Missouri book store owner burns his books in protest but reveals a new source of cheap fuel
Dan Brawner
May 29, 2007
Tom Wayne of Kansas City, Missouri loves his books. For ten years, Wayne has been collecting thousands of volumes which he sells at his store, Prospero’s Books. Then last Sunday, he made a big pile of them outside his store and set them on fire.
Wayne’s precious books burned for nearly an hour before the Kansas City Fire Department arrived and extinguished his literary blaze. He explained that since Prospero’s Books opened, he has seen fewer and fewer customers. Attempting to weed out his growing collection, Wayne discovered not only could he not sell his used books, he could not even give them away to libraries or thrift stores. Wayne has vowed to obtain the necessary burning permit and continue what he calls the “funeral pyre” until his surplus 20,000 books have all gone up in smoke.
I felt guilty reading about Wayne’s bitter bonfire because I have been in the process of weeding out my own personal collection of surplus books. Among the books I’ve slated for the ash heap of literary history are “The Improbable Machine”, a volume by Jeremy Campbell about the future of computers and artificial intelligence. I had neglected to read it when it first came out in 1989. It’s possible the book might still have some useful information, but... improbable. I have concluded that my 1986 copy of “The Essential Whole Earth Catalog” is anything but. I am reluctantly tossing out ‘Dutton’s Navigation and Piloting”, published by the Naval Institute Press. I may be sorry because you never know when you might find yourself drifting on a raft in the middle of the Atlantic. I am pitching a nice edition of “Spencer’s Poetical Works”, a comprehensive volume on the 16th Century English poet who bored me nearly to death in college and will never get another crack at me. I am letting go of “The Mismeasure of Man” by the brilliant science writer Stephen Jay Gould. I want to read it. I should read it. But I know I never will.
In 2006, Microsoft founder Bill Gates announced that within five years, students would no longer carry around heavy text books, but would read everything off computers the size of a paperback.
Google, the online search engine, has been scanning about a million books a year with the intention of making them available on the Internet. For free. Already, you can find almost any old, public domain book online through various sources such as Project Gutenberg. Want to look up a passage in the “King James Bible” or “Walden” or “Great Expectations”? Just type the title into your Web browser and stand back.
If you listen to Bill Gates and his kind, books are dinosaurs, decaying into the ooze of outdated technology. Books have become the computer-age version of oil and–maybe Wayne has the right idea–their most practical use now is as fuel. As gas edges toward four bucks a gallon and heating costs continue to rise, I’m thinking the thick “Essential Whole Earth Catalog” could help me get through the next winter. But I’m still getting rid of Spencer. Some things just won’t catch fire.
Wayne’s precious books burned for nearly an hour before the Kansas City Fire Department arrived and extinguished his literary blaze. He explained that since Prospero’s Books opened, he has seen fewer and fewer customers. Attempting to weed out his growing collection, Wayne discovered not only could he not sell his used books, he could not even give them away to libraries or thrift stores. Wayne has vowed to obtain the necessary burning permit and continue what he calls the “funeral pyre” until his surplus 20,000 books have all gone up in smoke.
I felt guilty reading about Wayne’s bitter bonfire because I have been in the process of weeding out my own personal collection of surplus books. Among the books I’ve slated for the ash heap of literary history are “The Improbable Machine”, a volume by Jeremy Campbell about the future of computers and artificial intelligence. I had neglected to read it when it first came out in 1989. It’s possible the book might still have some useful information, but... improbable. I have concluded that my 1986 copy of “The Essential Whole Earth Catalog” is anything but. I am reluctantly tossing out ‘Dutton’s Navigation and Piloting”, published by the Naval Institute Press. I may be sorry because you never know when you might find yourself drifting on a raft in the middle of the Atlantic. I am pitching a nice edition of “Spencer’s Poetical Works”, a comprehensive volume on the 16th Century English poet who bored me nearly to death in college and will never get another crack at me. I am letting go of “The Mismeasure of Man” by the brilliant science writer Stephen Jay Gould. I want to read it. I should read it. But I know I never will.
In 2006, Microsoft founder Bill Gates announced that within five years, students would no longer carry around heavy text books, but would read everything off computers the size of a paperback.
Google, the online search engine, has been scanning about a million books a year with the intention of making them available on the Internet. For free. Already, you can find almost any old, public domain book online through various sources such as Project Gutenberg. Want to look up a passage in the “King James Bible” or “Walden” or “Great Expectations”? Just type the title into your Web browser and stand back.
If you listen to Bill Gates and his kind, books are dinosaurs, decaying into the ooze of outdated technology. Books have become the computer-age version of oil and–maybe Wayne has the right idea–their most practical use now is as fuel. As gas edges toward four bucks a gallon and heating costs continue to rise, I’m thinking the thick “Essential Whole Earth Catalog” could help me get through the next winter. But I’m still getting rid of Spencer. Some things just won’t catch fire.
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