Bargain-bin books

I thank the Mirror, belatedly, for the March 1 Front item “Welch sells.” The famous St-Laurent bookstore was supposed to shift to a smaller location and was selling off old books at bargain prices.

I want to let you know that the bookstore Anthologies at 1420 Stanley is closing its doors forever on May 25. The store is situated just opposite Peel metro, and the public is invited to come in for bargains. The owner is retiring and thousands of good books are being sold off at half price or below.

In this Internet age, thousands of books are thrown away and are ending up in landfills. Earlier this year, the city of Longueuil sent half a million books to the St-Nicéphore landfill after a major second-hand bookstore relocated. This is a massive waste of resources and tantamount to a cultural crime.

We need people who will keep books on a long-term basis in their well-stocked personal libraries; books and magazines preserve history far better than the Internet and are also a pleasure to read. Many of my friends have over 1,000 books in their libraries and they are immaculately organized. Books do not create clutter and do not attract much dust (that is the excuse some people use to throw them away). Books organized on shelves also do not take up much space, but in our television age and digital age many people just do not value them.

I urge the Mirror to continue giving readers news about saving books.

>> Paul Grenier

Say what?!

[Re: Cover, May 17] Are you aware that, for whatever reason, you have a big swastika on the front cover of your newspaper?

>> Charles Blattberg

Defending the metro

[Re: Letters, May 17] I would like to address some of the misconceptions contained in the letter from Edward Abramic concerning the use of rubber tires in the metro.

The use of a rubber tire system was not merely a frill to imitate the Paris metro. In fact, at the time of the metro’s construction, rubber tire technology was better than steel wheels at scaling slopes. This not only made possible a bowl-shaped tunnel profile, allowing energy to be saved by using gravity to accelerate and brake, but also made possible the slopes necessary to tunnel under the St-Lawrence.

At the time, the yellow line, which served Expo, would not have been able to be built using steel technology. Furthermore, the use of tires provided quieter operation and transmits less vibration to neighbouring buildings.

It is true that these advantages have been mitigated by subsequent advances in steel technology. However, his suggestion of converting the metro to steel rails is highly impractical. The transfer would be extremely costly and would require shutting down the entire metro for a year or more, to say nothing of the expense of replacing all of the metro’s 796 cars. Any savings from building the metro rail above ground would be far more than cancelled by the expenses.

Besides, the areas where metro expansion is most crucially needed are precisely those high-density areas where an above-ground metro would be impossible anyway.

>> Matthew McLauchlin, Webmaster, metrodemontreal.com

Strike could be worse

[Re: Riff-Raff, May 10] The STM strike is undoubtedly causing many rush-hour commuters headaches. With 2,142 transit maintenance workers leaving their jobs and public transportation hours reduced, individuals have to find alternate modes of transportation, be it bikes or scooters or their own two feet. The population that will likely be most affected by the strike will be the elderly, whose alternatives are limited at best.

However, Montrealers should keep in mind that the strike could have been scheduled for the middle of winter, while schools were still in session and holidays were fast approaching—as it was in Manhattan. In December 2005, approximately 30,000 New York City transit workers walked off the job just a few days before Christmas.

Seeing images on the news of commuters struggling on foot across the Brooklyn Bridge, or stuck in multiple-hour long traffic jams after a full day at work, in the height of winter, definitely puts our own strike in perspective.

>> Julia Davies

An inspired jest!

[Re: “Angel & Insect,” May 17] Jerry Falwell as “Angel” rather than “Insect” of the week? Surely you jest, unless, of course, your choice is an inspired, tongue-in-cheek affirmation of the old saying, “they too serve if only as bad

>> A. Lawrence Healey

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