In a bid to protest the decline in the number of users opting for print reading, a used-books store owner in mid-town Kansas City, Missouri, is planning to stage a monthly book burning bonfire. Tom Wayne of Prospero's Books made several attempts to give away thousands of books lying in his warehouse, but after even libraries and thrift shops showed their unwillingness to accept them he decided them to put on fire.

"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," AP quoted Wayne as saying to the spectators as he staged the first book bonfire outside his bookstore on Sunday.

According to Wayne the decline in demand for print has been increasing in recent years especially with more and more people turning to Internet publishing and other sources of digital media.

"After slogging through the tens of thousands of books we've slogged through and to accumulate that many and to have people turn you away when you take them somewhere, it's just kind of a knee-jerk reaction," he told the AP.

However, Wayne's protest needs a permit from the state. Sunday's blaze was put out by the employees of Kansas City Fire Department saying Wayne needs a permit to burn them.

Wayne said he will get the permit next time and plans to continue with the monthly blaze until his supply - an estimated 20,000 books - is exhausted.