I think I just found a way to save the publishing industry

[sabotabby]

If you are going to burn a book, any book, the way I see it, you've got three options.

1) You steal it. If you are a religious nutjob, you will probably not do this.

2) You take it out from the library. You should not do this because librarians know where you live, and they are not people to be trifled with.

3) You buy it. This is really your only practical option for mass burnings*.

Except, then, you are upping the sales of the very book you claim to hate so much. And financially supporting the publishers and booksellers, who, let's face it, need any sale they can get these days, and don't really care what you do with a book once you buy it.

Really, everyone wins.

* Obviously, there have been historical cases where book-burners raided universities or parents took their children's possessions to burn. But I have a hard time imagining that Bible-beaters already owned copies of the Qu'ran.

Comments

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

The sort of fanatics who burn Korans probably don't see stealing Korans as being really theft, especially if it's from, say, an Islamic bookshop, which they probably assume is sending all its profits to terrorists.

[sabotabby]

But they are terrified of Muslims.

Here's the thing—you or I would have no problem walking into an Islamic bookshop. It's a bookshop. But these people think Muslims, even nice booksellers, are all scary terrorists packing AK-47s under the checkout counter, so are they really going to walk in and brazenly steal?

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Possibly not.

One solution, if you were a Koran-burner who didn't want to benefit any actual Islamic organizations, would be to buy (Western) commercial publishers' translations of the Koran, e.g. Penguin, or other versions that are out of copyright and not sold by an Islamic shop or publisher. On the other hand, they'd probably want to burn Arabic versions, as that is after all the Devil's language. I'm not sure if it would be so easy to obtain Arabic versions not profiting an Islamic organization, but I expect it would still be possible.

At any rate, Amazon have plenty of commercial versions that look sufficiently Arabic on the front cover to satisfy most haters' bloodlust, and some of them are at least parallel Arabic-English.

[sabotabby]

You're still upping someone's sales, and pushing the Koran higher on the bestseller list.

I don't think people stupid enough to do this are sufficiently literate to read English or Arabic.

[baroncognito.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't want to walk into a Christian bookstore. Especially not a Christian "Science" bookstore. Or is it "Christian Science" bookstore?

I haven't seen an Islamic bookstore. Or a Jewish bookstore for that matter. Though it'd be cool to find a selection of books in Yiddish. You know. I have an internet, I can probably do that.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

What makes me rather happy about all this is that the Massachusetts Bible Society, which for all its history has been dutifully giving out Bibles, has decided to give out Qu'rans because of this in solidarity, and to match the burners two for one.

[sabotabby]

I like the Pakistan flood donations the best. But this also warms my heart.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I like this!

[queerasmoi.livejournal.com]

Interfaith dialogue is great. It generally weeds out the more asinine elements and gets people talking. My rabbi uncle has worked together with Christian fundamentalists, among others, on environmental issues. He is jealous of the catchiness of the slogan "What Would Jesus Drive?" .

[ironed_orchid]

That's a great response

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Oh, also: someone on Reddit posted: "I couldn't wait until the eleventh to burn myself a copy of the Qu'ran".

[sabotabby]

Hahaha.

[cannibal-x.livejournal.com]

It's easy to get free copies of the Koran though, at least in Canada.

[sabotabby]

True, but it still involves talking to Muslims. And I'm not sure one could get it in the quantities needed for a good bonfire.

Off-Topic

[fengi.livejournal.com]

I'm seeking opinions on what the heck this means. I'm pretty sure it is not a real phrase.

Re: Off-Topic

[sabotabby]

This bewilders me. I read the article, but the phrase makes no sense.

You know in those movies where the hero meets some abused prostitute (or, in a more comedic narrative, secretly gay or deeply in love with some other woman, but his friends think he will never get laid ever so they take him to a prostitute) and pays for her time and then just sits and talks to her instead? I'm imagining a ring of guys doing that.

Or, I guess maybe there's a ring of prostitutes paying johns to have sex with them? This does not seem economically sound, but we live in a postmodern era.

Re: Off-Topic

[queerasmoi.livejournal.com]

The first such scene which comes to mind is in The Butterfly Effect, when Ashton Kutcher's character locates his old love. However, the timeline in which he pays her is subsequently erased when he goes back to change history ;)

(Yeah it was a pretty bad movie)

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

Didn't The Satanic Verses do quite well?

I have a book I bought intending to burn, but it was from a charity sale and I bought it primarily to prevent any of the very gullible people at the charity reading it, as it was called, "Why Men Don't Iron" and promoted horrid evolutionary psychology bonkers about how women should do the housework. I didn't burn it - in the end my friend and I graffitied all over it when stoned instead.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

We found ours in an old barn.

[corvus.livejournal.com]

This was discussed in the novel "U.S.!", which is about Upton Sinclair being resurrected over and over and over again. The only people who buy his books are connected to anti-communist leagues and use them for kindling.

[sabotabby]

I need to read that like yesterday.

[corvus.livejournal.com]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5257218

[baroncognito.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I tend to believe that they might just get the books from a library. It serves two purposes. You show your displeasure from the book and you make it more difficult for other people to read it.

[dendritejungle.livejournal.com]

AHAHA ILU.