A Castigation of Dunces


Alison Morris - May 5, 2008

Not sure what to do with those books you didn’t like? Here’s an entertaining suggestion.

Our AMAZING gift buyer Alexa Crowe is part of a book group in which its members don’t all read the same book — they individually read whatever books they want to then come together, talk about what they’ve read, and swap books if one person wants to read the book recommended by someone else. In their group, when someone hasn’t liked a book, they make the book sit in the corner, LITERALLY. They walk the book over to the corner, set it on the floor "facing" the corner, and then leave it leaning there, presumably until it’s learned its lesson.

I think little paper dunce caps would make a nice addition, don’t you?

Anyone else have clever "shame on you" ideas for dealing with these literary disappointments?

9 thoughts on “A Castigation of Dunces

  1. Poison Ivy

    In the spirit of being a publishing professional, if I find that a book has no redeeming social value whatsoever, for instance was discovered to be a pack of lies, or containing substantial plagiarized material, I tear the book up and recycle the paper.

    Reply
  2. Interesting

    Here’s my question…is there such a thing as a book (or any work of art) that contains “no redeeming social value whatsoever?” What book would that be? Just to take an obvious example, the bible contains “lies” and “substantial plagiarized material,” but people think it has some redeeming value.

    Reply
  3. Anon

    I wouldn’t say I support book burning as a general rule (or at all), but I did once have a lot of fun watching a Danielle Steele novel go up in flames.

    Reply
  4. JOY VOGELGESANG

    I own a small bookstore and decided that I would allow myself one author I wouldnot carry. Needless to say, with my initial order two years ago, I missed one title and found myself with one copy of one of her books. Being a business woman, I shelved it until… we needed to pot a plant in a very large container. The book is now part of the ‘filler’ in the pot (to help reduce the amount of soil we had to add to the pot).

    Reply
  5. KB

    Confession time; even if the book is so horrible I would rather listen to nails on a chalkboard for a day than glance at another page, it’s still a book. Even Dan Brown got donated to a local library. Books are too sacred to me to waste, even if reading the book was a horrible sort of penance for past life sins.

    Reply
  6. Kay Winters

    So pleased to discover I’m not alone. I hated both the Giving Tree and Love You Forever. The messages in both books were so negative. Guilt! Guilt! Guilt! Kay Winters

    Reply
  7. Lisamm

    Kay Winters- I thought I was the only one who HATED Love You Forever. It creeps me out! Someone gave it to us when my kids were small. Weirdly, my husband liked it- which also creeped me out.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *