prospero’s owner protests against… i’m not sure exactly
I’d say Tom Wayne is protesting his own lack of business acumen:
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - 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.
It’s called the Internet, dillhole. Try it sometime.
UPDATE: He could do this.
05.28.2007 @ 12:55
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06.03.2007 @ 20:05
I responded over at Joel’s place, but since you’re such a fine fellow, I’ll copy-and-paste it here, too. You’ll probably not be surprised that I’m in agreement with you:
As the owner of a bookstore, I can understand his frustration with hordes of unsold books, but they can always be donated to the Friends of the Library - not in lots of thousands perhaps, but they are always glad to take hundreds. To burn them in such a manner less reminiscent of Nazis than of 5-year-olds: I’m going to break my things so you’ll pay attention to me.
In the past 2 years I have bought a total of 2 books from brick-and-mortar stores. Frankly, I think the business model is dead. Your average streetside bookstore simply cannot carry the titles that an online store can, and its future is probably limited to those looking for a pretty but destined-to-go-unread coffee table book or new paperback that will be mostly read before it’s accidentally dropped in the bathtub.
But the business those stores have lost out on has been more than made up by internet stores and people cleaning out their garages. This week I received in the mail an 1853 leather-bound copy of Sallust’s “Jugurtha and Cataline” and a 1921 hardcover of Caesar’s “Gallic Wars” (both in Latin), plus hardcovers of Caesar’s “Civil War” - with works by others about same battles - and “Gallic Wars” (this one in English), an “autiobiography” of Septimius Severus (a history written by a Palestinian historian in the first person), plus a hardcover of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica. For all those, including shipping, I paid a total of about $60. There is not a streetside store in the world that can provide those titles, not to mention coming anywhere near that price.
So while I can sympathise with the frustration of having unmoved inventory, not only do I think the act of burning such publicly* is wasteful, I think it’s no more meaningful** than the Luddites breaking into English mills to destroy equipment. It is a tantrum thrown by a child who finds the world leaving him behind.
* I have burned or trashed literally thousands of books for a multitude of reasons, but always privately.
** It is possibly counterproductive and possibly good advertising. Time will decide that.