Inspired by a recent article in the New York Times ‘What we Do to Books‘ I thought I would scour my bookshelves and look for the ‘life scars’ that I have inflicted on my books over the years. As the article points out, there has been a lot of discussion about the effect that reading books has on us but far less attention has been paid on the effect that we (the readers) have on them (the books).
Now, I don’t consider myself to be a book vandalizer – I’ve never been one to underline or annotate in pen or highlighter (pencil, maybe) and I certainly would never deliberately rip a page or desecrate a cover…nonetheless, my books certainly have a ‘lived in quality’ that is worth remembering.
First there are the children’s books – Enid Blyton stories with grubby, Vegemite-y finger prints on some of the pages, dog-eared school books and the beautiful collection of Little Grey Rabbit books that my sister scribbled over (luckily for me, even as a toddler she appreciated pictures and only ever scribbled on the text). Then there are the teenage books – my copy of Wuthering Heights that always falls open at the “I cannot live without my soul” page, the copy of Jane Eyre that you dare not open too wide for fear that the whole book will fall to bits. There are the much loved 1960’s Georgette Heyer paperbacks I nicked from my mum’s bookshelves which still smell musty and romantic.
As a move across the shelf I find textbooks from law school that are still embarrassingly pristine (probably because I rarely opened them) and history books bursting with post-it notes from recent research explorations (which, like all good Victorian expeditions, have been frequently abandoned or gotten lost). Then there are the holiday reads – some still smelling of suncream with tiny grains of sand lodged in their spines. Of course, there are also those deliciously pure and untainted volumes of the unread pile – waiting for my grubby mitts to take hold and destroy.
One of the great joys of owning a library of books is that they reflect all the experiences of reading. From the heavy tombs which required constant setting down to endure (and hence, no longer lie flat) to the light reads that are dog-eared and bent from frequent ‘comfort’ reads. To look at a used book is to see a lifetime of a reading (and the damage we inflict while doing so).
From the coffee stains on covers, to indecipherable annotations; from pages folded and crumpled to rips and tears, blots and foxing, a book is an amazing physical record of its reader.
With an e-reader there will be only smudges and fingerprints on the screen to remind us.
So what kind of damage do you inflict on books? Is there a book in particular that (like a face) bears the scars of a particular encounter? Do you think with the increase in e-books we will appreciate the physicality of our paper books all the more? Or will we lose the joy of opening one of old books to find some nugget of the past (a boarding pass used as a book mark, a theatre ticket wedged between the pages) inside?
I’ll definitely still appreciate the physicality of books even though I have a Kindle. There are many books I still want to hold and peer at the cover as I’m reading. I don’t think young people will have the same sentimentality, however. As for the condition of my books, I am careful not to fold pages and to always use a bookmark. Books are my treasures; I hope they will always be appreciated somewhere the same way.
I sometimes bend the spine too much on mmpbs and it shows, but I try to keep them in pretty good shape. Recently downloaded non-fiction ebooks and found that I really disliked that format for those types of books. The way I read non-fic is to flip pages to sections I want to read & use the table of contents. That’s harder to do in digital. I just don’t read non-fic cover to cover like I do fiction.
Nancy, as an adult I treat my books way better than I did as a child…obviously I liked to eat vegemite sandwiches while I read back then! Jordan – I find it isn’t the same trying to read non fiction as an ebook – I rarely read history books in a linear fashion and am always flipping to different sections and chapters. With an ebook it feels like you can’t escape the format and skim to find something – it can makes research very laborious! Also there is nowhere to put the post-it notes!
Once I hit my teens, I suddenly started taking good care of my books. Don’t know why, but now, when I finish reading a paperback book, it’s usually difficult to tell it’s even been touched. Only a few of my books have any sort of crease along the spine. For that reason, I hate letting other people read my books. Even my kids!
I agree Jordan. The one thing that sucks about a kindle is finding a page, like a couple hundred pages back. In a real book you can just flip through it and it’s pretty easy. In a kindle you have to guess where the location might be, and then type in the little numbers, hoping you guess right (I never do).
As for real books, I never ruin them too bad. Though I did almost tear the cover off this Faulkner book the other day, but I couldn’t because a friend had lent it to me.
I always try to take good care of my books, but I also let a lot of friends borrow them. It might bang up my books a bit, but when I read a good book, I just have to share it.
My best friend takes good care of them normally. She always stacks other books on top of it so the cover lays flat. She and her sister used to always repair the binders on their library’s books too.
Sounds like we have some well maintained books! The author of the NYT article sounds like a barbarian in comparison – he even got blood on some of his:)
On my desk sits the only book I ever stole from a library. It is a 1958 edition of The Grapes of Wrath with the watercolor cover. I went back to the library, blatantly lied about losing it and paid the $1.85 fine.
It turned up the other day when I was sorting boxes. It still has the pocket for the check out card, last dated 1978 when I checked it out and never took it back. It was also stuffed with post-its from when I used it as a reference for my term paper in law and literature. I love that book. It is the one I would take to a desert island. I can’t imagine Steinbeck in e-ink.
I am a dog-earer, but I can’t bear to break the spine of a pb book. I loaned one and watched my friend crack the back of the book so it would lay flat while she read it. It was a miracle we were still friends. No more book loaning for me!
I love my Kindle, but would never do non-fic research or reference unless it was the only way to get it.
BTW, I don’t travel much anymore. I love finding boarding passes as bookmarks.
I love physical books. As much as I am enjoying my new Kindle, I have no plans of abandoning my collection of paper books. That collection has volumes that date back to the 1890s, including an original Boy Scout manual from 1917, several “How To” books I got from an old homesteader who bought them new in the twenties, and entire encyclopedia sets. Many of my books were inherited from my Grandfather.
Out of all my books the evidence of usage is most apparent on several of the Bibles I have taught from over the years. The Hardcover NIV Bible I received at High School graduation in 1986 is held together with packing tape, and some of the pages are glued back in. Inside is a treasure trove of notes from Bible college, and years of sermons & messages.
One of my Bibles, a parallel study Bible which contains four different translations side by side, was used during a study group of college students I was teaching. When one of the students opened it a small slip of paper fell out. It was covered on one side with pencil text. I picked it up and reading the words nearly burst into tears. It was a prayer I had written when my firstborn lie dying in the hospital in 1990. The prayer asked that if God willed to save him, please do so soon, but if not, give me strength to endure it. That little forgotten note hidden between the pages of a four inch thick Bible brought back a flood of memories.
The value of old books goes far beyond the physicality of reading the text. It is a bond with past, present, and future.
By the way, if anyone wants to win a free Kindle and/or a free Audiobook head over to my website, http://www.basilsands.com and check out three different drawings I am doing. You might like them! (Oh, and everyone who enters any of the drawings gets a free ebook as well).