I've used a book as a murder weapon. A gross beetle suddenly appeared on my dining room floor and in my panic I grabbed the giant Mapp & Lucia omnibus (written EF Benson in the 1930's-- the books are hilarious) and dropped it on the bug
The crime scene remained untouched for a week before I got up the nerve to pick it up.
Books as aesthetic kind of goes against the point. I don't see them as precious objects, and wear and tear according to the owner doesn't bother me at all.
Currently on my last 60 pages of War and Peace; the volume was a softcover and so tattered that an entire section fell out last week. A secret project I hope to pursue is publishing these massive tomes (Middlemarch, Bleak House, etc) as portable little volumes (e.g. War and Peace would be maybe 10 booklets), so you would only ever carry the section you are reading with you :)
Thoroughly enjoyed your article! Karen Swallow Prior wrote this in the introduction to her book, "On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books," Brazos Press, 2018: "Read with a pen, pencil, or highlighter in hand, marking the book or taking notes on paper. The idea that books should not be written in is an unfortunate holdover from grade school, a canard rooted in a misunderstanding of what makes a book valuable. The true worth of books is in their words and ideas, not their pristine pages. One friend wisely observed that 'readers are not made for books -- books are made for readers.' " (I think Jesus said something vaguely similar about the Sabbath?) I use my thickest books - Jane Eyre, A Father's Tale, and City of God - to support my laptop when attending a Zoom meeting.
The most heinous crime I've committed was spilling a cup of coffee on a library book. The library declared the book a total loss and fined me $25, the cost of replacing it. Even Starbucks coffee isn't that expensive.
I've committed that crime several times, unfortunately. :( Mine also charges a reshelving fee (about $7, I think), but they will allow you to replace the book yourself as long as it's the exact same edition, including ISBN, which I've found I can get for less on Amazon than what they would pay.
I think if I were the writer of a Bleak House-sized monster, I would be deeply thrilled to see someone hack it in half to read it easily everywhere. What a compliment of commitment!
My reading is generally both pleasure and work simultaneously. So I routinely underline, mark up, and comment in the margins. I also turn down page corners for things I want to find again quickly--a passage I'd like to quote in something I'm writing, or that I want to discuss with students in class.
My father--widely read, a well-regarded scholar and author of many books himself--always folds his books backwards at the spine while reading, the way you would with a magazine.
The thing to be avoided, I think, is destruction for its own sake--whatever one does to one's books should have an appropriate purpose. But of course this is a principle that applies to everything, not just books!
On toasting books, my mother remembers her father baking the old comic books they were given in the oven, to disinfect them - it turned the pages light brown and the books eventually crumbled, but at least the children got to read them.
On splitting large books, a professional book-binder can split and rebind the two halves. My great-uncle needed a very large print Bible as his eyesight failed, and the one he found was enormous, so he paid a book binder to rebind it into smaller sections.
My feelings exactly. I think books should be treated with respect, but they're not holy objects. The contents are the important thing, not the container.
I have to confess that I remove dust jackets while I read the book, but I replace them when I’m finished. I like the appearance on my shelves, but they’re inconvenient while reading.
I do the same thing no matter if it's a book I'm reading and then keeping/collecting or reading and then donating/passing along. I just find they get in the way. Which makes me want to research how dust jackets came to be and why.
I've never thought of splitting a book, but I do prefer Murakami's pre-split 3-volume paperback version of IQ84 over the original 928-page hardback. Feels more manageable.
You can tell how much I've enjoyed and learned from a book by the state it is in afterwards. One of the most useful books from the past few years also has a sticker from a hotel accidently affixed to the front, a relic from my backpack.
I also annotate, write in margins, use book flags, and all sorts of other permanent modifications for the sake of future learning.
I am a sometime, occasional librarian and the thing that bothers me the most is amateur rebinding of paperbacks 'to make them more attractive and hardwearing'. The usual result is that these books are never read again!
You've reminded me of how Isherwood describes his "single man" as someone who "misuses [his books] quite ruthlessly — despite the respectful way he has to talk about them in public". Of course, he means his character uses them "to put him to sleep, to take his mind off the hands of the clock, to relax the nagging of his pyloric spasm, to gossip him out of his melancholy, to trigger the conditioned reflexes of his colon”. I guess the rules about how to correctly treat books goes beyond their physicality...
Too bad one can't show the damage with attached photos in the comments. I've got pretty maimed, used and abused copies of W&P and IJ among others. My E. Arroyo illustrated Ulysses was specifically purchased for it's wide margins which were then annotated reducing it's resale value to scrap but a treasure to me.
I've used a book as a murder weapon. A gross beetle suddenly appeared on my dining room floor and in my panic I grabbed the giant Mapp & Lucia omnibus (written EF Benson in the 1930's-- the books are hilarious) and dropped it on the bug
The crime scene remained untouched for a week before I got up the nerve to pick it up.
Books as aesthetic kind of goes against the point. I don't see them as precious objects, and wear and tear according to the owner doesn't bother me at all.
Great essay. I was quite entertained.
Currently on my last 60 pages of War and Peace; the volume was a softcover and so tattered that an entire section fell out last week. A secret project I hope to pursue is publishing these massive tomes (Middlemarch, Bleak House, etc) as portable little volumes (e.g. War and Peace would be maybe 10 booklets), so you would only ever carry the section you are reading with you :)
Thoroughly enjoyed your article! Karen Swallow Prior wrote this in the introduction to her book, "On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books," Brazos Press, 2018: "Read with a pen, pencil, or highlighter in hand, marking the book or taking notes on paper. The idea that books should not be written in is an unfortunate holdover from grade school, a canard rooted in a misunderstanding of what makes a book valuable. The true worth of books is in their words and ideas, not their pristine pages. One friend wisely observed that 'readers are not made for books -- books are made for readers.' " (I think Jesus said something vaguely similar about the Sabbath?) I use my thickest books - Jane Eyre, A Father's Tale, and City of God - to support my laptop when attending a Zoom meeting.
He did. Mark 2:27: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."
And by the way, I write in and mark up my Bibles all the time with colored pencils and black ink.
The most heinous crime I've committed was spilling a cup of coffee on a library book. The library declared the book a total loss and fined me $25, the cost of replacing it. Even Starbucks coffee isn't that expensive.
I've committed that crime several times, unfortunately. :( Mine also charges a reshelving fee (about $7, I think), but they will allow you to replace the book yourself as long as it's the exact same edition, including ISBN, which I've found I can get for less on Amazon than what they would pay.
I think if I were the writer of a Bleak House-sized monster, I would be deeply thrilled to see someone hack it in half to read it easily everywhere. What a compliment of commitment!
My reading is generally both pleasure and work simultaneously. So I routinely underline, mark up, and comment in the margins. I also turn down page corners for things I want to find again quickly--a passage I'd like to quote in something I'm writing, or that I want to discuss with students in class.
My father--widely read, a well-regarded scholar and author of many books himself--always folds his books backwards at the spine while reading, the way you would with a magazine.
The thing to be avoided, I think, is destruction for its own sake--whatever one does to one's books should have an appropriate purpose. But of course this is a principle that applies to everything, not just books!
On toasting books, my mother remembers her father baking the old comic books they were given in the oven, to disinfect them - it turned the pages light brown and the books eventually crumbled, but at least the children got to read them.
On splitting large books, a professional book-binder can split and rebind the two halves. My great-uncle needed a very large print Bible as his eyesight failed, and the one he found was enormous, so he paid a book binder to rebind it into smaller sections.
My feelings exactly. I think books should be treated with respect, but they're not holy objects. The contents are the important thing, not the container.
I have to confess that I remove dust jackets while I read the book, but I replace them when I’m finished. I like the appearance on my shelves, but they’re inconvenient while reading.
I do the same thing no matter if it's a book I'm reading and then keeping/collecting or reading and then donating/passing along. I just find they get in the way. Which makes me want to research how dust jackets came to be and why.
I've never thought of splitting a book, but I do prefer Murakami's pre-split 3-volume paperback version of IQ84 over the original 928-page hardback. Feels more manageable.
I am a marginalia person, although only in pencil. Other than that, I am one of those who cares for my books.
You can tell how much I've enjoyed and learned from a book by the state it is in afterwards. One of the most useful books from the past few years also has a sticker from a hotel accidently affixed to the front, a relic from my backpack.
I also annotate, write in margins, use book flags, and all sorts of other permanent modifications for the sake of future learning.
I am a sometime, occasional librarian and the thing that bothers me the most is amateur rebinding of paperbacks 'to make them more attractive and hardwearing'. The usual result is that these books are never read again!
You've reminded me of how Isherwood describes his "single man" as someone who "misuses [his books] quite ruthlessly — despite the respectful way he has to talk about them in public". Of course, he means his character uses them "to put him to sleep, to take his mind off the hands of the clock, to relax the nagging of his pyloric spasm, to gossip him out of his melancholy, to trigger the conditioned reflexes of his colon”. I guess the rules about how to correctly treat books goes beyond their physicality...
Too bad one can't show the damage with attached photos in the comments. I've got pretty maimed, used and abused copies of W&P and IJ among others. My E. Arroyo illustrated Ulysses was specifically purchased for it's wide margins which were then annotated reducing it's resale value to scrap but a treasure to me.