# The SDMB book burning **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 31, 2006, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200 "2006-12-31T10:01:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2007, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/141 "2007-01-05T01:01:12Z")
[QUOTE=Illuminatiprimus] The precis on wikipedia makes it sound like an interesting concept and that the ending is good too. I’m assuming that a summary doesn’t accurately convey what the book is like. [/QUOTE] It doesn’t. I had the same reaction that **OneCentStamp** did when I got to the ending of the book- the ending seemed so abrupt and so lame, I had to go back and re-read the last few pages to make sure I hadn’t missed something. If I’d had a fireplace, I might well have thrown the book in, just because I felt so cheated by the lameness of that ending. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2007, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/142 "2007-01-05T10:19:27Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] It doesn’t. I had the same reaction that **OneCentStamp** did when I got to the ending of the book- the ending seemed so abrupt and so lame, I had to go back and re-read the last few pages to make sure I hadn’t missed something. If I’d had a fireplace, I might well have thrown the book in, just because I felt so cheated by the lameness of that ending. [/QUOTE] I’m reading between the lines and construing that the ending was “but despite being in mortal danger they all suddenly lived happily ever after. Or did they…?”. Sound about right? ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2007, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/143 "2007-01-05T12:51:41Z")
[QUOTE=Illuminatiprimus] I’ve yet to see or read a chich lit book that was about a lowly paid woman working as bus driver thinking that her career wasn’t rewarding and that she went to university to become a successful and highly paid professional against all the odds stacked against her by an unsupportive husband, friends and family who secretly didn’t want her to rise above them (which would be a much more relevant story for millions of women in the world given that it mirrors reality). [/QUOTE] None of the women in this book are bus drivers, but will [this do?](http://www.amazon.com/Rituals-Survival-Portfolio-Nicholasa-Mohr/dp/0934770395/sr=1-1/qid=1167609642/ref=sr_1_1/104-0722274-9039936?ie=UTF8&s=books) [QUOTE=foolsguinea] Also Ayn Rice. 😉 [/QUOTE] Thanks for reminding me: let us also commit to the flames all of Anne Rice’s vampire books from _Memnoch the Devil_ onward, reserving the hottest part of the fire for the massively whiny and disappointing _Blood Canticle_. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2007, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/144 "2007-01-05T16:31:27Z")
[QUOTE=Illuminatiprimus] I’m reading between the lines and construing that the ending was “but despite being in mortal danger they all suddenly lived happily ever after. Or did they…?”. Sound about right? [/QUOTE] Yes, “and everything went back to the way it was at the beginning of the book”. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2007, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/145 "2007-01-08T18:24:52Z")
[QUOTE=Jeep’s Phoenix] What’s so objectionable about _The Handmaid’s Tale_? It’s a scary/thought-provoking piece of work…unlike some of the works mentioned previously, which apparently made people think only of flames. [/QUOTE] I think I understand what he was saying, actually. He thinks that _The Handmaid’s Tale_ bashes Christians in much the same way as _The Protocols of the Elders of Zion_ bashes Jews. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/146 "2007-02-01T10:49:48Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] I think I understand what he was saying, actually. He thinks that _The Handmaid’s Tale_ bashes Christians in much the same way as _The Protocols of the Elders of Zion_ bashes Jews. [/QUOTE] Why is this a bad thing? Gilead is becoming more and more of a reality, if the neocon movement continues the US will be living in it whether they like it or not. ---
**Author:** ![Butterscotch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Butterscotch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Butterscotch)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/147 "2007-02-01T14:00:15Z")
\*A Painted House \* by John Grisham, what WAS he thinking? One of the most disappointing books I have ever read. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/148 "2007-02-01T14:45:25Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] _Sphere_ by Michael Crichton. [Worst ending in all of literature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_%28novel%29). (Spoilers in link, but you really shouldn’t bother reading that steaming pile of poo if you haven’t already wasted part of your life doing so. Even if you like some of Michael Crichton’s other books. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.) [/QUOTE] Since I had no intention of reading the book, I followed the link. Seems to me that the Squid of Despair episode of \*Red Dwarf \* handled the theme much more intelligently. ---
**Author:** ![DurbBook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@DurbBook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DurbBook)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/149 "2007-02-01T16:36:25Z")
I would contribute the complete works of one of our local authors. Most of our local authors are wonderful people who appreciate the support the bookstore gives them. We display their work prominently and host monthly signings. Most of them are pretty good writers, and one, James D. Doss, enjoys a national reputation as a mystery author. One, however, is a pain in the tuckus. Martha Mae fancies herself as the literary heir of Jane Austen (you can occasionally see her flapping around town in Eighteenth Century costumes). Her work includes a Southwestern mystery, a mystery of the Great Lakes area (not a big seller in the Southwest), the biography of a Michigan author whose fame echoes from Kalamazoo to Battle Creek, and a romance in the style of Jane Austen—if Jane Austen had been coked to the gills on heroin and mined a rich vein of prose combining the charm of a Pentagon briefing with the excitement of double-entry bookkeeping. Nevertheless, she has her fans. Martha Mae’s main claim to fame is that she walked the entire length of the Santa Fe Trail from west to east over the course of many years. Far be it from me to denigrate the achievement. I mean, the woman is now 70+ and is planning another hike of the trail, this time over the mountain route. During her trek over the lower route, she sent back regular dispatches to the local paper, which obligingly printed them. She also accosted the editors of every small-town daily along the Santa Fe Trail and bullied them into covering her feat. She collected the clippings, combined them with those from the local paper—and voila! another book. As my dad once said, “That woman could take a cr@p and would write about it for publication.” It’s her latest, the “ghost-written autobiography” of a retired English teacher at Los Alamos High School, that is making me nuts. In the first place, an autobiography should be written by the person herself. In the second place, nobody is going to pay twelve bucks for a photocopied velobound book. In the third place, she should have shared the money from sales with the teacher. And in the fourth place, the teacher passed away at age 97 several days before Christmas, and Martha Mae called me at the store to see how many of the books we had on hand. I told her we didn’t have any. She wanted to sell them at the memorial service. She said she couldn’t get any more because the copy place was closed for the holidays. She assured me, however, that she’d make up some order forms and put them out at the reception after the service so folks could bring them by the store to reserve their copies. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/150 "2007-02-01T17:10:33Z")
[QUOTE=Illuminatiprimus] Why is this a bad thing? Gilead is becoming more and more of a reality, if the neocon movement continues the US will be living in it whether they like it or not. [/QUOTE] Oddly enough, the same defense has been offered of THE PROTOCOLS- “Look at the world condition- it’s all been happening!” Henry Ford championed that argument. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/151 "2007-02-01T18:57:28Z")
I bought a box of books for five bucks at an estate sale. I picked up the first of a series, Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman. Not anything special, biut not a bad adventure yarn. Five books later in the series, the weird B&D theme only hinted at in the first couple of books starts to take a larger role. For a couple of books, I was able to skim past the stuff and follow the story. By the eighth book there is no story, just the B&D stuff. Seein that there were another dozen or so left in what I had bought, I just sorted through and threw anything by John Norman in the trash. Omaha has a municipal ordinace against open burning and I have no fireplace. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/152 "2007-02-01T19:31:49Z")
[QUOTE=FriarTed] Oddly enough, the same defense has been offered of THE PROTOCOLS- “Look at the world condition- it’s all been happening!” Henry Ford championed that argument. 😃 [/QUOTE] The difference, of course, being that the religious-right and neocon movements are **real.** ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/153 "2007-02-01T20:51:21Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] The difference, of course, being that the religious-right and neocon movements are **real.** [/QUOTE] So was Zionism and Jewish bankers- doesn’t mean that either are megalomaniacal conspiracies. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/154 "2007-02-01T21:11:28Z")
[QUOTE=FriarTed] So was Zionism and Jewish bankers- doesn’t mean that either are megalomaniacal conspiracies. [/QUOTE] Yeah, the neocons are open to the point of “in-your-face”; I don’t think anyone would have claimed a coverup or conspiracy there. And I thought there was a thread not too long ago concerning the apparent dominance of Jewish businesses in the financial and entertainment fields. **DurbBook** : so how many orders did your store get for the book? Is the author just accepted as a harmless “local character,” or are people from the teacher’s family getting upset over the book? ---
**Author:** ![Lucky\_13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucky_13/32/13209_2.png) [@Lucky\_13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_13)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/155 "2007-02-01T21:50:21Z")
[QUOTE=Mehitabel] _Carol Bird’s Christmas_, a treacly Victorian reprint about a saintly dying child that traumatized me at age eight. [/QUOTE] Normally I don’t advocate book-burning, but if I had a copy of that I’d burn it too, along with the complete works of V.C. Andrews. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/156 "2007-02-02T03:23:56Z")
The DaVinci Code, just b/c I’m sick of people treating it like some scholarly masterpiece. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2007, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/157 "2007-02-03T20:03:29Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] The difference, of course, being that the religious-right and neocon movements are **real.** [/QUOTE] Ah-hem, but what part of my username do you not understand? Just because we don’t advertise openly doesn’t mean I’m not running your life. 😃 I’m really pleased with this thread, it’s proven to be a really good social. I just wish we actually could all meet up and set fire to all this tripe now. I guess for the sake of balance I should probably do a “which book healed your soul?” thread as well… :o Or maybe I won’t bother. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2007, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/158 "2007-02-03T20:09:40Z")
[QUOTE=Autolycus] The DaVinci Code, just b/c I’m sick of people treating it like some scholarly masterpiece. [/QUOTE] Amen brother - my copy is next to the toilet in case of emergencies. ---
**Author:** ![DurbBook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@DurbBook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DurbBook)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/159 "2007-02-06T02:23:00Z")
> [@](#): > > **DurbBook** : so how many orders did your store get for the book? Is the author just accepted as a harmless “local character,” or are people from the teacher’s family getting upset over the book? The store got about 10 orders as a result of the orders after the memorial. The author is regarded as a character, and apparently the family is okay with things. Michele, my partner, is another story. For several hours after Martha Mae’s call, she kept shouting, “Book about the dead person heah! Getcher book about the dead person!” ---
**Author:** ![AuntPam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@AuntPam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntPam)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2007, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/160 "2007-02-06T03:42:53Z")
Hey–Here’s a few more “classics” that deserve to get the torch: Top of MY list: The Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. URK! A truly horrible HORRIBLE attempt at a novel. Never have I read such an amateur attempt to clothe awkward philosophical constructs in the lifeless flesh of “human characters.” I’ll go along with flaming most Jane Austen/Bronte sisters books. Pathetic stories in which silly heroines inhibited by moronic social customs manage to fill up about 150 pages by misunderstanding everyone else ,because it was apparently not the “done thing” in that socierty to ask ANY direct questions: “Say, who’s that wailing up in the attic?” “Why are you acting like a complete doofus, Mr. Darcy?” These are books that I had to throw at the wall repeatedly in order to survive the assigned reading list during college. And I’m talking 1967-1971, kids. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200.md?page=9)