Burning books

Mar 17, 2011 38 Replies

I have a pile of unwanted paperbacks that were included in an eBay job lot. They're in the sort of ratty condition that charity shops don't want and decent copies at 1p fail to sell on eBay and Amazon marketplace.



We'll soon be staying in a holiday cottage with a log burner but logs are not provided. Is it OK to burn the books?



They are by Eric Van Lustbader.


dont burn the glossy covers as they make cyanide or something like that - rip them off.

Mix with wood and coal, you'll get loads of ash.

[g]

Your name is Guy Montag AICMFP.

Even with a log burner I think you'll find the ash a bl**dy nuisance. = Just stick 'em in your local paper recycling facility.

Tim

They don't usually burn well, and make a shed load of ash...

If you find a charity shop that has a "rag man" collection, then they can normally flog them to him at a certain price per kilo.

paper is pretty low on heat and pretty high on ash.

I wouldn't bother frankly.

Surely collectors items these days?

Rather tempted..list titles..

I couldn't comment about the heat energy, but popular culture suggests a temperature of 451deg F may be attained.

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Why does the name of the author affect their burnability?

Oh it does, it does! In the case of Eric van Lustbader it guarantees that each volume will have at least 500 pages and quite possibly more. It also guarantees that you won't ever regret burning them.

The Kaisho Zero Black Heart Jian The Miko (in reasonable condition)

Angel Eyes Black Blade (a bit knackered)

There's 2.5 kg there which means postage would be about =A36 with myHermes. I think that's where trying to trade small items falls down these days. And if you start adding on ebay and Amazon fees.....

Oxfam told me that they can even get money for scrap books: they're sold for pulp. Hence, I have no qualms about passing on everything to them these days.

J.

Fiction or non-fiction? '50s "pulp" sf & detective paperbacks burn passably well, as the paper is low-density and low ash. However non- fiction generally burns really badly, as the ash builds up so much it's just too much trouble. Lustbader will be recent fiction, so the paper is somewhere in the middle, closer to the pulps. You can do it, but it's a real pain. I'd feed them into the paper recycling stream instead, even though I do burn all my own corrugated cardboard.

Geographical location?

Have you tried

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of a lot better than ebay etc IME

David

There are three sorts of book: ones everyone wants, ones no-one wants, and ones no-one effectively wants because (even if they do want to read them) they already have access to a truckload of them. Lustbader is the 3rd sort - if you want one, your local charity shop has a dozen.

I may even add him to my Charity Shop Bookshop Bingo card, along with Ulrika's autobiog (needs two or more copies to score) and Archole.

West Yorks, I'm afraid, so a bit of a drag from Cambridge/Suffolk.

I wonder how much of the potential income from a donated book goes where the donor would have wanted and how much ends up in the hands of a business who bulk-bought overstock (like the recent Sally Army scandal)?

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember mike saying something like:

If they keep you warm, fine. No better end for them.

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