The Irreverent Bookworm, Minneapolis, Minn., which carries new and used titles, suffered flood damage to its inventory Wednesday night. In a Facebook post yesterday, the bookstore noted: "Water + Books = Bad News. We are incredibly sad to report that during the night, a mainline water pipe burst in the ceiling of our basement, resulting in the loss of about 80% of our fiction backstock. As book lovers, we can't quite put into words how it feels to look at shelves upon shelves of ruined literature. We're rather heartbroken. Anyway pity party over (kindof), so here's the rundown....
"We are still taking a full inventory of the books ruined by the leak, so if you order secondhand fiction titles from us, there is a chance that some of them were among the souls gone to their watery, pulpy grave. We ask for your patience as we catalogue the lost books.... We are saddened by the loss of so many lovely books, and will need funds to help us rebuild our backstock.... We are going to need lots of help to recover from this inventory loss, and we are unsure of how much our insurance will cover."