Menu
The Great Book Burn-a-Thon
The Great Book Burn-a-Thon
By David Daniel
“Welcome to Radio KTRD’s third annual Spring Book Burn-a-Thon! Bob Toole here, along with co-host Carly Kindler. We’re broadcasting all day to celebrate a great cultural tradition in our metro area. We know you’re as excited as us, so let’s get to the phones! Who do you have, Carly?”
“Right, Bob. Sugar’s on the line calling from Keegerstown. Go ahead, Sugar, what book are you suggesting for our bonfire?”
“Burn Herzog.”
“Sugar, Bob here. Her zog. That how you say it? Sounds evil. I haven’t read that one.”
“Neither have I.”
“I’m just checking Google here, Bob. Here it is—that one’s by Saul Bellow. Won a National Book Award . . . that’s suspicious right there. Gives a synopsis—umm, yadda, yadda . . . mmm, sounds kind of pointless.”
“So, thumbs up on that one, Sugar. Bring it on down. Let’s take another call, Carly.”
“Mike’s in a car. Go ahead, Mike.”
“Am I on?”
“Go ahead, Mike.”
“Yeah, I just wanna say about that last book, I damn sure ain’t read it either, but you don’t gotta get down into the hog wallow to know garbage. A dirty book by a dirty man is—”
“Or dirty woman. Let’s not be sexist about this.”
“—is all’s you got to know. Here’s one I wanna see toss’d on the fire. ‘Trout Fishing in America.’”
“That’s the title?”
“What it says here. Some guy named . . . Brautigan.”
“Brought a gun?”
“I’m tryna read what it says on the . . . ”
“Careful while you’re driving, Mike. Um, I don’t know that one. Some sort of fishing book, you say?”
“They wanted to make my son read it for school. I took a look—and pee-uu. I like to thrown it right in the trash if it wasn’t a schoolbook and I’da hadda pay.”
“That says a lot about you as a parent and citizen, Mike. You might consider running for school committee.”
“I just now decided, schoolbook or no, I’m bringing it on down for tonight’s fire.”
“Onto the pile it goes. Remember, listeners, you can take the fight right to the school board in your own town. It’s people standing up to smut that brings change. Isn’t that so, Carly?”
“Right, Bob. The school committee, the local library. That’s a good place to start. And if you get resistance—some of those library ladies can be pretty pesky—tell them they work for you. You pay their salaries. And it’s your right to free speech. Haul books right off the shelves if you have to to make your point.”
“Well—haha—I don’t know if that’s where I’d start, Carly, but at least make some noise.”
“Which is what the group sponsoring tonight’s bonfire is doing, Bob. They’re called ‘Moms for Others’ Sake’ and they’re not shy about sticking their noses in and looking out for all of us.”
“So, folks, if you’re just joining me and my co-host Carly Kindler, our goal’s to have a heap of books by nine p.m. That’s when we’ll light up. If you’re in the area, come on by! It’s family friendly fun. Meanwhile, listeners, you can phone or text us with requests.”
“When you think about it, Bob, books are more of a threat than guns.”
“Well you do hear that. Make the argument, Carly.”
“A criminal breaks in your house, are you going to stop them with a book?”
“Probably not. Unless it’s a big fat book. Haha. Or a boring one.”
“Meanwhile we’ve got texts and tweets here. I’ll just read some of the titles that’ve been . . . uh, anything by J. K. Rowling. Tenderness by Robert Cormier. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Grapes of Wrath. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Alexi, is that how you say it? The Handmaid’s Tale. Any books by D.H. Lawrence. Any by Toni Morrison. Don’t know if that’s a man or a woman. Woman? Bob says woman. Okay. And this last one—Charlotte’s Web.”
“Hmm—I’m curious about that one, Carly. A children’s book, isn’t it?”
“Well, it is, but according to what it says here on the Moms for Others’ Sake ban list it’s heavy on death and it gets very sad—so maybe not appropriate for youngsters.”
“Okay, well. Food for thought.”
“Just to remind listeners, Bob, we’re broadcasting all day, and if we can get actual copies of some of these books tonight, so much the better. We’re gathering everything right out in the K-TRD studio parking lot where we’ll have the bonfire.”
“Someone was asking earlier, won’t burning filth just pollute the air? All I can say is it shouldn’t. A good righteous fire that burns really hot . . . haha. By the way, if listeners have got audiobooks or CDs, or even record albums—”
“Dating yourself, Bob. Just got another text message—The Catcher in the Rye.”
“That the one about the drunk ballplayer? LOL. I know the book. Read it in high school . . . I actually kind of liked it.”
“You’ve got a stronger stomach than I do, Bob. Anyway, it’s all fair game, folks. Bring them on by. We’ll see they get their due. Remember, we want this year’s event to be the biggest yet. And to that end, for anyone bringing along three or more books for the blaze we’ll be offering exciting prizes.”
“The phones are lighting up. Callers waiting to get on. We have city councilman Stappo on line one. A good day to you, sir.”
“Great to be on. I just want to pump this event for our community. What it gets down to, it gets down to who’s making our decisions for us. At the next council meeting I’ll be introducing a proposal to freeze funding for the city library.”
“Really? Wow. That’s uh . . . that’s thinking out-of-the-box, Councilman.”
“It’d save money, for starters. As it stands, we’re all paying for a library that not all of us use. If we make it a private business, well, there’s control over inventory. And, shoot, maybe it’d turn a profit.”
“Well, you’re always with the ideas, sir. Will you be there tonight?”
“Wouldn’t miss it. I’ll bring the marshmallows.”
“That’s councilman Gus Stappo, folks. And I want to give another plug for Mom’s for Others’ Sake—MOFOS—who are making sure that bad books don’t end up in the hands of good people. Carly’s signaling we’ve time for one more call.”
“Last one for this segment, Bob. Let’s go to Winnisburg. Howdy, caller . . . you’re on K-TRD!”
~*~
National Library Week is April 6-12
“In 2023, the American Library Association reported that the number of titles targeted at public libraries had increased more than 90 percent from a year prior, and 17 states – including Florida, Texas, and Connecticut – had seen more than 100 censorship attempts. A more recent report from the free expression-focused nonprofit PEN America notes that more than 4,000 unique titles have been banned across the country. The organization says that we’re in a moment of education censorship “unseen since the 1950s-era Red Scare.”
— From Boston Globe 3/11/25
At present, legislators in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, and Texas are debating legal penalties against teachers and school librarians for discussing unapproved books.
Rhode Island is introducing a bill that would combat efforts to ban and censor books and punish teachers.
There is half-wit and sharp wit… and you, Mr. Daniel, have kept your whetstone at hand.
That’s a good story, albeit a scary one, given the times we are living in.
May 10th 1933 over 25,000 books were burned. Authors like Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway, Helen Keller.
A frightening thought, could history repeat itself?
When wise men remain silent. Fools multiply. Nelson Mandela.
Thanks David
Coming to a radio station near you. And don’t forget to bring those Beatles records when the bonfire begins. The late great Harvey Bisson of Harvey’s Bookland fame used to occasionally put up pictures in his storefront window on Central Street with pictures of the Nazi book burnings as a reminder that it could happen here too. Thanks for carrying on in Harvey’s great tradition David with your chilling clarion call for us to wake up before it’s too late. Since history is already being gutted in many states to keep people ignorant of the lessons from the past. Here’s a little history lesson to show where we are headed if we don’t stand firm against those seeking to censor the truth so that they can continue to spin an alternative universe of lies to perpetuate their political dogma.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings
Thank you all for the comments. I dig the Mandela quote.
Charles, your mention of Harvey Bisson brings fond memories of Saturday afternoons haunting Bookland (in its last days) for vintage pulp novels, 10 cents a pop. You memorialized him in your memoir; and Pierre Comtois’ piece “I Was a Teenage Bibliophile” in one of the issues of the Lowell Review conjured his spirit too.
I recall a conversation with Harvey about the infamous “Howl” trial from the 1950s, and while I can’t remember his exact words (wish I’d jotted them), he suggested that while he wasn’t a big fan of the poem, he was certain that the court got it right in declaring the book was not “obscene.” In an interesting time loop, it was either on the same Central Street spot, or very near, where, some time later, Allen Ginsberg read at Sundance Cafe. No one was as dynamic a performer of his poetry as AG himself.
Warning: We’re entering Shirley Jackson ‘Lottery’ Territory here. Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
We’ll be experiencing a little chop…
In Emergency, Break Glass…before another Night of Broken Glass befalls us.
Funny, a little funny in the head, that’s all…First they burn books, then incinerate people.
When in doubt, reach for Satire….thank you, Dave D.!
Sundance Cafe. Now there’s a Time Tunnel reference. Thanks for that and for reminding us how Sundance and so many of the cafes, pubs, bars, coffee shops, restaurants, and other small businesses in Lowell (and so many other places) over the years welcomed writers, musicians, and talkers to come in off the sidewalk and shared what they brought to the table with patrons, fans, and the curious humans gathered in those places. In their own ways they kept words and books and tunes safe from the prowling villains with their books—their books of matches.
Really well-written. Dave Daniel knows how to set things up for maximum effect and the back-and-forth dialogue to make it happen, plus he has a good heart. There are educators, and there are parents who think they know what’s best for their children. He comes down on the side of the educators.
Dave,
Thanks for the satirical but accurate depiction of the ignorance and underbelly of what is rotting in plain sight these days. It’s no joke here in Florida.
And with National Library Week having passed, they are now under siege by DOGE!
Every Saturday morning, I catch Velshi on MSNBC, which has guest authors whose books are banned. With the DEI characters, social commentary, and a protagonist with an urgent message on climate change, my just-released novel, The Vulnerable, may someday get banned. It will probably sell more if that happens.
Writing is the purest platform to represent the First Amendment. It’s our obligation to join Dave Daniels with a voice of reason and empathy for the less fortunate among us.