Kansas City Bookstore Owner Burns Books for a Purpose

For all literature lovers in Kansas City, today is a sad day.

It has been reported by the Associated Press that Tom Wayne, one of the owners of Prospero's Books on Westport Road, has begun burning several books that they've held in stock -- books that they couldn't even give away because libraries, thrift stores, and so forth have told them that they're all stocked up.

According to Tom Wayne, society has "diminishing support for the printed word," as reported by the Associated Press. So on Sunday, he began to burn books. As Wayne lit up the first bunch of books that he burned, he said, "This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today." He burned books for about fifty minutes before the fire department put out the flames because Wayne did not have a permit for burning. He said that next time he would have one.

Wayne has run the bookstore for ten years with co-owner Will Leathem and has a warehouse full of thousands of books. They have approximately 20,000 books in stock, for now. Wayne estimates that he'll hold monthly bonfires until the books are gone.

In my personal correspondence with Wayne, I wrote to beg him to stop the burning and to ask if he's selling any of the books. His response was such:

Dear Jennifer;

There are worse crimes than burning books, one is not reading them. ~ Joseph Brodskey

The individual who won't read has nothing over the individual who cannot read. ~ Mark Twain

For ten years Prospero's Books has been in the front lines of the literary arts, both as a bookseller (www.prosperosbookstore.com) and as a publisher (www.unholydaypress.com).

As a used bookseller, we have put our money where our hearts are - surrendering our hours and our revenues to sharing the world of books and, more importantly, the ideas they contain with anyone who would listen.

During these ten years we have seen reading decline dramatically. The National endowment of for Arts study on literary literacy (http://www.nea.gov/news/news04/ReadingAtRisk.html) in America which painfully highlighted the rapid decline of reading in America. In our own community, we've watched as bookstore after bookstore has folded.