A Good Old Fashoned Bookburning
 

I read Sphere by Michael Crichton years ago, and when I finished it, my first thought was, "I genuinly HATE this book. This was so bad I would burn it." That one idea has brought up in me- a true lover of ideas and words- a strange hobby. I classify bad books by whether or not I should burn them. Many books have been redeemed by one stray idea or two, and I am proud to say that my 'books that deserve burning' list is very, very short.

I loves to read, and I love knowledge in all its forms - even in forms that I disagree with. Bookburning to me is a kind of blasphemy that really should be restricted to the most vile of books, and, of course I would argue that even those really bad books merit existence if only for the study of really bad ideas.

But I have this fantasy. I would hold a BBQ and invite all my friends over for a good old fashioned bookburning. They would bring textbooks they hated, really bad novels, a Chick tract or two- any book full of vile and unredeemable content. The one requirement was that each bookburning needed to be justified in some extremely meaningful (and/or possibly personal) way. Of course, I don't mean burn every copy of the book, some should be preserved somewhere for those that know what they are getting into, but really if the book is bad enough, no one should want to ever bother wasting their time reading it.

So, ladies and gents, gather round the fire. Feel its warmth and see its flicker. Toss in what you like :3eye:

I'll start...

Sphere by Michael Crichton - bad plot, anti-science, really bad ending, personal loathing for a really poor novel

Dianetics by L Ron Hubbard - gateway book to a crazy cult, book is full of made up psudeo-psychology

The Turner Diaries by William Luther Pierce -blathering racism and all-around pointlessness

I had a very slow day at work many years ago where I had absolutely nothing to do but read that book cover to cover. It was terrible. I'd burn it if I had a copy.

Anything written by Danielle Steele.

America: A Call to Greatness

Given as a gift from my grandmother. It was so staggeringly awful, but like a car wreck, I had to see it through. BURN IT!

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.
I know Shawnee for one enjoyed it, but it makes me retch. Burning it would make me very happy.

Agreed, that book sucked ass. Made me stop reading his stuff altogether.
Others I've hated were House of Sand and Fog by Andre Debus and Lovely Bones by some stupid bitch I wanted to kick in the cunt. Didn't finish it it sucked so bad.

Yeah, she's the one.... stupid bitch... :mad2:

Eh, most people hate the things I like. I was mesmerized by the account of a family trying to deal with the disappearance and then death of a loved one, told by the loved one who was murdered.

To each his own.

OH, and anything Sci-Fi.

I cant really think of any books that I hate so much that I would burn them, but there are books that I couldn't finish reading because they couldn't keep my attention. The best example of that is the third book in Stephen Kings Gunslinger series. I got very frustrated with all the repetition he does in his books by then.

Temples On the Other Side: How Wisdom from "Beyond the Veil" Can Help You Right Now by Sylvia Browne.

Why believe a view of heaven as written by a psychic fraud that is using her books and readings to extract money from a credulous audience? I'm sure just about all of Sylvia Browne's writings are fire-worthy.

And they have to write an essay describing their justification.

These essays are published, and in turn published as a book of their own.

The community is shocked when a rogue 16 year-old honor student submits the book-of-essays-about-which-books-should-be-burned as a book that itself should be burned. The essay is so compelling, that everyone agrees.

But that was just the beginning. Every member whose essay was burned on the basis of the new essay has to write an essay explaining why they felt the burning was justified. These essays are then collected and published, and within months are submitted and approved for burning--sparking another round of essays...and another round of burnings.

The recursive series of events that follows over the next several years lead to the total devastation of the publishing industry as we know it, as all books published by the year 2012 are exponentially self-referential to the point that people must pursue college degrees in the history-of-books-of-essays-about-book-burnings-being-burned before they can even understand what the books are even talking about.

The human desire to read is so overwhelming that millions of people abandon all other activities in favor of trying to follow the logical feedback loop, back far enough to be able to read anything anymore. Civilization collapses, about which essays are written and the whole process begins anew.

So, no, I think book-burning is a bad idea.

My worst book was Stephen King's Gerald's Game.

I figure SK lost his touch about then. But I wouldn't burn it. Maybe relegate it to a box in the attic.

Burning books can get carried away. Farenheit 451, anyone?

Yes, I know he meant the one copy, not ALL of them, but still.

Nah, burning a single copy of a book that you feel wasted your time and attention is no different than burning love letters from an ex. It's cathartic :)

I wouldn't burn any Stephen King books. Even those I didn't really enjoy have had a good turn of phrase or description in them as redemption.

I think Flint's post should be burned.

The fun of this is to skirt the slippery slope. I have read many books I have hated or disliked or disagreed with, but note how few I would consider burn-worthy, and I have given it a lot of thought. I am challenging you to consider which books would you burn, if any. If you aren't even the least bit tempted to burn something then you haven't given it enough thought.

Not burning anything is the camp I live in personally in real life. I still have my copy of Sphere, I don't want to donate it to goodwill and leave it to chance that someone might stumble onto it, but I haven't burnt it.

But this is a thought experiment, and the reasoning behind why some of us choose to consider a book burnable is the whole point.

You have to prove it, by writing an essay to that effect.

The Celestine Prophecy. biggest bunch of drek I ever read.

You never said how long the essay had to be. Mine is 7 words long.

Shawnee--ALL SF should be burned? Shame on you! Just because you personally don't like the genre, does not mean it deserves to be burned.

There's lots of great stuff there--thought provoking, cutting edge, and fun. There's a lot to be said for expanding one's horizons, imagination, and --fun? did I mention fun?

I agree with Sundae Girl when she says the idea of burning a book can be cathartic because it wasted one's time.

I would go a little further and say that sometimes (rarely I hope), reading a book might be personally harmful. I have one book, Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires by by Esther Hicks, Jerry Hicks, that I consider to have been personally harmful to me in that I read it at a vulnerable time in my life and some of what they taught or implied in the book really was damaging to me. Burning my copy of it would be a catharsis and a statement that I now believe that what they wrote is not at all what I believe now, and also that I just HATE them for writing it.

Monster by Frank Peretti.

I was messing with what I know are a ton of SF fans here.

At least I didn't want to kill everyone or puke for having read any.

I know there is a lot of SF out there that is well-written and highly clever. Don't take me too seriously. Negative responses have become my goal...if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Besides, me not liking the genre doesn't mean I don't expand my horizons, or have an imagination. Those things do not just exist in SF.

Negative responses here are your goal?

:(

I'm just being cynical Cloud...it's what I get so it's what I expect. Please don't be offended, I'm not feeling well and I'm tired of mean people (which turns me into what I hate.)[/whining threadjack]

I think we've had this conversation about SF before, Shawnee. We can disagree. Sorry you're not feeling well!

It's okay - it only made me retch, not puke :greenface
Ditto me - I only acknowledged you in my post because you like the book and you know I hate it and it felt worse not to say so.

But completely each to his (or her) own, and sorry you're feeling grim.

Yeah. I'm gonna have to burn that essay. Justification: my one-word essay entitled "Because."

Philistine.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Stern (had to read it for a college class, I'm still scarred.)

Anything by Nora Roberts, including all of her pseudonymous tripe.

The Lineage of the Code of Light - Jessie Ayani (which is a load of new age hoo hah that's been put in a blender and frapped. Ascended masters, Christ Consciousness, mystical vibrations, and pseudo-herstory abounds. Only reason I can't burn it is that it belongs to a friend who was very anxious that I read it. I don't know if I can make it beyond the one and a half chapters I've already finished.)

:D

I don't remember Hairy Rings Hitchhikes to Space in a Ship Made of Marshmallows as being required reading in the 6 or 7 literature classes I took in college, just for funzies. :bolt:

Philistine elitist, then.

"The secret life of bees" or whatever total waste of my life that book where those black ladies kept pouring honey on a statue of Mary...YUCK.

(chuckle out loud)

Now come on, let's kitsch and make up.

Is that a sequal to: I, God Emperor of the Rings' Guide to the Stainless Steel Light Fantastic's Edge and the Half-Blood Prince's Compass in a Strange Land?

Wasn't that an Emerson Lake and Palmer album?

THNORT (THQUARED)

The Bible. Aside from it being a long, boring read with so many plot holes you'd think it was swiss cheese; it has caused more problems than any other book I know.

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to come up with the Bible. Sure, that one collection of books has caused a lot of problems, but is it irredeemably bad? You are possibly right though in that it has caused more problems than any other book - but I think maybe the communist manifesto might be a bigger problem causer perhaps?

The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion

If there was ever a book that needed to be destroyed, burned, eradicated from the face of the earth, it is this.

Oh, yeah. I'd burn that one for sure. Hated that book.



no, i liked it actually. its a lot better than 1984, plot-wise at least.

i'd have to pick the harry potter series. and the twilight series. and the entire genre of mindlessly cliche boring coming-of-age 'young adult' novels that obviously assume young adults have the IQ and maturity of a vegetative kindergarten student. You know the ones I'm talking about. that genre with its own shelf on the very very edge of the colourful zany kids section of barnes and noble (/borders/books-a-million/every other bookstore ever) where every book is the same length, as part of a four-to-five-book series, where the plot is more basic and formulaic than a tom clancy novel.
those.

Now, see, I rather enjoyed that book. I like bees.

I'd also not mind if someone torched "The Silmarillon" by Tolkien.
I've tried to read it at least 5 times and 10 pages is all I could slog through.

They recently went off on The Silmarillon, on the Radiohead board at Audiogalaxy.

Quote:
"I don't think anyone made it that far in to tell. Like Godboy, I read about one paragraph, some such about some spirit gods or somefuck and then threw it over my bookshelf into my pile of cumrags. "


I couldn't do that! My cum rags are "precious" to me. :D

5-10 pages I accept, although personally I'd have to read the whole of any book I intended to burn, in case there was a redeeming quality later on.

But one paragraph (Flint's quote from AG)?
Anyone who tosses anything into cum rags (well, not quite anything) after one paragraph watches too much MTV.

People around here weren't so accepting when I told them I threw my Heidegger book in the fire. Maybe I have opened their eyes to the advantages. It sure sounds like it.

It's great that we can grow together.

Explanation:

Heidegger was one of my faves, until a favorite book was edited and I bought the second book with all the edits. That's when it turned dark....and ugly...then I was disappointed, then I was angry and felt betrayed...the fire was going already and plop!

Mmmmm..satisfaction! I still don't feel guilty for it and I am proud of myself for not keeping that all bottled up. If you look at the alternatives, there is no one to complain to about my upset with Heidegger, and what once was my favorite books. It's a year later and I am still happy with the decision I made. I have spent a lot of money and time on Heidegger, specifically. I had a right to be upset. It was kind of like a break up, and I always did describe Heidegger as a bad boyfriend; someone you spend all your money and time on and still don't understand.....When that understanding came and I was supplied with more evidence, there was no defending him anymore. In the fire with you, jerk!!!
:)
I spent the better part of my twenties pouring through his work and spending my last dime on him. Bye bye!

If there is a reason you feel like you need to express yourself in that way, do it. Not everyone has relationships with their reading material and their subjects, so they don't know, and their opinions should stand mute. :neutral:

Sorry, I got here late, but I understand......Don't let anyone shame you for that activity. People used to burn books for moral reasons (still do I'm sure), and people confuse that, with the burning of books because of your connection with them. People don't always burn books because they think they are on a moral high ground. Sometimes they just burn them because they feel upset and betrayed. Just let them do it or you are going to have to hear all about it, which is probably going to be a lot more painful than just letting them do it.

But, but, but, rather than burning them, which destroys Polar bear habitat, there are alternatives.
Shred them into your mulch pile and poop on them to accelerate the breakdown.
Or pile them in the attic/basement, because they make wonderful habitat for silverfish and a bunch of different molds.
Slower, but maybe more satisfying, is lining the birdcage, a page or two at a time.

Be creative... and kind to Al Gore. ;)

In the heat of the moment I forgot about Al Gore?!? Golly. Oh jeez...Now I feel terrible about the whole thing. Thank you Bruce, this is an excellent point!!

Having the heat off and going down to the art studio to make a fire to stay warm, by way of burning Heidegger, is not earth friendly. Noted. :p lol!

I will admit - I would only burn books metaphorically.
But then I don't have an open fire, so there is no temptation to do it physically.

I take the no-hopers (back!) to the charity shop. The really good ones go to my Mum. The amazing ones I add to my stash. Which I have to decimate (at least) before I move :mecry:

Tail posting:

Flint: may have invented perpetual motion.

Sheldon: Skip the first two sections of the Silmarillion. They're very abstract. The third bit has lots of specific stories and is good. The fourth bit is also good.

Cicero: Never read any German philosopher whose name starts with "H" or "S".

My burning? The Chronicles of Narnia. Just out of spite.
I was raised free of religion, read the books, got to know them as well as a rabbi knows the Torah, and then learned more about Christianity ... wait a #$%&ing minute ... these books are about religion!!! This bastard hs been smuggling religion into my mind without declaring it! Betrayed! Fury! Burn in hell, Lewis!

I'm a bit surprised it should fall to me to suggest burning the greater part of L. Ron Hubbard's output. Include Dianetics at your option.

X-Lydia tells me she read it on a dare, and says it creeped her out thoroughly. The book seemed the work of an obsessive madman.

And Battlefield Earth the work of an obsessive madman bereft of an editor.

Works not for burning but perhaps for pillorying: the less mature later work of Piers Anthony, particularly his not-juvie work, the stuff that isn't Xanth -- whose proper demographic is readers between nine and fourteen.

Those are also the kids who should be reading Harry Potter, which is literature. Kid-Lit, yes, but literature nonetheless. Ibram, if through some concatenation of circumstances you should become a father, read this to your kids. You may be in the right place in life for that by then.

Oh yes - Battlefield Earth! I'm warming my hands on it already...
I wouldn't burn Anthony's Xanth books. I read them when I was 12-13 and although I despised them (and he had the gall to suggest they were like the Chronicles of Prydain!) they had some saving graces. I liked the idea of how creatures made up of more than one animal were created. I liked the idea of successive waves of invasion/ magic. A couple of others which I can't remember.

Battlefield Earth had no saving grace. Unless you could the size - it worked as a book end on my shelf for a while. But I don't count it, personally.

I think it's unintentionally funny. Jets that work in perfect flying condition after over 1k years? And a bunch of barbarians learn to fly them easily? :lol: It reads like classic pulpy sci-fi adventure from a magazine with a cover that has a giant BEM attacking a screaming lady in scanty clothes who is being saved by a manly man in tights and a ray gun.

Nah. I mean of course YMMV, but I can read Dennis Wheatley and find it funny, but Battlefield Earth? Not enough leaven in that loaf.

The fourth book and beyond of any Piers Anthony series are redundant, and as such are a waste of paper.