7Jun/108
Book Burning
by Jeff
Image text: Of course, since their cautionary tale was reported in a print newspaper, no one read it.
In this comic, the characters want to burn all the copies they can get their hands on of a certain book so they can demonstrate how it contains heresy. In this case, the Kindle edition of the book is much cheaper than the hardcover, so they attempt to burn a Kindle instead. The result of burning the Kindle is death by toxic fume inhalation because the Kindle is an electronic book reader instead of a book made of paper.
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June 7th, 2010
First to comment! haha
June 7th, 2010
I think this is one of the best xkcd comics lately.
June 7th, 2010
I saw something similar in a MAD issue…
June 7th, 2010
I don’t know why you don’t mention, but I thought the Kindle edition was an obvious subtle (oxymoron) reference to the burning… like kindling a fire. Just thought I’d throw that out there.
June 8th, 2010
And in case you’ve been living under a hole for the past few years, the Kindle is the electronic book reader made by Amazon.
June 8th, 2010
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/22/wisconsin.book.row/index.html
Based on real events.
June 8th, 2010
Also, the strip and the ALT text both emphasize that things are moving away from paper and toward digital media.
June 9th, 2010
This is one of the biggest DUHHH explainxkcd ever!