Man who can't give books away burns them

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books.

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.

[amykhar]

Dude should have tried freecycle. In my experience, I seldom have trouble giving away good books. Duds are trickier, but usually putting them out with free signs gets them snapped up. I think people still do read. Maybe not as much as in the past, but even young people read for fun.

[eris esoteric]

Hmm... he's still got bunches left. Wonder if he's got email at all?

[eris esoteric]

Ah ha! Found the web page for the store. You can save a book for $1.00 + postage.

PROSPEROS BOOKSTORE

[pippadaisy[$]]

BookCrossing!!!!

[eris esoteric]

Uh, guys, you realize we're talking about 20 THOUSAND books, right? Freecycle I can almost see. Setting his store up to do business on the internet I can see. But bookcrossing?

[pippadaisy[$]]

Yep. Label them and set them free. By the box, if you like. Absolutely. Better than burning them!!!

[eris esoteric]

Well, I've sent in my four page request of books to his site. Hope the boyfriend loves me this week.

[MiracleMax]

This store is awesome! I was just in there back in January, it's about 5 minutes from work. This really sucks.

What's BookCrossing?

[eris esoteric]

It's a thing where you pawn off all your ick books on unsuspecting strangers. I think the internet's involved in some fashion.

[emeleel]

Book Crossing is kind of like "Where's George?" for books.

[MiracleMax]

Ah, I see.

[eris esoteric]

Are they using bookcrossing as disease tracking tool yet?

[pippadaisy[$]]

Eris, the only reason you are so bitter is because you refuse to share books with others.

Max, it's a bit like a combo of Where's George and Random Acts. You tag your books and then leave them places (a lot of folks combine BC with geocaching) for people to find. It's a great way to weed out books... I get rid of everything but my very, very favorites.

I leave them in doctor's offices... waiting rooms... museums... It's fun. I swear. Eris, at some point you need to let go or you are going to the be the woman they find after three years behind piles of books with the cats.

[eris esoteric]

BWAHAHAHAHAHA.... I refuse to share books? That reminds me, I wonder if Bridgette ever found the copy of "The mooon is a Harsh Mistress" I loaned her.

Pippa, I'm a book pusher. The best way to get people hooked on good books is to loan them a copy. Heck, I've MAILED books to people I know on the internet. Most I've gotten back. Some I haven't. No big. The point isn't getting the book back, it's sharing the book.

I've found book crossing books a couple of times. Both times they were ick books. And, honestly, if someone were to try to leave 20,000 books in random places, it wouldn't be charity, it would be mass littering.

[pippadaisy[$]]

LOL

Sorry. I think I was confusing you with Leslie.

And I realease good books. Just not the ones I want to read again. And again. And again.

[eris esoteric]

I think that's almost the point. I'll loan ANYTHING. With the sole exception of my copy of the Illuminatus Triology that has a page missing (left it lying out in a house with a small child. And people say I'm *smart*), a broken spine, and scribbling in the margins. I've actually contemplated buying another copy of the it in order to have a copy to loan people. If something goes missing when I loan it, it's no big deal, it's a book, it can be replaced. But I'm not going to leave books I potentially want to read again laying out, because then I WON'T get them back. So anything I'd do for book crossing would be the second-tier stuff. Which is what I seem to get when other people lay their books out for the book crossing stuff.

Anyway, this all reminds me... I've done book swaps on STP, and they've always gone well. Would anyone like to do a book swap here? At some point I'm going to actually annotate my library. Once I do that, I'd be more than happy to through the list up here and mail out anything someone wanted to borrow.

[pippadaisy[$]]

I'm in. Need to finish entering all these boxes of books in BC.

[emeleel]

Paperback Swap is proposing getting involved:

PaperBackSwap :: Stop the Fires -- Save the Books!

Here is the proposed plan:

Robert and/or Richard fly to Kansas City and rent a big truck. Then we drive it back, heading towards PBS headquarters in Atlanta, with numerous stops along the way. At each city we visit, we would invite our members to come meet us and take as many books as you want. All for FREE!

Even those members who are not on the travel route will get to share in these books when they are read and posted here for swapping. Your Wish List books may be in that 20,000!

[eris esoteric]

No! Not yet! They're still scouring the ends of the earth to figure out if they've got the books I want in stock! Not yet!

[MiracleMax]

Want me to go take a look for you?

[eris esoteric]

Since you offered...

John Barnes Kaleidoscope Century (1995)
John Barnes Candle (2000)
John Barnes The Sky So Big and Black (2002)
John Barnes The Man Who Pulled Down the Sky (1987)
John Barnes Sin of Origin (1988)
John Barnes Mother of Storms (1994)
John Barnes One for the Morning Glory (1996)
John Barnes Encounter with Tiber (1996) (with Buzz Aldrin)
John Barnes Finity (1999)
John Barnes The Return (2000) (with Buzz Aldrin)
John Barnes Gaudeamus (2004)
John Barnes Wartide (1992)
John Barnes Battlecry (1992)
John Barnes Union Fires (1992)

Emma Bull The Princess and the Lord of Night (1994)
Emma Bull Finder: A Novel of the Borderlands (1994)

Joe Haldeman Worlds Enough and Time (1992)
Joe Haldeman Infinite Dreams (1978)

Katherine Kerr Daggerspell (1986)
Katherine Kerr The Black Raven (1998)
Katherine Kerr The Fire Dragon (2000)
Katherine Kerr The Gold Falcon (2006)
Katherine Kerr The Black Stone (2006)

Robin McKinley The Blue Sword (1982)

James Morrow The Continent of Lies (1984)
James Morrow This Is the Way the World Ends (1985)
James Morrow Only Begotten Daughter (1990)
James Morrow Slainte (2002)
James Morrow The Last Witchfinder (2006)
James Morrow Towing Jehovah (1993)
James Morrow Blameless in Abaddon (1996)
James Morrow The Eternal Footman (1999)

Rachel Pollack Golden Vanity (1980)
Rachel Pollack Alqua Dreams (1987)
Rachel Pollack A Secret Woman (2002)

Mike Resnick The Branch (1984)
Mike Resnick Bully! (1990)
Mike Resnick Kirinyaga (1991)
Mike Resnick The Red Tape War (1991) (with Jack L Chalker, George Alec Effinger)
Mike Resnick A Miracle of Rare Design: A Tragedy of Transcendence (1994)
Mike ResnickDog in the Manger (1995) (with Barry N Malzberg)
Mike Resnick A Hunger in the Soul (1998)
Mike Resnick Bwana (1999)
Mike Resnick Lady with an Alien: An Encounter with Leonardo Da Vinci (2005)
Mike Resnick A Club in Montmartre: An Encounter with Henri Toulouse-lautrec (2006)
Mike Resnick Soothsayer (1991)
Mike Resnick Prophet (1993)
Mike Resnick Paradise: A Chronicle of a Distant World (1989)
Mike Resnick The Dark Lady: A Romance of the Far Future (1987)

Robert J. Sawyer Golden Fleece (1990)
Robert J. Sawyer End of An Era (1994)
Robert J. Sawyer The Terminal Experiment (1995)
Robert J. Sawyer Starplex (1996)
Robert J. Sawyer Frameshift (1997)
Robert J. Sawyer Illegal Alien (1997)
Robert J. Sawyer Flashforward (1999)
Robert J. Sawyer Calculating God (2000)
Robert J. Sawyer Mindscan (2005)
Robert J. Sawyer Far-Seer (1992)
Robert J. Sawyer Fossil Hunter (1993)
Robert J. Sawyer Foreigner (1994)
Robert J. Sawyer Iterations (2002)

Will Shetterly Cats Have No Lord (1985)
Will Shetterly Witch Blood (1986)
Will Shetterly The Tangled Lands (1989)
Will Shetterly Dogland (1997)
Will Shetterly Chimera (2000)
Will Shetterly Nevernever (1993)

Sheri S. Tepper Enigma Score (1989)
Sheri S. Tepper Singer from the Sea (1999)
Sheri S. Tepper The Visitor (2002)
Sheri S. Tepper The Companions (2003)

Connie Willis Even the Queen: And Other Short Stories (1998)
Connie Willis The Miracle of Christmas (1999)
Connie Willis Water Witch (1982) (with Cynthia Felice)
Connie Willis Light Raid (1989) (with Cynthia Felice)
Connie Willis Uncharted Territory (1994)
Connie Willis Promised Land (1997) (with Cynthia Felice)

Robert Charles Wilson A Hidden Place (1986)
Robert Charles Wilson Memory Wire (1987)
Robert Charles Wilson Gypsies (1988)
Robert Charles Wilson The Divide (1990)
Robert Charles Wilson A Bridge of Years (1991)
Robert Char