I'm taking the next three weeks off, so it's time to catch up with the world of wacky news about BOOKS.

My Google, or my "iGoogle" as he prefers to be called, has been detailed to catch news stories with the word BOOKS in them. Many companies make news about BOOKS, mainly their questionable financial BOOKS. To iGoogle books are BOOKS whether or not they are "books" one reads, and there you have it.

There is a murder trial being covered by at least 176 news sources, and I hadn't heard anything about it until Google tagged it as BOOKS.

The San Jose Mercury News put it this way: "Shortly after his wife went missing, computer programmer Hans Reiser purchased two BOOKS which detailed how police conduct homicide investigations."

Reiser paid cash to avoid detection, but was captured in the act of paying for BOOKS by the store's video camera.

He testified, "I wanted to read the book but I did not particularly want the government to have a record of me having the book. I would describe it as a three dollar effort. I think I lost three dollars doing (it) that way (instead of using his store discount card)."

This would not happen in your local independent bookstore. Videotaping customers purchasing BOOKS is way too postmodern for most of them.

You have to wonder what Barnes & Noble does with the endless hours of video captured at points of sale. Who reviews these tapes, how much are they paid, and what are they seeking? BOOKS!

In other news with BOOKS in it, barbarians stopped by woods on a snowy evening and ransacked Robert Frost's former home in Ripton, Vermont. Fifty or more people broke into the historic site at night and set a fire during what police called "an underage-drinking party," according to the Associated Press.

They did it to get drunk, but also so that wisecrackers everywhere would ransack the poems of Robert Frost for humorous literary allusions. "Something there is that doesn't love..." "Some say the world will end in fire..." "So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay."

Craig Popelars of Algonquin Books, which last fall published An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke, commented, "This is not our fault."

In other news with BOOKS in it, citizens of Beloit, Wisconsin, may spend time in jail for not returning library BOOKS. The local police chief told a reporter, "A municipal fine is a municipal fine, and failure to pay for any reason can result in an arrest warrant being issued."

Library patron Keely Givhan spent six days in jail. She missed the late notices, got pulled over for a traffic violation, then arrested on a library warrant. She and her family could not raise funds to repay the library so she went directly to jail. She did not pass Go and she did not collect $200, because if she had collected $200 she could have paid the fine in Monopoly money, which is legal tender in Beloit, Wisconsin, not! Or maybe it is?

The police chief said, "I know this could sound like an overreaction."

I asked friend and school librarian Katy Tahja for her personal overreaction.

She wrote, "I work with prepubescent teenagers so my means of coercion to get library books back is a little different... Middle schools have things like dances and field trips. Kids really want to go to these events. But... you can't go if you have overdue library books. It's amazing how many books get returned the day before a dance."

There you have it, another wacky episode from the world of Words on Books. Talk to you again in three weeks.

Aired Sunday March 9, 2008 at 10:55 am and Wednesday March 12, 2008 at 1:00 pm

NOTES:

The San Jose Mercury News story, barely literate, if that: http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8479233

Algonquin Books and their Arsonist's Guide... http://www.algonquin.com/products/9781565125513/

Thanks to the newsletter Shelf Awareness for their report on the ransacking of Mr Frost's house. Visit them: http://www.shelf-awareness.com/

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