Mo. man burns books as act of protest

[Richard]

It’s sad to hear that people don’t read books anymore. :(

By DAVID TWIDDY, Associated Press Writer

Tom Wayne has 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, such as 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 when he wanted to thin out the collection, he found he couldn't even give away books to libraries or thrift shops; they said they were full.

So on Sunday, Wayne began burning his books in protest of 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 for burning.

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.

The idea of burning the books horrified Marcia Trayford, who paid $20 Sunday to carry away an armload of tomes on art, education and music.

"I've been trying to adopt as many books as I could," she said.

Dozens of other people took advantage of the book-burning, searching through the books waiting to go into the flames 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."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070528/ap_o...Yg7IoDW7oF

[Sily]

I wanted to add a link to this story that might prove interesting.... I found Prospero's MySpace page.  The comments from around the world have been interesting under Tom's entry "litlle ole me, on cnn!".  Too many for me to post here.  I like what Argentina had to say.

---

I have my own comb binding press so any books that are offered off of the Internets for free, I bind them myself.  I think the eleventh commandment was "Thy Shall Not Burn Books".  Hopefully the first burned batch was all Anne Coulter and Bill O'Reilly books. 

[Get Boldened]

It is hard to enjoy a book if you have to spell or pronounce out the printed text. That's the average Americn reader.

[Richard]

Maybe this stunt will get some people to read more. It might also make his bookstore more popular.  

http://www.prosperosbookstore.com/

[William]

He should of just sent us the books then we could hand them out to those that still enjoy reading.  :dude:

[DreamTime]

Yeah, William...only I would get first crack at the ones I wanted...

[William]

OK, i got it the first time....  hahahaha jk  :orcass:

[DreamTime]

[William]

LOL  icon_zylinder

[Richard]

Some good news is that history books are doing well. :)

U.S. history enjoys a renaissance

By Daniel TrottaTue May 29, 7:16 PM ET

In a high-tech age of instant communication, old-fashioned history is enjoying a renaissance in U.S. popular culture.

History tomes crowd best-seller lists. Historical documentaries fill the airwaves. And people pay thousands of dollars to spend whole weekends with noted historians, much the way rock-n-roll or baseball fans attend fantasy camps with their heroes.

"At all levels of American society there is this hunger to understand the past and relate it to the present," historian David Nasaw said at one such event. "The people who are fascinated reach from the top income bracket to ordinary folk."

Nasaw, who won the 2007 American History Book Prize for his biography of Andrew Carnegie, was a star attraction at a weekend fundraiser for the New York Historical Society, which raised more than $1.5 million from patrons who donated at least

$5,000.

Others holding court were Richard Brookhiser, known for his biographies of the U.S. founders; Josiah Bunting, a biographer of Ulysses Grant; Civil War historian Eric Foner; Jill Lepore, author of a book about the King Philip's War between American Indians and English colonists; and Sean Wilentz, who questioned in a 2006 Rolling Stone article whether George W. Bush was the worst president ever.

"You're sitting next to people who have written the great books in history," said Michael Weisberg, a fund manager with ING Group who attended the event.

So what is the attraction?

Some experts attribute the surge to troubled times and the polarization of U.S. politics, which has guided people who are looking for answers to history. Others say the prose of history writers has grown more compelling than text books of the past.

MARKET POWER OF HISTORY

Book sales are creating a class of celebrity historians such as David McCullough, who won Pulitzer Prizes for his biographies of John Adams and Harry Truman.

His book "1776" led the non-fiction bestseller list as a hardcover 2005 with 1.2 million copies sold, then was the second on the bestseller list as a paperback in 2006 with 284,000 copies sold, according to data from Nielsen BookScan.

Nathanial Philbrick's "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War" was the bestselling non-fiction book of 2006 with 296,000 copies sold.

Overall, history books sold 14.6 million copies in 2006, up 6.6 percent from 2006, Nielsen BookScan reported.

The late Stephen Ambrose showed the market power of history when his "Band of Brothers" was converted into a television miniseries that still replays around the world.

"The McCulloughs and the Ambroses have trail-blazed a new category with the clear accessibility of their prose. It's written as narrative. It's written as drama," said Bob Weil, an editor at W.W. Norton.

Literary agent John Taylor "Ike" Williams of Kneerim and Williams links the fascination with history to rising passions surrounding modern politics.

"It's become a very polarized country ever since Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement. So there's a major division, and the people are very interested in reading about that division because they are wedded to one side or the other," Williams said.

At the New York Historical Society event, captains of industry and Wall Street power players crowded around to hear historian Sven Beckert deliver an ode to the wonders of New York's mercantile records from centuries past and actor Sam Waterston read Lincoln's second inaugural address.

For Carl Menges, retired vice president of investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, one of the allures of history was the steeliness of figures like Lincoln compared with the leaders of today.

"Are we groping for excellence and great leadership?" he asked.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070529/lf_n...history_dc