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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Kind to your books?

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22:39 / 18.05.04

In the 'book buying habits' thread Looby said this: I won't break the spine of a book and I distinctly remember being in floods of body-shaking tears aged about 8 or 9 when a favourite book of mine was "borrowed" by another child and trashed. It came back creased and battered and I was inconsolable. (Looby, I hope you don't mind me quoting you.)

It made me think about how kind I am to my books.

When I was little I regularly used to tear the corners of the pages off and eat them - obviously I don't do this anymore, but up until very recently I did fold the pages down to mark my place. I have only stopped (tried to stop) because a friend lent me a book and made it very clear that if I turned corners down I would die a horrible paper based bashing-with-book type death.

So recently I started thinking about the value of books.

I want to know how people treat their books, but also I am interested in why some people seem to value books as 'things' so much more than others. I mean, I love books, but I break spines and I carry them round in my bag and they get scruffy and it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

I think this is because what I value about books is the content rather than the object and this is especially true of fiction and paperbacks. I don't throw big posh books around, but that's probably because they cost a lot to buy in the first place.

It seems I just don't appear to think it's important to keep a book in pristine condition as long as it remains readable inside the cover.

Do you?

00:31 / 19.05.04

Books I buy and love to read again and again I treat as if they were my children.

Books I borrow from freinds or check out from the library I take relatively good care of.

Books I borrow indefinetly (steal) from my parents I try to keep in good reading condition, but many are already falling apart (I have to buy another copy of Catch-22 before I can finish reading it - all the pages fell out on the train when I was about 3/4 the way through)

Books I don't want anymore (especially ones with cool illustrations) and can't sell I cut up for collage material. (along with all my magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, etc. and illustration books books i buy for that specific purpose)

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:26 / 19.05.04

My natural instinct is to be completely anal about the condition of books. However, my life does not allow this, what with being the most untidy bastard in the world. I've recently tried (and believe me, I actually mean PUT EFFORT INTO) not worrying about my books staying pristine... (I mean, it's still a MAJOR battle to convince myself that it'd be okay to put a book in my work bag WITHOUT first wrapping it in a carrier bag to protect the edges) strangely enough, while they still end up a bit scuffed and battered, they now seem not to get as trashed as they did when I cossetted the little fuckers!

Sometimes minor damage can add to a book's character... like "I always remember why that's fucked... it's cos I spent a fucking MAD eight hours reading it on acid in a field in a light rain..." sort of thing... depends on the damage. Depends on the book.

It also depends a lot on the binding. Some books I own it bothers me not whether they're a bit "lived-in". With some, "lived-in" means "imminent page fall-outage", which is NEVER imho a good thing.

Largely I like to keep 'em nice, though.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:29 / 19.05.04

Oh, and to answer the abstract... I never, ever, ever turn the corners over. I never have (not once) and, God help me, I never will.

I don't like writing on them either... I remember a few years back buying a Richard Calder book for Leviticus for his birthday, and him saying "write something in the front. Then I'll remember it was a present and who from and it'll be cool." My skin crawled. I can do that now, but it still seems weird. (Strangely enough, when people have given ME books as presents, it's always been nice to have something written in them. And those, I keep absolutely immaculate.)

Our Lady Has Left the Building

12:42 / 19.05.04

I do try to keep my books in good condition, what I find depressing is that seems impossible with paperbacks. I'm currently reading a 400 page book and the spine has become quite creased, despite the fact I don't ever put the book down open, or bend the book back further than is necessary to see the words. People who don't use bookmarks are the very spawn of the devil.

Defaced books.

14:05 / 19.05.04

I don't look after books all that well - I like to be comfy reading them and if that means the spines get bent, so be it. I don't turn over corners, though, unless it's a book I don't care about, like a text book.

I do have one signed book my Alisdair Gray that I'm very careful with though - the way he wrote my name in it is beautiful and has turned it from 'just a book' into an object.

15:27 / 19.05.04

I try to keep my books in as neat a condition as possible, especially if I bought it new (and that goes double for hardbacks), this does mean I won't take new books out in my bag or what ever in case they get damaged and as for those who turn corners down, they are truly satan's helpers.
To me a book is to be cherished and cared for, not slung around and wilfully written in. But that's probably because I'm the obssessive/compulsive type.
The thing that annoys me about modern books is the terrribly shoddy way in which they are bound, I mean even hard backs are rarely stitchbound nowadays (like I said obsessive/compulsive type). Hence the falling to pieces phenomena remarked upon earlier.

Tryphena Absent

16:51 / 19.05.04

I like to beat my books around a bit until I can turn the pages and they, you know, turn and I always break the spine. I love the cracking noise (I know I've written this before). My man always yells at me because I leave books open on their fronts when I stop reading them instead of using bookmarks which is ridiculous. They like being left open, it means they don't stay unread forever and ever. The worst thing in the world is to go to someone's house and find shelves full of books that look like they haven't been touched... it's a sign of repression, I swear.

Tryphena Absent

16:54 / 19.05.04

Oh and I annotate books all the time and sometimes I scrawl reviews in the front, especially if I hate a book.

Charlie's Horse

20:35 / 19.05.04

Ann Fadiman wrote a book of essays entitled Confessions of a Common Reader. One essay she wrote described these conflicting schools of book love: a courtly lover of books keeps them pristine, while an erotic lover of books bends, folds, pens, and cracks spines. Admitedly that definition of 'erotic' sounds more like 'crazy-ass tantric,' but I didn't write the essay.

I'm definitely more of an erotic lover of books - I tend to write little notes in them, underline occasionally, dog-ear daily, and I'll even leave the books open, pages down and splayed out. Fadiman said that leaving a book opened, face-down like that resembles 'pausing' a DVD, rather than pushing the stop button (book closed and bookmarked).

Does anyone else write in books? I love doing that. Makes the experience of reading feel like a dialogue between you and the author.

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

21:29 / 19.05.04

I'm about as anal as a bag of sphinctres when it comes to the condition of my books. Even with monstrous, leviathan tomes I try to avaoid putting even a slight crease in the spine. I will never even entertain the thought of even considering folding a page corner to mark my place; it's the first step on the rocky road to killing your mother with a Moulinex Masterchef.

I recently lent a guy from work a book and he looked at me like I was speaking in tongues when I added the proviso that he mustn't fold the corners over. The heathen. And Stoatie, I'm with you on the book-in-plastic-bag-in-work-bag scenario - not doing that would be akin to dressing my child in razor wire (I believe).

I know I'm a little obsessive about it, but books are one of the only things in life really worth being obsessive about. I always think that one day I'd like my son to read my books, if he can be arsed, so I'd like them to be in spangly condition for him. Maybe his kids'll read 'em too, who knows?

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

00:06 / 20.05.04

I've had a bit of a think about this and I've realised why I don't treat my books with reckless abandon.

I don't see books in the same category at all as, say, magazines and the like. Books are keepful things, things that can last for years, but only rarely are available for years, things that it's our duty to preserve for future generations, who will most likely crack the fucking spines and bookmark the fucking pages by folding the twatting corners.

But at least I know I've done my bit for the preservation of a linguistic legacy that tends to be overlooked in today's "40 mints in a quid's worth of plastic gadgetry" throw-away society.

Yay me!

07:00 / 20.05.04

always write in a book when you give it as a present. i think it is a fabulous way to add a depth to the giving - and i am always a little saddened that someone who gave me a book didn't think enough of giving it to write in it (unless it is a palaver to take the plastic cover off the boxed set of oxford shorter, or something!)

and i treat books like records ('member them, anyone?) and cds, and videos, etc... always nice, but the constant cossetting leaves marks and my favourite books are 'read in' nicely. my battered much read paperback of 'on the road' is rather fitting. always pissed off that 'i' can't be sal... : (

does anyone think in fifty years people might read this thread and go "book? what is that?" (did anyone do that for "record"??)

read on...

16:57 / 20.05.04

Oulabelle - I STILL tear off and eat the corners sometimes. You can tell which of my books I've read a lot because they're almost completely cornerless.

I'm relieved to hear someone else at least used to do that... I thought I was the only one...

06:40 / 21.05.04

Corner-turning? I try not to - I prefer bookmarks. The only time I'll turn the corner of a page is if I am really lacking a bookmark. I'll try and scout down a bookmark though - I've used old railway tickets (which is always a nice way of putting it in situ), little bits of newspapers/magazines (usually ripped from somebody elses newspaper), scrap paper, sometimes little bits of sellotape stuck to itself. I have, on occasion, when lacking such a mark, used a mobile phone, laptop or PDA to scribble down the page number I'm on until I can find such a bookmark. And then I turn the dreaded corner.

11:18 / 21.05.04

I would die a horrible paper based bashing-with-book type death.

Not the infamous death by a thousand cuts belle

I do like to take care of my books but also find the quality of new paper backs really bad. There is nothing annoying (oh god here goes the anal rant) then finishing a book, closing it, putting it down and then watching the front cover curl up.

As a kid I turned the pages, but haven't for many years. Haven't got a proper bookmark. Either use the receipt from the bookstore or a spare flyer. Although my memory is currently dragging up the delight in using a dollar bill as the bookmark when reading "No Logo"

.

Now that's a thought is there a regulagtion thickness to bookmarks. Because surely a thick bookmark would be just as damaging as turning the corners wouldn't it?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

12:07 / 21.05.04

Anna de Logardiere Oh and I annotate books all the time and sometimes I scrawl reviews in the front, especially if I hate a book.

Buh-guh-whu!?

[ faints ]

14:57 / 21.05.04

There is something magical about an unread book that I like to preserve. Until you actually open up the covers and take the plunge, the book has the potential to be the best you've ever read. It's only when you start reading that you find out that it's actually boring old dross. Like Schrodinger I guess.

I like to wait a while before I read a new book. I examine the look and feel of the cover, see how it looks on the shelf, see how the spine contrasts to those others sitting on either side, savouring the anticipation. Then once I actually open it up, I like to keep it looking spiffy. No creases, folds, scribbing or tears allowed - especially no bending of the spine. If some damage should occur then all bets are off. I just disown it. The damage is done and the book is broken. I like to forget I ever owned it.

My other half however is the opposite and likes to torment me by borrowing my books and then trashing them just to be spiteful, bless her.

Tryphena Absent

17:34 / 21.05.04

Buh-guh-whu!?

Well I like to make them mine. I only once reviewed a library book, it was from the university and it was truly awful. Actually I've forgotten what it was called but my favourite moment was when someone gave me a photocopy from Of Grammatology that had a really snarky comment about Derrida scrawled on the title page.

14:05 / 22.05.04

Hardbacks shoudl generally be treated with a bit of repect as they are designed to be kept and bound specifically to look nice. No, I don't think I've ever creased the corner of a hardback or written in one.
As a bookseller, however, I regularly sliced out the title pages, ripped off the covers and treated them like shit. It's part of the job.
Paperbacks, on the other hand, unless they are particular faves, can go to hell. Spine creases, folded pages, scrawls on the pages, ripped in half; hell, even burned one once in the drunk spirit of inquiry/end of exams mode (do you know how hard it is to burn a book? A bookshop is a very safe place to be if a small fire breaks out, let me tell ya).
Paperbacks are valuable for their content and that's it. If you non-bookselling types with your worries about bent pages ever saw a bookshop stockroom, you'd probably faint.

14:11 / 22.05.04

Oh, and I recall once ripping the covers off about 200 Penguin paperbacks and stufing them in a recycling bin. You want more book horror? I got more. Did you know it's fairly standard practice in US bookstores to "return" a paperback by "stripping" it (tearing off the cover and sending it back for credit) if you would like a copy but can't be bothered to buy it?
Mwahahahaha.

14:12 / 22.05.04

People who write in library books, however, should be burned. No arguments there.

11:20 / 24.05.04

I really want to be the kind of person who writes in books, creases them, etc. (I too have read the Anne Fadiman essay in question - the UK edition is called Ex Libris; it's a charming loo book.) But, in practice, I find that though I will happily leave a book open on its face for a couple of minutes, and can cope with a couple of creases in the spine, a few turned-down corners and so on, too much makes me itchy.

I once tried to turn myself into the kind of person who writes marginalia, but the only result of this has been a copy of The Great War and Modern Memory which I can never open again or give to anyone else because of the embarrassing, pretentious comments I wrote (in Biro) in the margins.

I have, however, got a book about marginalia...

13:38 / 24.05.04

my ulysses, bought nearly eight years ago, is looking lovely right now. covers frontandback both gone, not a single page that doesn't bare traces of a corner-turn, title pages ripped and gone, 'also by this author' pages in the back all gone, spine bent and spine-paper curling off. it's my favourite book of all. when i finish it this time (150 pages to go) i'm a throw it off the pier and get me a tougher one.

17:14 / 24.05.04

Books... lovely. I really look after my books. I read on the train, and to stop my books getting abused by the ruff & tumble I cover them in plastic. However... I write all over them. I underline the bits I like, I annotate extensively, I draw little diagrams (if it's non-fiction) to help me visualise stuff. In fact I feel quite nervous when I am reading a book without something to write with... I worry that I'll read something wonderful and will lose it forever by not having underlined it.

I think that writing in a book gives you a true ownership of it - it can't be sold, or passed on (I mean how distracting is it to read something that someone has underlined and annotated... you can't engage with the book on your own terms). I don't feel I have read a book properly if I *just* read it.

17:30 / 24.05.04

cube wrote: "People who write in library books, however, should be burned. No arguments there."

Go to a university library and poke around in the art section. The amount of people who rip pages out makes tears well up inside me.

20:48 / 24.05.04

Yep. That goes for borrowed books as well. and comics. I lent a friend of mine a copy of Sandman #1 a month or so after it came out. It came back without a cover. Baaaastaaaard.

21:35 / 24.05.04

Paperbacks were made to be stuffed in your back pocket and travel with you. Paperbacks are pragmatic, they were made to bend and be stuffed wherever they fit. And while I don't do it with every book, but some books need to be annotated.
Hardcovers, however, well, to be honest, I hate most hardcovers because I feel I need to be extra careful with them. I almost never buy a new fiction book until it is out in paperback. Hardcovers are usually bulky and unweildly.
I never bend corners, be it paperback or hardcover, for some reason bent corners just looks messy, not 'worn in' (which is always a good look for a paperback, you know a book is loved if it is 'worn in') But that said I almost never use bookmarks either and only put the book face down and open if I'm only going to be away from it for a short time (I like the DVD pause/stop analogy...it seems appropriate for the way I use it). I would say 99% of the time I simply check the page number I'm on (or the chapter number if I'm at the beginning of a new chapter) and close the book. I never write it down, just make a mental note. I forget when I got in this habit, but it works remarkably well even when reading more than one book at a time. Anyone else scoff at both ookmarks and corner folding?

15:35 / 25.05.04

Re: writing in library books - for the most part I entirely agree with you, but when I was studying music at university many of the texts I looked at had pencil written notes in the margins. Very often they helpfully referred me to other tomes that expanded on a passage or theme or just drew my attention to a few lines that I might have skim-read otherwise. Maybe it's to do with the fact that they were music students - writing in a score in pencil is encouraged, but no one would dream of writing in hard pencil let alone biro. Remember - I'm the girl who crys when her books get damaged - is this a bizarre double standard or is it different?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

16:00 / 25.05.04

Working in the library I've seen book damage that runs the gamut, from the person who considerately used post-it notes in a copy of 'The Six Day War' whenever he thought the author was sauntering even vaguely in the area of a Pro-Palestinian comment, to those who have defaced books using paper and glue, or scribbling out stuff they didn't agree with. We had a period where some nutbar was working around the libraries of North London literally sticking notices on books about Bosnia and Serbia about how Blair and Clinton had committed war crimes.

I tend to believe that books should be treated with great respect, but what I can't stand is people who at the very least don't follow this maxim with books that aren't theirs.

The problem we are finding is that books these days are mass produced with the belief/ expectation that they are going to be read once or maybe two times. We're finding a much bigger problem with books where the binding is going after it's been out a few times.

06:22 / 26.05.04

I don't batter them or fold the pages down (tend to remember where I am without doing this) but it's the content that is important. I used to be incredibly anal, reading them through a barely open crack, but I think that this was a by-product of reading comics as well, but it is what is written that is the thing for me now, I don't cringe when I see someone bending pages to read one handed. One thing I don't like, is when people open the book fully and then settle down to read it, like they are cracking the spine or something - that just seems mean...

07:53 / 28.05.04

There are reports I've read of people destroying books in libraries they don't agree with. I was talking a while back on a message board to a librarian in SF who said that there were occasionally fundamentalists who would destroy books about homosexuality, gay sex etc. - either by slashing the book to bits with a razor or small knife or getting a big black marker and scribbling over the content that offends them. They'd also try to hide the books so other patrons wouldn't find them.

(Yes, and those sorts of people control America - scary, huh?)

08:34 / 28.05.04

Bunch of bloody savages. Anyone who would do that to a book is beyond the pale as far as I'm concerned.

11:36 / 28.05.04

Ah, yer a bunch o' pussies.

Books want to be abused. Books deserve to be abused. It's the only way they know what they are: owned.

You look at books, all pristine and regimented like proud Aryan Youth on the black ash-effect shelving of Waterstone's and it makes you sick. It makes you want to hurt them.

As long as books are there, ranged in rows like cabbages, several dozen Siamese copies of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, they have no power. Fuck potential energy, they're just uniform products, mass-produced, soulless.

You've got to crack them like Kinder Eggs to let the magic out. See that coffee stain on page 93? I was on the train and it hit a dog. Coffee everywhere. See that turned-down corner half-way through? The phone rang while I was reading. I almost ignored it because I couldn't find a bookmark. I turned the corner down and answered the phone and, you know what? It was that job offer.

A battered, bruised, broken book is a happy book. It's sick, but it makes them feel loved.

Honest.

18:56 / 31.05.04

I treat books reasonably well. Bookmarks, no page-corner-turning, and I even carry them in plastic bags (store bags, not collectors' mylar) inside my backpack rather than bouncing around loose. I'm less careful with hardcovers than softcovers, and less careful still if either have come from the library (not that I abuse library books, just that I don't go to great pains to keep them from getting worn). While I wouldn't characterize myself as anal about it, I suppose I do fall well into the careful end of the spectrum.

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