BTT: Conditioning

[fourzoas]

This week's question has to do with how physical you get with books:

Are you a spine breaker? Or a dog-earer? Do you expect to keep your books in pristine condition even after you have read them? Does watching other readers bend the cover all the way round make you flinch or squeal in pain?

I'm seated before a variety of books--there's shelving space in my office credenza, and I've filled the shelves with the materials I'm using this semester. Evidence of my reading is everywhere, but it changes depending on the book's relationship to me.

• If I own the book and it's a consumable one (meaning it's a book I'm teaching from/writing about): it's toast. The spine is broken, pages may be threatening to abandon their moorings, and the covers are heading for the hills. Brightly colored post-it notes and flags protrude from all available edges. The interior of the book is underlined with pen, pencil, marker--whatever was available, but generally never fountain pen, since the paper is usually so cheap that the ink would feather and bleed--and some, but not many, pages are dog-eared. Interior cover pages may hold notes that wouldn't wait for an available notepad, and some few books may be supplemented by obliging index cards with cryptic short phrases that point to some weird notion or connection I made while reading. I love my books till they're real.


• If I own the book and it's not consumable: it looks nearly new. A page or two may hold the mark of a dog-eared tag, but the book is generally as it was when I bought it. I don't know why that is exactly.


• If it's borrowed (library or otherwise): it looks as it did when I got it, but while I'm reading it's a post-it paradise. I really hate getting a book from the library that's filled with someone's markings. Ruins it for me because now I have to navigate some random reader's head in addition to the author's. Rude, if you ask me.

Well, that was oddly cathartic. How about you?

Comments

[jpgr.livejournal.com]

I try to be good with books. I have a cloth book-cover that I bought ages ago from Waldenbooks and use it basically with paperbacks, esp when on vacation so nothing happens. Hardbacks are a bit tougher to deal with. I try to be kind to them, expecially when they belong to someone else. I usually take off the dustcover to keep it from tearing or getting wet.

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

I haven't used a book cover in ages, but I am really careful with most of my books too. I really understand about the dustcover thing--I hate when the dustjacket on a hardcover book gets torn, so I remove them as soon as I start reading!

Hi, my name is Skatergurljubulee and I'm a spine-bender

[skatergurljb.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm definitely a spine-bender. The worse the book/writing/plot, the harder the wear and tear. For instance, when I have urges to toss a excruciatingly horrible book across the room, or burn it,(think LKH Anita Blake or Gentry "novels") instead of placing a bookmark in it, I'll just turn it pages-side-down and leave it on a table or on the floor for weeks on end until I've calmed down. Mind you, if I know a books going to suck, I get it from the library, then spend at least an additional week having to pile heavy books on top of it to make it close properly. Yeah, uh...support your local libraries!
I'm a certifiable book whore, and I'm not afraid to admit it. It doesn't really matter what type of book, I'll read just about anything. lol

Re: Hi, my name is Skatergurljubulee and I'm a spine-bender

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

I love it! Abuse for books that abuse you--that's pretty good! Leaving them open reminds me of the scene in A Room with a View where Mrs. Honeychurch complains about Cecil leaving a particularly bad (romancey) book out on the ground "to spoil."

And if you haven't seen that film--or read that book--you must must must! :-)

Re: Hi, my name is Skatergurljubulee and I'm a spine-bender

[skatergurljb.livejournal.com]

I wish that I could say it was an intended thing at first, but it all started out in the subconscious realm actually. LOL
Thanks for the rec! I will check it out!

Re: Hi, my name is Skatergurljubulee and I'm a spine-bender

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

I hope you like it--if you have an affinity for whimsical novels about manners and love, you should enjoy it.

Re: Hi, my name is Skatergurljubulee and I'm a spine-bender

[skatergurljb.livejournal.com]

I look forward to reading it. I ordered it about five minutes after I read your reply. And don't worry, I'll like it I'm sure. There are only a few books that I absolutely hate. I just ask for them to make a *little* sense and not insult my intelligence. lol

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I don't dogear pages, and I do try to keep books in good condition, but I know spines will get broken on paperbacks, particularly.

I don't write in books, except to pencil in corrections to typos (esp when authors misname characters! GAH!!)

I do often fill them with post-it notes. Back when I was writing academic essays, I used to write (sometimes lengthy) notes on my post-its...

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

I get really annoyed when a book isn't well edited. I get even more annoyed when it's an academic article...

I keep a variety of post-it sizes around so that I can have just the right amount of space to scribble!

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

None of my books look like they've ever been read, even the highly cherished, read a million times titles - I'm just naturally careful with books, always have been, though I do turn corners on occasion, or did until I rediscovered the delight of bookmarks. Books I studied from at A-level and degree have lots of pencil underlines and marks inside, but from outside, still look untouched. And I wince to see the state of other folks books, and am STILL angry with the bloke at uni who borrowed my perfect, pristine, unmarked-despite-having-been-travelled-abroad-with Piers Anthony Incarnations of Immortality series and retruned them batterd and bruised and bent and torn and looking like they'd fall apart *whimper*

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

am STILL angry with the bloke at uni who borrowed my perfect, pristine, unmarked-despite-having-been-travelled-abroad-with Piers Anthony Incarnations of Immortality series and retruned them batterd and bruised and bent and torn and looking like they'd fall apart *whimper*

What a jerk! I really can't stand it when people disrespect other people's books. I've actually purchased new copies of books if something has happened when I've borrowed them...

Love that series, by the way--I borrowed them from a cousin when I was in high school, and purchased them a year ago to reread them. Reminds me that I need to get back to it...

BTT

[(Anonymous)]

You sound like a teacher (consumable books). I agree with you about handling library books; it's a matter of respecting other's property. I use post-its as bookmarks.

Re: BTT

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

I am a teacher, and I have multiple versions of the books I teach--one that I keep nice and pristine, and then the versions I teach from.

Post-its are excellent bookmarks. But then, they're just darn near perfection in paper form, aren't they?

BTT

[(Anonymous)]

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