Wayne's world

I once started a book so bad that I stopped reading after the first chapter, went outside and threw it in the garbage can. Then, about 2 in the morning, I felt such pangs that I found myself rooting through coffee grounds, egg shells and used cat litter to retrieve the damn thing. That's how I feel about books. So I can't do a funny post about how sillly this man's book-burning "protest" is. It's a sacrilege:

Tom Wayne has amassed thousands of books in a warehouse during the 10 years he has run his used book store, Prospero's Books.

His collection ranges from best sellers, such as Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October" and Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities," to obscure titles, like a bound report from the Fourth Pan-American Conference held in Buenos Aires in 1910. But when he wanted to thin out the collection, he found he couldn't even give away books to libraries or thrift shops; they said they were full.

So on Sunday, Wayne began burning his books in protest of what he sees as society's diminishing support for the printed word.

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

If he really loved books, he couldn't do this, no matter what he thinks about the state of "thought in America today." There are still billions and billions of books, many of them stacked in the corners of my house and even on the stairs leading up to the second floor (you really need only half a staircase to walk on). I know I need to weed out the ones I will never read again, but I can't quite work up to actually doing it.

But I love the Internet, too. It's unbeatable for some things -- when's the last time any of you went searching through the print version of an encyclopedia? Thought is alive and well. Wayne confuses the medium for the message.