Burning books - yay or nay?

[Loppan Torkel]

I'm moving on to a new place and in doing so I'm going through a lot of old stuff, including books kept in my cellar storage. I haven't touched them since I've moved to this place and I have no interest in reading them again. Thinking of it, I haven't had any bookshelves the last years and it seems books really are becoming unnecessary.

What do you do with your books? Store them, sell them, throw them away?
Is it time to create an international book bank, like that for seeds, in case of a global breakdown?

 

[Quackers]

I would give them to a charity shop.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I would give them to a charity shop.

This, or just donate them to a local library.

When we moved a few years ago, we gave away a lot of my old books to the local library, wasn't really that hard.

 

[dutchfire]

Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.

Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.

H. Heine Almansor: A Tragedy (1823), as translated in True Religion (2003) by Graham Ward, p. 142

 

[Angst]

Burning any book is hubris.

 

[CavLancer]

Anyone who isn't wholeheartedly for the burning of books hasn't read the sequel to Rendezvous With Rama.

I'd bury them and thereby sequester their carbon.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Burning any book is hubris.

Why? Burning them would free up space and warm us during winter.

 

[CavLancer]

Because the Germans burnt books and the Germans were being bad at the time.

 

[Angst]

Why? Burning them would free up space and warm us during winter.

Books are stored information. Information is sacred. Even bad information. That is to be an idol of demonization.

 

[ArneHD]

I find I have a strange, but intense aversion to burning books.

 

[GinandTonic]

Why is this even a question? Give them to the charity shop.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

You think charity shops have unlimited space? They're quite picky here. MAybe I can rent a storage place outside of town.

 

[GinandTonic]

But if you don't want to read them they are simply a burden. Let the cat charity have a few pence and let someone read the books. Everyone wins.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Nay. Period.

As has been stated repeatedly, give them away.

 

[Evie]

Burning newspapers to start a fire is fine, and the only difference between a newspaper and a book is the frequency of publication.

I still wouldn't lean toward book-burning myself, because I'm an inveterate collector when it comes to books, but I see nothing quintessentially wrong with burning books, so long as the burning is not intended as an act of censorship or destruction of information, but just as an act of, y'know, keeping warm in the winter.

 

[Cutlass]

Anyone who burns a book should be burned with them. Just on GP. In the US you can donate them or sell them. If they aren't worth anything, just throw them away.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'm moving on to a new place and in doing so I'm going through a lot of old stuff, including books kept in my cellar storage. I haven't touched them since I've moved to this place and I have no interest in reading them again. Thinking of it, I haven't had any bookshelves the last years and it seems books really are becoming unnecessary.

What do you do with your books? Store them, sell them, throw them away?
Is it time to create an international book bank, like that for seeds, in case of a global breakdown?

Are you trying to get Sean Bean killed?

 

[Quackers]

Are you trying to get Sean Bean killed?

That isn't difficult

 

[IglooDame]

Burning books is a taboo, and one that's easy to comprehend without reading Fahrenheit 451.

I can donate my books to charity and get a tax deduction for it, which for me is a triple win.

The only ones I don't donate are tech certification books, when they're so out of date as to be useless. (No one studying Windows 2000 or VisualBasic6 anymore...)

 

[Tee Kay]

Yay if it's found to be an effective intimidation tactic. Nay if it's a bad look.