags). The only better idea I can think of is recycling the paperbacks.
Recycling is a great idea. That's what I do with outdated law books and phone books. Recycling is also presumably what publishers do with returns. Recycling gives the books a chance to live again, as another book or perhaps the paper used to write one. Burning a book, on the other hand, produces nothing but ash and pollution.
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