A Good Old Fashoned Bookburning

[Flint]

The one requirement was that each bookburning needed to be justified in some extremely meaningful (and/or possibly personal) way.

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.

[BrianR]

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.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by BrianR

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.

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.

[Sundae]

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.

[glatt]

I think Flint's post should be burned.

[Number 2 Pencil]

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.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by glatt

I think Flint's post should be burned.

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

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Flint

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

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

[Flint]

Originally Posted by glatt

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

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

[Cloud]

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

[Cloud]

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?

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by Cloud

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 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.

[Number 2 Pencil]

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.

[Bullitt]

Monster by Frank Peretti.

[Cloud]

Negative responses here are your goal?