Are you like Vladimir Nabokov, endlessly harassing them? Or do you let them be themselves? Do you like bookmarks? The thick paper ones they hand out at your bookstore or the fancy ones you're gifted in a card? Some are made of gold. Or do you prefer to use the receipt? What about dog-earing? Do you fret over or indulge in spilling a drink onto its pages? Book jackets: toss immediately or preserve forever? Would you highlight lines or passages? Keep notes in the margins? Notes having nothing to do with the book at all, maybe just a phone number you needed to jot down and your book was the closest inscribable surface? How do you treat your books?
Thursday, March 1, 2012
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How Do You Treat Your Books?
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I take pretty good care of my books, so they always look fairly new unless I bought them in a used book shop. I tried writing in them once, because I thought it was such a neat idea to write in a book with the notes and all, but I've never been quite comfortable doing it unless it was for a college class.
I do however, keep notes in a separate notebook when I feel like it so I can go back to it in the future.
I keep book jackets, and I use a lightweight bookmark or a magnetic clip. Heavy bookmarks just fall out of the book when it's in my bag, then I have to spend forever hunting for them.
@Statham Yes! Notes in a separate notebook! That!
I'm an unrepentant dog-earer from way back, but only in my own books and not ones I borrow. Also, someone made a weird diagonal pencil mark at the beginning of random paragraphs in a library book I just finished and every single one was like an interruption. Person who did that, you might as well have tapped me on the shoulder while I was trying to read, sometimes four times on one page. What is your deal?
Also, if you're eating chocolate and reading a library book, please, please, please wipe your fingers before you touch the pages because maybe it was not chocolate but blood and how would I ever know that, mystery stainer?
And. Last thing. If your hairs, be they long or short, get trapped between the pages of a library book and I read it after you, I will be so squicked out that I can't finish the book.
@vanillawaif Ahhh. I feel the same way about stains in a book. I always see them and think, "Is that blood?" And it creeps me out. I also read in the tub, and it suddenly makes me feel incredibly unclean.
I've also tried dog-earring, but my dog ears usually come undone. Then I get confused by all these open dog ears all over.
Dead bugs that get jammed in there freak me out too.
@vanillawaif YES! The stains and the hairs! SO SQUICKED OUT.
@Statham @jen325 My people.
@vanillawaif Uh oh. Hopefully we will never need to borrow from the same library! (see my comment below).
@Marika Pea@twitter IT WAS YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.
@vanillawaif I've had to abandon more than one book mid-read from my local library on account of dried boogers *shudder*. Just. no.
@SuperGogo Me too, but I didn't want to say it. I didn't even want to think about it!
@vanillawaif *hangs head*
Never boogers though! NEVER!
@Marika Pea@twitter I am so surprised at all this! Maybe library patrons in my city are more respectful/hygenic than most? Maybe people don't read as much in my city so there aren't as many chances for books to get messed up? Because I feel like the worst thing I have ever encountered was some crumbs or a hair. Never boogers. Never blood. Never chocolate. Never dog ears.
@vanillawaif I am usually the same about stains. Then, shortly after my dad passed I was reading a book of his and I ran across a small brown streak near the spine of the book. I had this flash and I instantly knew the whole scene around it:
My dad. Seated at the kitchen table, late in the evening, a small bowl of chocolate next to him. Holding the book open with his left hand, right hand absent mindedly dipping into a bowl of chocolates- probably M&Ms, reading glasses slid down to the tip of his nose. He wipes his right hands on his jeans, flips the page with his left hand and then goes to smooth down the pages with his right hand, middle finger pressing on the spine. Of course, he didn't pay enough attention to whether or not he got all the chocolate off his hands. His eyes never looked away from his book.
Such a tiny, predictable gesture in a tiny predictable scene.
I had to put the book down for a bit. But still. That moment of knowing exactly what happened.
Best smear in a book ever.
@H.E. Ladypants Ok, that made me cry a little bit. I will amend my position on book stains: only your dad's book stains are acceptable.
Please tell me I'm not the only one who is incapable of using real bookmarks. I lose them, IMMEDIATELY. So instead I use....matches, strands of hair (yes), hair ties, OTHER BOOKS, Kleenex, earrings, gum wrappers, endless Post-it notes, the library check-out slip, etc. etc.
@The Lady of Shalott receipts, magazine renewal inserts, hair pins (haaay!), and pencils/pens.
@The Lady of Shalott Business cards, receipts, those weird flyers you get in the mail, capped pens, binder clips, twist ties, etc.
@chrysopoeia ...junk mail, pay stubs, greeting card envelopes
@The Lady of Shalott One time I used my Macy's card as a bookmark and forgot about it and then the library called me AFTER it had been sent back to some other branch way on the other side of town and I never picked it up and now it's been like two years. I should probably... well, let's get real, I'm probably not going to actually go out there. I should probably call and ask them to cut it up?
@The Lady of Shalott We should all form a club! I have definitely used books to bookmark other books, which seems like it should open up a wormhole in the space-time continuum. My mom sent me a couple of leather giraffe bookmarks for Christmas this year, and one is actually currently being used in the book I'm reading at home (I bring my Kindle to work). He's peeking out over the top of the page! I know it's only a matter of time before I lose them or the cat decides to eat them, though.
@The Lady of Shalott Yup. I always lose bookmarks. The library check-out slip was a favorite.
I borrowed a copy of The Dark Tower (because I was listening to the audiobooks but the narrator was READING. TOO. SLOW. OMG. And I had to see how it ended) and it had a picture of somebody's baby in it, which I used as a bookmark, although given the content of the book it was super creepy.
@The Lady of Shalott I have been given so many fancy bookmarks by my grandmother since childhood, and I don't know where a single one is right now. I'm often too lazy to even use bookmarks, though--I just try to remember where I left off, and often end up rereading 20 pages.
@The Lady of Shalott It's great when you happen across second-hand books that have their previous owner's DIY bookmarks still inside. For example, the copy of Middlemarch I purchased a few years ago came with a very yellowed, very delicately cut-out newspaper article about an outbreak devil worshipping in a small English town. Just on that line of terrifying/amusing.
@The Lady of Shalott THIS. I cannot use nice bookmarks, they are instantly lost. I have, though, used the same grochery receipt as a bookmark for years.
@The Lady of Shalott I use anything within reach that may work...fancy bookmarks, yes hair ties!, emroidery thread, etc.
Once my bestie and I found a copy of Da Vinci Code in a thrift store and inside was a napkin from an airline with a note that said something like "Hi, I couldn't help but notice you. I'm in seat 13b, if you agree, I'd love to meet you." We were so upset that there was no way to know if it got delivered, if they met, if they did it in the bathroom????
@acid burn Once I used a paycheck as a bookmark and then stopped reading that book for a bit and then was like, "WHERE THE FUCK IS MY PAYCHECK." Then I remembered who I am and found all the books I'd been reading recently in my car and at the bottom of a laundry basket and found my paycheck inside "Written on the Body."
@The Lady of Shalott I'm almost always using some scrap of whatever that is handy (My favorite was a train ticket stub that is still floating around my collection). I have a couple of nice bookmarks but I rarely remember to use them and I tend to leave them in books even after I've finished them.
I love books that come with those nice ribbon place holders. Then I don't even have to worry about finding a bookmark
@Decca This makes me want to go to the library at the university where I work and slip random weird things (notes, news articles, etc.) in between the pages like I used to in college. (I was a rip-roaring college student, yes indeed.)
@The Lady of Shalott I now almost eclusively use my Kindle, but I have had the same problem with bookmarks and usually go the receipt / torn off corner of a post-it / dogear route. My husband, however, once kept using the same bookmark for something like FIVE YEARS. Not a particularly durable one either, but some flimsy paper manga bookmark he picked up while traveling. FIVE YEARS. Then again, he also buy nice pens and doesn't lose them, so he's probably a better human being than me.
@The Lady of Shalott I just finished Infinite Jest (eeeeeeeeeeeeeee) and it appears to have been housing about forty train tickets from the last (forty days, I guess?), which tells you much about my bookmarking situation. RELATED: If anyone wants to let me talk at them about Infinite Jest, please, I think my family and friends are losing patience.
@figwiggin I HAVE A LEATHER GIRAFFE BOOKMARK TOO AND I LOVE IT but I never use it. I usually use receipts. Or I memorize the page number, but that only works sometimes.
@missupright Oh, hey? Mario Incandenza. Sob. Go!
@Decca I have a box full of things people left in books I've bought: communion photos, baby photos, endless bus tickets. The oddest was an insurance form belonging to a priest in Mullingar in an old purple Penguin copy of A Room of One's Own but a Middlemarch/devilworshipping combo beats it by miles
@The Lady of Shalott YES! Post-it notes are the best book marks because they NEVER FALL OUT. My life has been changed by the post-it note book marks.
@The Lady of Shalott My mom is a librarian and always yelled at me for dogearring. "EMILY! Don't hurt the books!"
SO. Things I use as bookmarks:
- gum wrappers
- bus transfer slips
- receipts
- post-its
- mail/bills I should really be paying :/
- one time, a tampon wrapper
@The Lady of Shalott : I AM NOT ALONE.
But I'm usually the ratty strip of toilet paper bookmark person.
@Bitterblue This happens to me SO OFTEN. I once picked a pile of old romance novels up off the curb and five or six of them all had photo bookmarks...mostly crowd shots. I must have spent hours trying to find common faces between the photos and build a narrative. It didn't happen.
@missupright a) Haha, every single piece of travelling paper (metro tickets, Greyhound tickets, scribbled instructions to Place I Was Craigslisting Bookshelves From, etc) I produced over the weeks in question ended up in that book; b) I am always okay with being talked at about it?
@Lenora Jane my partner uses $5 notes - because he likes to feel rich.
@sparkles my partner uses a Zimbabwean $1 million note for the same reason.
@missupright OMG PLEASE TALK TO ME ABOUT INFINITE JEST. Tell me your feeeeelings. I reread it every year and always find something new and awesome. I have a color-coded Post-It flag system. I am a geek for that book.
@mascarasnake Never trust a Mullingar man (priest or layperson).
@The Lady of Shalott I use £10 notes sometimes. Not because I'm rich, but because when I go through a poor phase I can hunt out all the secret money I have left in my books to buy things with. Emergency stash bookmark!
@The Lady of Shalott My current bookmark is an airplane ticket. Which makes sense, since I was reading it on an airplane the last time I needed a bookmark.
I dog-ear AND crack the spines. And I'm a librarian (to be). Don't tell my colleagues.
@chrysopoeia I do the same things! I also, as a child, would hold books in my teeth when I had to do two-handed things, rather than put them down and lose my places. Several of my more exciting books have teeth marks on them. . .
@Bitterblue YEP, very familiar with that move.
@chrysopoeia : AUGH!!!!
I'm very careful with my books. I would NEVER dog-ear the pages or write in them. I like to use receipts as bookmarks because they're thin and won't ruin the binding like metal bookmarks or thicker things. I always keep the book jacket and will try to keep it pristine (I slide it up a tad while reading so I don't crinkle the bottom edge). I try not to open paperbacks all the way because I don't want the binding to crack. OCD.
@jen325 Does dog-ear even work as a place holder? I've tried a couple times in desperation and I can never find it again!
I keep book jackets too! I usually take them off when reading since I don't want them to get messed up in my purse.
@jen325 Yes! I am very very careful with my books because even if I have no intention of reading them again I will never give them away. I am the Smaug of books, and one day I shall be on Hoarders because there will be no room left in my house for me.
I think I'm most devastated by scratches on those matt covers they keep making now, which are inevitable with that finish. The book hating demon on my shoulder makes me scrape my fingernail over that finish to see whether it will make a mark, even though I know I will be upset of it does.
@megancress Oh, those covers and their scratches! I also have a problem with the glossy ones when they're dark-colored because they always show fingerprints. At least those can be wiped off (which is something I do more often than I'd like to admit).
What about when there's a label or price sticker on the book and it tears or leaves a residue after you peel them off? I've been known to take a paper towel dampened with water or glass cleaner to those. Or how about when you put a dent in the cover with your fingernail while trying to pick the label off? I should have just left it alone but I couldn't!
@jen325 I hate the price sticker on books! It was one of the things I loathed about Borders. Why would you fuck up a perfectly good book with your stupid sticker! I also hate the Oprah Book Club sticker for the same reason. And I hate it even more when the Oprah Book Club logo is printed on the cover because there is no hiding it. I swear I'm not reading One Hundred Years of Solitude because of her recommendation.
@lobsterhug YES. Along the same line, I'll bet you also get annoyed when a book that has been turned into a movie features the movie actors on the cover. Because I do.
Fortunately, Barnes & Noble stickers usually come off without a problem. Usually.
@jen325 I work in Waterstones (the UK's Barnes & Noble) and those stickers are the bane of my life. We have to peel them all off every month and put new stickers, with different stuff on. And in sale season some book covers end up with three diferent stickers. THREE! That somehow have to not obscure the title!? I HATE them, and their cover damaging glue.
@megancress Maybe instead you could just have fun with it.
COOL THINGS I HAVE FOUND IN BOOKS. A couple weeks ago I had a book out for research, since my area is First World War, and in the pages there was a clipping from a newspaper from about 1919 with a poem on it, I think from the first anniversary of the Armistice. It was sweet and lovely.
@The Lady of Shalott I always find grocery receipts of little notes. Nothing particularly poignant though.
I like it when I buy a used book, and there's a "To: blah blah" and then a note in it with a date. I always try to think why that person got the book, and what kind of relationship they had, why they would get that book, etc. etc.
@Statham I never remember to write an inscription in books that I give as gifts. :(
@jen325 I have only done it for my niece and nephew because they're kids. So it seems logical in my brain. I should probably do it more often for everyone though since I like it so much.
@Statham I don't even do it for my niece and nephew, and I've given them some of my favorite books.
@jen325 You should! My niece is bizarrely sentimental for a 13 year old, and she likes to have stuff that is important to me. I'm pretty sure this is a trait she inherited from my sister who is the same way about old family relics. So having the note in there that it's a gift from me to her means something to her.
@The Lady of Shalott Oh man, I once found a postcard in a used copy of The Left Hand of Darkness that I bought at a Friends of the Library booksale. It was written by some cacky old lady with terrible handwriting, and my friends and I spent the better part of an evening trying to decipher it. TREASURE.
@The Lady of Shalott I once found a printed online receipt where someone had subscribed to a porn site. It was inside a used RPG manual, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
@The Lady of Shalott I once found a twenty dollar bill in a copy of Roddy Doyle's "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors" that I got from a book-swap shelf at a cafe in Hyde Park (Boston).
@Statham I have a signed copy of The Phantom Tollbooth that is inscribed to someone not-me. Hurrah used books!
@Statham That's really sweet. Your niece sounds awesome.
@Statham I have a copy of Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich with the inscription "This reminded me of you," followed by a quote from one of Rich's more graphic poems (something about a warm cave, I think), followed by "Love, Kate."
@teffodee I've never found more than $1! I did find a $150 check once, but it's not quite the same...it was also like 30 years old, so...somebody lost way more money than I "found," really.
I never use bookmarks. I always did the whole flip-the-open-book-over-so-it's-face-down thing to mark my spot, but my husband yelled at me for ruining the spine of the books. So now I just memorize the page number where I left off. I have also never written in a book in my life...something about it feels sacrilegious.
Funny story: I took Human Sexuality in college and bought my textbook used. When I opened it the first time to do the readings, I flipped through it and noticed that whoever had it before me had covered up ALL of the remotely sexual photos (body parts, STDs, internal sex organs, etc.) with post-it notes. I was like, why take the class if you can't handle the photos?
@olivebee I'm pretty sure the smart money's on them wanting to be able to study around nuns without being weirdly embarrassed. Like, they studied on the bus, and it was a line that always had a nun or two on it. This is a reasonable explanation, right?
@olivebee I never use bookmarks either, so I just flip back and forth until I find the place I left off. It sounds incredibly inefficient, I know, but it actually only takes an extra minute or so to find my place.
@wharrgarbl Haha, sounds reasonable to me! You did bring up a good point, though, about how that was the one class I would never study for when I was riding the El. Too embarrassing.
@olivebee Please tell me you took Human Sexuality at Colombia College Chicago and your teacher was that bald dude in his mid-sixties(?) who might have been gay and might have been an ex-priest. He was a real character, a stickler.
@olivebee OH MAN my mother had this book on childbirth that she referred to a friend who was pregnant, and when she saw her friend's copy, she had put little stickers over all the little pregnant-lady-diagram hoo-has and breasts? And when my mum asked her why she said it was so that the book wouldn't inflame her husband with lust. And my mum was like... wut?
@whizz_dumb Sorry. I was at Northwestern. And (3 years after I took the class) the professor ended up causing a national scandal by letting a live sex-toy demonstration take place (in an optional, after-class presentation). It was a fun class! The live-sex scandal was before my time, but we still had some great (and semi-tame) after-class panels.
@teffodee Oh man. When people have so much pent-up shame about sex that they cover up photos in HEALTH BOOKS, you know something is implicitly wrong with society. I'm a modest person (and can veer to the prudish side occasionally), but a diagram/illustration/photo in an educational book is just that: educational.
@olivebee It really confuses me when people cover their baby's bits with a washcloth or whatever for photos. It is a baby! They barely even have genitals! My parents were hippies long before they converted to Christianity, so we, thankfully, had a clear idea of the difference between sexual and asexual nudity.
@teffodee At the tail-end of when people still used film for their photos and took them to get developed, there was a big controversy over whether naked baby pictures were child pornography. I remember about 12 years ago, a grandmother who'd taken photos of her grandson in the tub was turned in by the photo place, causing her to be arrested for child pornography, and now she's on the sex offender list. Ridiculous, I know, but that's why my sister covers up my nephew.
@olivebee I KNEW IT! I KNEW YOU HAD TO HAVE BEEN IN BAILEY'S SEX CLASS.
Mostly because I presume all people who take a class called Human Sexuality must be taking it at Northwestern.
I wish I could be taking Lane Fenrich's less titillating, more immediately of use version.
@bibliostitute I didn't know Fenrich was teaching Human Sexuality version 2.0! I had him for Gay & Lesbian History my senior year...that was a great (and surprisingly challenging) class, too! Aaaaand this comment perfectly explains why my ultra-conservative dad thought that Northwestern was some inappropriate hippie commune.
@olivebee Yeah, he apparently has had a class in the works for years, and just got it approved right as the fucksaw debacle occurred.
I wish Northwestern was an inappropriate hippie commune! Instead, it's just a bunch of kids listening to top 40 for 30 hours straight dancing for the disadvantaged youth!
@teffodee People DO this! Even otherwise cool people! I asked one, and she said it's because of internet pedophiles!?!
@catfoodandhairnets I understand it for the internet, because yeah, sadly, there are people who might be titillated. But if it's in your family album? Hard copy?
@catfoodandhairnets I remember hearing a story of a man who got arrested when he came into the country because he had like, baby photos of his kid naked on his phone. So there's that? People are paranoid.
Oh Jeebus...the way I treat my books is so harum-scarum. When I was a kid I was very serious about keeping my favorite ones in good condition (most of my Animorphs collection looks mint, though I read each of them at least three times). I'd never even been in a used bookstore until I got to college, where I quickly gave up caring about the condition books were in when I bought them.
But then, I do like to keep new books in good shape and try to hold them carefully when I read them. I don't dogear, but I don't use bookmarks--I just remember where I left off. I have several autographed favorites, some of which are well-preserved and one which is about to fall apart (sorry Neil!). I like dust jackets, but I take them off to read the actual book. And I do not lend. I am a librarian, I lend books all day, but never mine, unless I trust you a whole lot.
There is no method to my madness.
@DH@twitter I refuse to let people borrow things to me, especially books, because I am careless and terrible with taking care of and promptly returning them, and then I feel like an ass.
Strangely, I've had people get offended by this. It's not you, it's me! I don't trust myself with your favorite book! I'll just buy the ebook, we'll both be happier that way!
@Bitterblue
Yeah, I don't really like borrowing things from people either. I usually am one of those people who are terrible at returning things...I have books I borrowed from my elementary school teachers' classrooms, for crying out loud. Polonius was usually right, despite being a blowhard.
Also your username+pic combination has led me to believe that you may be an actual perfect person.
@Bitterblue I have a little guilt-stack in my room of books and cds I borrowed from friends and teachers in middle and high school that I never returned and now never can, as I haven't talked to those people in years. (Though would my friend from 7th grade really want her Moulin Rouge cd back?)
@DH@twitter Ahahaha OMG I wish I were a perfect person! Life would be awesome! I just happen to like (adore!) perfect things. =)
@Faintly Macabre My reaction is totally opposite; I think I've subconsciously tried to lose all the things I've borrowed and neglected to return, so I don't have their accusatory stares pricking me with guilt.
@DH@twitter Definitely don't lend out books that I ever want to see again - but I like "lending" books that I don't care about keeping. I know no one ever returns books, and I like to think they will pass it on to someone else when they're done, too.
Of course, it took until just a few years ago for me to be OK with getting rid of ANY book, even a book I didn't care for and won't ever read again. I'm currently in the process of going through all my books and really making an effort to clear out the ones I don't have an emotional attachment to, because they take up a lot of space for something I don't care about! I still even have some high school textbooks I never got rid of.
@DH@twitter We remember and we are still waiting for our Moulin Rouge cd back.
No but really, I remember at least some of the books that I've lent out and really would like back. Most of them are from high school: I'm talking about you girl who borrowed my book of essays from Bust, and also you girl who has my copy of Escape from Slavery. Do you know how many times I start talking about Sudan and am like, "oh man, I used to have this book!"
But then again I also stole back a book that I had lent someone, who had it for two years and made no indication that she was reading it or planning to return it.
@bombazinedoll In recent years, I've started demanding books back from people if I want to read them again and the person has just kept the book on a shelf. On the other hand, though, one of my best friends from college, who happens to be a little nuts, borrowed a book from me freshman year and spent the next four years taunting me about returning it. He never did, though he probably will in 20 years or so...
@DH@twitter I've bought 2nd copies of much beloved books that my friends NEED TO READ. That way, they can borrow the paperback, and I can rest assured with my hardcover at home. Now we can all stay friends.
@DH@twitter I'M TAKING GOOD CARE OF YOUR BOOKS DIANA I SWEAR TO GOD I DON'T DOG-EAR OR BREAK THE SPINE
I could never ever get comfortable writing in my books, ever, even if I had bought them, already thoroughly marked, for a college class. JUST CAN'T. I have to take notes on a different page or put in mini post-its. I have a big pile of long, half-inch wide post-its from Muji that I love and have used for all my books for years. Book marks are frequently ribbons, large post-it notes, Wegmans receipts, and actually right now, a rubber band is around the spine of Vanity Fair. I used to use actual book marks but those days are long gone.
@Third Wave Housewife I could never write in college books either! It always annoyed me when I had a used one that had been written in, not only because I don't do it myself, but who are you to tell me what's important?
Also: Wegmans Love!
@jen325 the worst is when you end up with a book used by an over-highlighter. If every word on the page is highlighted WHY DID YOU EVEN .
@jen325
I imagine that Wegmans is a place where you go to buy dogs dressed in human clothing. Probably not the case?
@Third Wave Housewife I'm huge on post-it notes for the books I teach in class. (Today is a snow day for me surprisingly. Blizzard out of nowhere.) I like writing down discussion points and stuff so when I read the book out loud to my class, I know where to stop and ask questions or bring something up.
@redheaded&crazy Ugh, I know! What the hell is the point of highlighting the whole damn page? It ruins the book, wastes highlighter ink, and probably doesn't help you learn much of anything.
@jen325 I have a book out from the library right now that is ALL FULL of underlining. Seriously, like....three-quarters of every page is underlined. I mean, come ON! That is not the point of underlining! YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT AND WRITING IN A LIBRARY BOOK BESIDES
@redheaded&crazy Right? You might as well just put a big post-it note on the cover that says THIS.
@DH@twitter Maybe at Pittsford Wegmans.
@all OMG PEOPLE WITH THEIR HIGHLIGHTING. I RAGE. It is SO SO distracting to see the shit other people have marked!
@DH@twitter OMG those weimaraners
@DH@twitter No, it's the best supermarket ever!
@jen325 I need to go to Wegmans at some point today and I really don't feel like it and I think that might be a sin? To be loath to walk into Wegmans? ugh
@olivebee Ugh, I had a lab partner a while back who was an over highlighter. He would highlight the entire procedure to an experiment and I would always just be like WHAT IS COMPELLING YOU TO DO THIS, OF COURSE THE PROCEDURE IS IMPORTANT, YOU IDIOT. He was always very smug about it too, because I am a very minimal highlighter (only volumes/concentrations of reagents, times, etc.) and he was under the impression that the more you highlighted, the more important you were? I don't even know, it was terrible.
@contrary "the more you highlighted, the more important you were"
hahahahahahahahaha oh god
look i'm sure there are probably a few over highlighters on the 'pin so i'm reluctant to say more BUT
ahahahahahahahaaaaaaa no. that dude. so wrong.
@The Lady of Shalott I propose execution!
@contrary Highlighter dude? Total over-compensation.
@redheaded&crazy He would comment on it! Like "So, contrary, I see you don't have that much of your manual highlighted. Did you even read the procedure? (can you even read?)" at which point I would usually just set myself on fire.
@jen325 What cracks me up in college textbooks is when the first couple pages are diligently highlighted, underlined, and annotated ... and the rest of the book is totally blank. Well, someone started the semester with good intentions ...
@Bitterblue Ah ha, in other words every textbook ever.
Books are not safe with me. They end up falling in the bath, or being accidentally washed in the washing machine, or mashed in my bag. bookmarks? I hang books over the sofa arm, open at the place I began.
@feartie Accidentally washed in the washing machine?!
@Marika Pea@twitter Yes, It was wrapped up in the sheets after a hurried attempt at laundry day. It dried out ok though, surprisingly unharmed.
@feartie I'm pretty sure that I am book hell. I end up leaving mine outside, letting the cat sleep on them when they are open face down, droping them in the tub, etc.
I have a few Nice Editions of books that I keep nice by not touching them. It's why I have three copies each of the Alice books - the originals are for reading, I have a nicer looking paperback set, and I have a fancy double book cloth-bound edition with colored pictures. I am also careful with my graphic novels because, hey, shit's expensive even used.
@OhShesArtsy What would book hell be like? I imagine like a waiting room and all you have are battered copies of theories of tax law and the rules of golf, covered in suspicious stains, for all eternity. And a blinking fluorescent light overhead.
@feartie Oh god, that's awful. That would be my book hell. Also, there are ancient copies of Highlights for Kids with crayon and unnameable sticky all over them.
I was thinking, though, that I am hell for books. Bad books are sent to me for punishment.
@OhShesArtsy Hah, I guess I should have said, Hell for Book Lovers. I think true book hell would be worse. The pulping factory.
@feartie Almost 9 years old and this still haunts me.
In a temple, surrounded by supplicants who are not allowed to touch them. There's a part of me that loves the idea of a book that's clearly been used and been battered and annotated and been a part of your life, but there's another--much, much larger--part of me that wants to slap that part's hands with a ruler and scream "Don't you even fucking think about doing any of the above to my books!" at it. (Typical bookmarks are receipts, check-out slips, or those nifty little magnetic ones placed at the outer edge of the page so as not to injure the binding.)
Oh dear. I'm afraid that when I lend my books to other people, if they are soft cover, I have been known to show them how I hold my books so that they don't crease the binding. :-/
@Katie Heaney If my sister lends me a book and the spine gets at all creased, she has a tiny meltdown. Me: "But that's what happens when you actually read a book!" Her: "I don't do that when I read!" But I feel your pain.
@Katie Heaney My brother does this. He has spent hours coaching me on the correct way to hold his books. I finally stopped borrowing them because I was sick of the lecture every time.
(In his defense, I am terrible to books. It's not on purpose, I swear!)
@Katie Heaney I have been trying to teach my husband to hold my books like that for more than 10 years. It hasn't taken yet and my books that he reads as well are so, so sad as a result. (He also has dropped a few in the tub _and_ torn covers. Sometimes I think it's a wonder that I haven't killed him yet.)
It depends on the book for me--I'm in college/a lit major so any of the books for class are dog-eared, spine-cracked, and written alllllllllllll over in many kinds of pen/pencil. But I have a few books I treat like the precious objects they are: my illustrated Hobbit, my pristine hardcover collection of Jack Spicer poetry, my complete Emily Dickinson volume--such books also have bookplates with my name in them. Garden-variety reading-for-pleasure (only in the summers, damn you, college) can sometimes vary on the note-taking front.
As for bookmarks, I use just about anything to hand.
@martinipie also oh my god i could talk about and read about book habits FOREVER this thread is going to be so good for library distraction!
@martinipie I'm working on a writing piece, and then I was going to do Yoga. This has become a major distraction for me too.
I like books that are just the right amount of "loved". I dog-ear the bottoms of pages that I want to remember, and underline or put square brackets around sentences or paragraphs that I particularly love. NEVER HIGHLIGHT A BOOK THAT IS NOT A TEXTBOOK. Highlighter colours are sooooo tacky.
I would rather dog-ear pages to remember my spot than use any old crumply thing, but my ideal bookmarks are these and let this be a reminder to myself to pick some up asap!: http://tinyurl.com/236nbka
@kickupdust I totally agree. And those bookmarks! So simple and subtle, I love them.
I try to keep my books in fairly good condition however I'm not going to flip my shit on you if I loan you something and it comes back with a bit of wear and tear.
if however you LOSE my book and then come back to me with the following defensive bullshit: "how do you think I feel? I wasn't finished reading it!" I will revoke your privileges, and my respect for you.
*side eye at younger brother* (oh what do you expect he's a younger brother)
@redheaded&crazy I was trying to figure out WHO ON EARTH would do that and then when I saw that it was a sibling I said, "Oh, of course."
I get a little uncomfortable every time I watch Memento and they show the dead wife's favorite book. Destroyed with repeated readings and love, but still. DESTROYED.
I'm constantly torn between my preservationist need to keep my books nice, and my writerly social urge to interact with my books. So I've settled on minimal defacing that can be more or less undone--marginalia in pencil, pen only for my name/an inscription on the flyleaf, no dogearing, keeping the dust jackets. I sometimes attempt to use bookmarks, but generally am reduced to using ticket stubs, receipts, metro cards, or more often than not, trying to remember what page number I was on.
I am pretty shameless about getting chocolatey or tomatoey fingerprints on pages though, since I like to read while I eat. Crumbs in the spine too. Don't tell my friends. Though I just got a copy of Ruth Reichl's Comfort Me With Apples from the library, and it made me super happy to see chocolatley fingerprints in the first chapter.
<3 u books!
@Marika Pea@twitter But that makes sense! Ruth Reichl! :-)
@Marika Pea@twitter Pencil marginalia! Even okay in library books, especially if you erase them yourself.
I used to try to be incredibly careful with my books, but I'm basically a careless, destructive person. Library book covers can help for special books, and everything else takes its chances.
But I'm nice to other people's books! Just not mine.
I have a thing with wear and tear. I am not fully comfortable in clothes until they're worn-in, threadbare, holey, faded, tattered. This "look" might have been cute in my adolescence, but I know I can't get away with it now, so much (during the week).
I treat books badly, but it's out of love. I wouldn't dog-ear someone else's book or anything, but the more banged-up a book is, the more it's been loved. I feel slightly annoyed with, yet slightly inferior to people who won't even crack the spine. You can't take it with you!
@Sister Administrator I've the same instincts as you. There was this girl in my secondary school who, jesus christ, would bring novels into school in individually wrapped plastic pockets. When she was reading a novel, she would have to hold it so delicately as to not crack the spine at all. It bothered me to an unreasonable level.
My books are nooooot nice. Possibly because I read during every waking activity possible, especially while eating. I try not to intentionally treat them badly, but they do get pretty hard-worn after a while. I did once throw a book at a wall when I was mad at my best friend, but I regretted it immediately after. My poor copy of Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal!
@figwiggin This may also be why I prefer to buy used books, especially if they're like the great old sixties and seventies editions of sci-fi novels with hilarious pulpy covers (looking at you, most of my Samuel Delany collection). I don't feel obligated to treat them with tender care.
@figwiggin I just spent half an hour taping my copy of The Longest Journey back together (I didn't realize how brittle it was until I tried to travel with it, and it basically exploded). When I was done, I finished reading it and realized that I didn't actually like the book very much and probably won't read it again. Oops.
@figwiggin God I love that book. The only book I've thrown at the wall after reading was 1984, which frankly deserves it.
@figwiggin I think this is the one thing that has saved us from SO MANY fights, considering you loan me your books and I suck at books. The fact that your books are beat up and that you then don't give me the stink eye for returning them slightly more beat up is truly a saving grace.
@Marika Pea@twitter I should really buy one of the Bible-looking editions! I got the thrown-at-the-wall copy signed when Christopher Moore was touring for Fool, but I love the idea of the fancy one.
@SheWhoReadsInSkirts Haha, never worry--you don't outright lose them, and you actually read them, unlike SOME people I know, so you continue have to have books-forced-upon-you privileges.
@figwiggin Exactly. I don't dog-ear or abuse books, but when I am into a book, it goes with me everywhere: At breakfast, over tea, on the pot, in the bag to work to read over lunch, up against the sweaty workout clothes on the way home; it is consumed with dinner, and then (if there are any crumbs left) enjoyed in bed. They tend to show it if they are at all substantial.
And people who don't return books? They suck. I swear in the 90s I gave away at least 4 first editions of Snow Crash and at least 2 of Homeboy to people I had crushes on, and they quickly proved Unworthy of my Love by keeping my damn books. I am still angry about this, obviously.
Oh and I was trying to read that awful Da Vinci Code book and threw it against the wall, it was so bad. But I was only mad at the "writer." (But I think I did finish it after all, because I HAD TO KNOW)
I would like to be the kind of person who takes notes in her books, but if it's a good book I get too caught up to pause and write things down and if it's a bad book I don't care enough. One time I came across a whole chapter in a Jim Harrison novel where someone had used a black pen to correct his grammar. It was really obnoxious (and stupid! not all characters speak/think in perfect English!).
I also use whatever random thing is handy (most often a receipt) as a bookmark or flip the book over and lay it on its face. But I NEVER EVER dog-ear pages. I don't know why, but that is my life that must not be crossed.
@tortietabbie I don't mind when characters don't think/speak in proper grammar, but when there's a descriptive paragraph where someone didn't edit it properly? Aargh.
I'm terrible. I throw them around, rip pages by accident, spill things on them, lose them in incredibly surreal places. . .it's not because I don't love books, though. I'm just an idiot.
Omg if I were a book cop, so many of you would be going to library prison on various crimes and misdemeanors. The jail wardens are all librarians and as soon as you open your mouth they say "SHHHHHHHH!" and look at you crossly.
@Statham funnily enough you just described one of my fantasies. cop + librarian + discipline = excuse me while I go scribble ALL OVER THESE BOOKS
@redheaded&crazy Awesome. I'll go rustle up some hipsters who look lik e librarians. They're all over the place around here.I'll make sure I only get the mean ones.
@Statham I'm pretending you are actually Jason Statham and this is making what you say even more awesome
@martinipie I think I love you. (insert trademark Statham serious face here)
Bookmarks... I use whatever's around. And they don't always last (I'm very liable to leave a bookmark on the train if I'm into my book enough that I read on the platform on my way out). Right now it's a clue for a letterbox I want to get around to finding (points to anyone else who actually letterboxes!). But my husband and I do keep a basket of play tickets, business cards, and other fun flat memorabilia that we use for bookmarks. They're ephemeral, and that's okay - it's fun, even once, to remember about, say, the movie we saw in August 2009.
i break all my books' spines, without fail, immediately.
@frushka Me too! I like to think of it as taking the book's virginity.
@ilikemints Yes! With a new paperback the first thing I do is break the spine every 100 pages. It's a new book ritual. Hardbacks get their jackets removed, then spines broken. (I'll re-dress them later.) And yes to dog ears and writing addresses in the end papers. All of which is why I prefer to buy rather than borrow - and why I can't ever envision getting a Kindle.
What about the difference between cookbooks and regular books? I have a Joy Of Cooking that is stuffed full with my notes and other random recipes (sometimes pulled out of magazines, sometimes on post-its, sometimes on receipts, etc.), notations in the margins where I've doubled, halved, or improved on a recipe, the label from the Libby's pumpkin can (their pie recipe is better). I basically use that cookbook like an ever-expanding file for all things recipe.
I don't dog-ear books ever, and although I'll sometimes write in the margins of books, I don't highlight. Ugh.
@Ophelia uh, cookbooks are kitchen casualties. Mine don't have much in the way of notes in them but they do have bits of onion skin, sugar, cookie dough, etc. in them. Even my beloved Veganomicon is not safe. And don't even get me started on the condition of Vegan With a Vengeance...or Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (shit is literally falling apart)
@Ophelia I treat cookbooks as well as I can, all things considered, but the notebook I use as a personal cookbook is fucking trashed by now from ten years' worth of spills and stains. A lot of people I've known have gotten around that by using special binders with plastic sleeves for their recipe cards, though.
@Ophelia Oh, the cookbooks. They're the Velveteen Rabbits of books, aren't they? So, so Real.
@Third Wave Housewife Hahahaha, yes. You could probably bake something from the amount of flour/sugar/butter globs that are stuck between the pages.
Also, my dog ate the spine of it when he was a puppy, and I can't say I blame him. Probably the most flavorful book I own.
@Ophelia I have the opposite issue! Cookbooks are almost the only books that I spend real money on, and some are so prettttyy that I try to keep them totally pristine. But then when I want to make a recipe I made a while ago, I forget the modifications to do.
@Ophelia Can you measure the most popular recipes by where the pages are most heavily stained? (Ours: apple pie by a long shot. It looks like it's been through a war.)
@Ophelia Totally write in cookbooks! If a recipe didn't turn out the way I wanted, why in the hell wouldn't I write "try less butter next time" or "reduce baking time" in the margins? If I don't, I'll make that mistake again and again and again. I also like to write in there when I made it and how well it was received - e.g., "Ophelia's birthday 2012, Ophelia loved it but Third Wave Housewife only finished half a slice."
I do, however, have a clear plastic cookbook stand to a) keep it held open to the page I want and b) protect it from all the gross sauces that find their way in if it's not covered.
@KeLynn To be fair, I didn't know there was actual butter in it, and my stomach was staging a revolt.
@anachronistique Yep, for me it's the aforementioned pumpkin pie page, closely followed by my friend's grandmother's pesto recipe.
@KeLynn and clearly I'll eat anything. Mmmm, cake!
@Third Wave Housewife My mom had this muffin recipe book growing up and it has the best muffin recipes but it was falling out of its binding. So she found a new copy at a thrift store for her and she had the old one laminated - every page, with the blueberry stains and everything! - and gave it to me.
WOW I can't believe I didn't remember my "thing" for book marks! The summer after my freshman year of college, one of my housemates left a stack of cards in the apartment that were all torn up and generally just used for playing kings. I started using the cards as bookmarks, so now tons of my books have playing cards tucked into their pages. I knew I had a "thing..."
I'm notoriously (weirdly) gentle on my books usually, without ever intending to be. I think because I breeze through most of them so quickly that I never have time to destroy them. But I LOVE the destroyed/loved look of a book that's been read a million times.
I'll loan my favorites out a lot, and people will give them back like, "I'm so sorry I spilled Crystal Lite powder all over it, and now there are purple specks everywhere! I'll buy you a new one!" and I go, "Good god, no! I love it!"
I also buy a lot of second-hand books, and I always prefer the ones that are a teensy bit roughed-up. Old is beautiful!
**Also, writing in the margins? What do you write? Grocery lists and pet name ideas? I don't get it.
@Jane Err If I write in the margins, it's usually notes for a college class. But if I were to write in the margins for myself, it's be my reactions like, "MARY ANN, GET AWAY. HE'S A PERVERT." or "Ugh, Harry Potter, stop angsting all over my book. Get back to Neville."
@Jane Err Speaking personally, this is the kind of stuff that I mostly write in the margins:
- (!), (?), or ocasionally :O faces if the author/character has said something shocking or unexpected
- "hahaha" which is fairly self-explanatory. I suppose this is fruitless, but in some small, lame part of my brain it feels like I'm acknowledging the author and thanking him/her for making me laugh. Also, if I'm flipping through previously-read novels, it's helpful as a guide to where your favourite funny moments are
- "Sob" which is again self-explanatory, and all the reasons as above
- if a line reminds me of another author or book, I'll jot it down in the margin
- if a line reminds me of something in my own life, I'll usually mark it in some way. Mostly just by underlining if, but sometimes - using intials - making a reference of the person or incident it made me think about.
It's really just a solipsistic self-referential system. I tend to reread a lot, so it's a way of calling out to a future me and signalling what was up with me at that stage in my life.
@Statham @Decca I loooove seeing people's goofy notes in books! I mean, I try not to write in books because I feel like if someone else reads the book it alters their reading of things, and I try to leave the experience as clean as possible for them (I know, it's weird), but notes! I just recently started taking notes on novels I read for fun because I write a book blog with a friend, and it's refreshingly fun to make notes like "AGH VALENTINE I HATE YOU DIE DIE DIE"
@figwiggin If I was passing a book around with my friends, I would love to read their notes.
@Jane Err I don't know if I can share the code. Others, what marginalia is acceptable??
Coolest thing ever found in a book Glasses rust marks!
If you use a highlighter, then you can just fuck right off. Even in textbooks, highlighting is tacky and I won't stand for it. However, I am a die-hard adherent of writing notes in the margins, underlining, dog-earing, dropping the book the bath, accumulating coffee-cup rings on the cover, and just generally acknowledging its physicality as an object and being like 'Sup?'. I definitely care a lot about the books on my shelves, which doesn't mean I fetishize them as objects that cannot be manhandled. If I really love a book, if it's one of those books I read where it's as if the author has recognised me and is yelling and waving at me from across some space-time chasm, I want to make it particular to me. That's one of the reasons I am so against e-Readers. My copy of Paul Auster's New York Trilogy is so beat-up - it was originally dad's copy from the 80s, and I've re-read it every year since I was 15 because it was the first "adult" book I ever read and it's the reason I study literature today. My copy of Middlemarch is filled with overlapping notes to myself - from a first reading aged 19, a second reading aged 21, a third reading for my senior dissertation this year. (I'm sure when I do read it again, I will continue the habit, and select lines and passages that speak to me at age 25, or 35, or 45).
@Decca okay I need to jump in and say that I love annotating and taking notes on my kindle. Seriously, I know this thread is about books, but annotating on an e-reader is awesome. You can write and underline as much as you want and you only see the notes WHEN YOU WANT TO (brilliant.)
@Third Wave Housewife Oh, really? I'm so against them I've never really looked into them properly cause I just hate the idea of them so much I become temporarily blinded by raging Luddite disdain. I knew there was some kind of annotative function, but I hadn't heard if it was good or not. I'm glad it is! Although I still know that e-Readers are not for me, a bunch of my friends are devotees. Whatever works!
@Decca I was an english major and literature will always be the love of my life. I LOVE the books I have and still use physical books...however, I have HORRIBLE eyes. E-ink is super easy on my old person (twenty something) eyes and with an e-reader, you aren't worried about damaging the book or making it distracting to read or totally unreadable. I would never use my kindle exclusively, but for new books and classics that cost a dollar, I love it. I really just can't read a paper book for hours on end the way I used to.
@Third Wave Housewife I was such an e-reader skeptic, but I got a nook recently, and I love it. I travel a lot for work, and carrying one little tablet on a long-haul flight instead of 3 paperbacks*? Amazing. And while my eyes are just getting to middle-aged, I also notice that it's easier to read e-ink for a long time.
*plus all the space in my luggage that is no longer taken up by books!
@Third Wave Housewife I think I either a) do not understand my Kindle's note system or b) have a faulty Kindle because I can only highlight so many passages in a book - after that, it starts just taking a note that says "you've reached the limit for this book so I won't copy the passage, but you highlighted something at location 465" or whatever. Which is fine. EXCEPT. I think it is secretly deleting my previous highlights! And not only on the books where I reached this magical limit, but also on other books where I know I only took a couple highlights, but when I go back later they're not there. UGH.
@KeLynn I have never had this happen on my kindle. Also, if this is happening to you, I think we've found the over-highlighter lurking in this thread.....ADMIT IT, YOU HIGHLIGHT TOO MUCH
@Third Wave Housewife AHHH I promise it's not me! The only book I've gotten that "limit reached" message on is Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace. Overall it was just an OK book, but there were so many fun facts in there, I wanted to highlight them all! I love fun facts, not highlighting!
But anyway, even on all the other books I have on there where I *haven't* highlighted enough to get that message, my highlights are still mysteriously disappearing.
@Third Wave Housewife Amen! I still have (and buy. . .) manymany books, but I adore my Kindle. No one knows what I'm reading, so I can keep my trashy stuff on there, and it travels so well that all my huge tomes are now acceptable to read wherever I go!
Anyone else do multiple copies for favorites? If I am enjoying a book on the first read, and I own it, I will start underlining. Then if I really like it when I finish I will order a 'clean copy' and read it again with no underlining. It is helpful to have two copies because I push books I love on my friends.
My favorite book is Gone With The Wind and I have a clean copy, a copy that is underlined to death, and several other copies in several languages that I have not actually read.
@highjump My favourite book is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and I have gone through a bunch of copies. I have a really pretty copy I got as a gift. Aaaand my other favourite book is Anne of Green Gables, of which I have several editions, including the amazing The Annotated Anne of Green Gables, which comes complete with beautiful full-colour illustrations.
@highjump No, but my friend will buy multiple editions of a book if they are particularly pretty (mostly Jane Austen, other classics like that).
@highjump I have a few copies of some books that I love, but mostly because I find other cheap used copies with neat covers. Including Gone With The Wind! (Pretty cover, pulpy movie cover) Travels with Charley also has lots of different cool covers, and is a wonderful book besides.
@The Lady of Shalott OMG The Anne Books! Even though it seems I am on the cautious side for Hairpin readers I've gone through many LM Montgomery MM paperbacks. I am forever preemptively picking up replacements at Capitol Hill Books for $2 when they are there.
@Faintly Macabre Yes!!! Pretty cover art and illustrations are why I own Gone With The Wind in Finnish.
@Bitterblue Nope. Can you even get them in hardcover now though?
@highjump I had two copies of Good Omens - one that was held together with packing tape, and another that was signed by Neil Gaiman AND Terry Pratchett. Except the signed copy was one of those paperbacks where pages got tipped in the wrong way and upside down and out of order, so it was unreadable. I'd bought it while I was away from home just for the signing. So... now I have the cover and the signed page in a double frame, and a naked useless book. I keep meaning to do crafting with it.
@anachronistique I have three copies of Good Omens! One, I read so much it fell to pieces and was held together with elastic, so I had to buy Two, in order to read on the train without embarrassing disaster (already embarrassing enough that the book has passages that make me laugh aloud in public). Then I moved, put all my books in storage, and had to buy Three.
But none of them were signed, let alone by both authors, and I think it's strangely cool and appropriate that your signed copy was completely out of order and messed up. And that you would craft with it. It is cool.
@highjump Amen to that; I have several copies of the Anne books as well, and I have a paperback set of the Elizabeth Enright Melendy series (the same set I read as a kid) as well as a brand-spanking new hardcover set - AND an early edition of ONE of them in hardcover. You know, for in case.
@vanillawaif i stole my mum's set of the Anne series (hard cover) when I left home. I reread all of them so often.
They're pretty much the only hardcover books I own. And I have them on e-reader too for those occassions when I need to read them but aren't at home.
@highjump AHH I was just going to ask if I was the only one who buys multiples. When I see my favorite books at the used bookstore I feel an impulse to buy ALL OF THEM. Which is pointless since I can only read one (two is good if I want to loan them out and keep one), but I can't help it.
@sparkles I love that you used "need to read them" instead of "want to read them," because the former is much more accurate for how I feel about them.
I don't dog ear, but I have spilled entire glasses of water and coffee on multiple books. Sorry, books.
If it's an academic book I paid for and plan on keeping, I write and underline in it unrepentantly, dog-earing corners and even sticking post-it notes in it.
If it's ANY OTHER BOOK that I own, I use an old train ticket from my studies abroad as a bookmark (I've had this ticket for going on seven years now, and it has never failed me). Other books I may be reading concurrently get whatever scrap of paper I come across when I need to mark my spot (often a receipt, as those tend to collect in my purse). I try very hard not to break the binding on books, but sometimes it cannot be helped (especially on huge paperbacks, like the ASOIAF series). When I fall in love with a book I will frequently buy a second copy that I can keep in good condition (and then the beat-up one becomes the 'lend out to friends who have shown they will actually give it back when they're done' copy).
If it's a library book or a book I have borrowed from a friend, I treat it like it's priceless. Nothing ticks me off more than finding writing in library books except finding HIGHLIGHTING in library books and I feel like people that do those kinds of things should be beaten up by librarians.
Stains in books make me sad, as does water damage... though the only books I'll take in the tub (thus risking the most damage) are bodice-rippers I got for $5 at the grocery store in that aisle by the magazines, anyway. Scottish hottie Angus McMeatstick can take a bit of water damage. He's a werewolf prince, after all.
Oh and! I CANNOT read a hardcover book with its dust jacket on. I always take it off and put it somewhere while I'm reading because those damned things slide one way or the other and then the top or bottom ends up all creased and messed up and aaaaaaargh!
@Scandyhoovian I hate dust jackets. Last year I gave myself permission to just throw them out. It felt scandalous at first. They just get ripped and tattered and they're shiny and not nice feeling like a book cover, and I decided it's the same as owning a couch and keeping it covered in plastic.
I used to be super anal about my books, when I was kid, because they were either gifts or I bought them with my precious little money. But I still cracked the spines and stuff, just didn't like lending them to people a lot. One time I lent a manga (this was when you could barely get manga) and SOMEONE RIPPED A PAGE OUT and I did not lend books out for at least a couple of years. Now I do all the time, but people are more responsibe now. Also I used bookmarks, although I don't really have any real aversion to dogearing? I can't write in them though. Maybe my name in the front if I'm lending, but otherwise no.
@Megan Patterson@facebook Someone... ripped a page... out? Of a loaned book? I can't even, I mean... what?
@Megan Patterson@facebook Ugh, one of my high school friends and I were lending manga back and forth, and she gave one volume back to me all torn up because "her kitten had gotten it." I now have a kitten and understand, but she was so unapologetic about it. (She wasn't even lending me good stuff on her side of things, it was all like Marmalade Boy. And she was borrowing Paradise Kiss! So unfair.)
@OhShesArtsy She let other people in her class look at it, and one of them tore a page out. I was livid.
I try to keep my books nice, but then I'm always jamming them into backpacks where they get all dog-eared at the bottom corner, or dropping them in the swimming pool because I like to float and read. (I have dropped a lot of books in the swimming pool. Sorry, Gone With the Wind! You were really heavy!)
My only really battered books are the Lord of the Rings set I bought in the fourth grade -- like, the entire cover of one of them fell off and is reattached by Scotch tape, there are corners torn off of pages, etc. They have strikingly ugly covers and I own a nicer set, so really I should probably get rid of them, but I'm emotionally attached.
@Elsajeni Omg are they the editions with like, Metal Legolas on the Two Towers cover? Please say yes! Because those were my first LOTRs as well!
@Bitterblue The weird part is, I don't think I've even read them that much? I know I've only read all the way through three times, and I definitely have other books I have read that often that are not tragic wreckage. I think a lot of it is just age -- I've been toting them around for over 15 years now.
@martinipie WITH THE FEATHERED HAIR, YES.
I subscribed to Powell's Indiespensable a few months ago and I love it and it makes me wish all my books were signed first editions with custom slip cases.
I can't be the only one who's lost many books from lending them out to friends who never return them, right? I've been burned enough times that I'm pretty hesitant to lend out books to friends now, which is sad because in most cases the book in question is not particularly valuable or hard to locate. It's not the hassle of replacing it, it's the twinge of annoyance I feel in knowing that a friend couldn't be bothered to keep track of it or return it. To be fair, I buy a lot of used books and it can be tought to remember how a book came into my possession sometimes--I received a "gentle reminder" once from a friend about a book I borrowed from her, as she keeps a journal of all her books on loan to/from others. I think this is a pretty nifty system to track them...or at least better than having to put you bookshelf on lockdown.
@SuperGogo Agreed with everything here.
And you know what I hate? When people sortof force me to borrow books. TAKE THIS YOU WILL LIKE IT! I probably won't, and it'll sit there for like eight months making me feel guilty.
Fuck the whole thing.
@SuperGogo My ex's family have like 5 of my books that I lent them, and I know 4 of them are definitely lost. So I am just going to eat the loss.
@SuperGogo I'm sure I have a ton of books floating around out there that I've completely forgotten about. On the other hand, there are a few books on my bookshelf that I borrowed from people years and years ago that never made their way back to the owner, and I feel terrible guilt every time I look at them. Except for the copy of House of Leaves that I bought for a high school friend and then borrowed from him after he was finished, because he turned into a jerk and at this point I'm just keeping it.
@SuperGogo Me too! I generally will not lend books out to people that I do not trust to give them back, so at this point my lending only really happens to family members I can get to with a car and my best friend, who feels the same way I do. I have one friend that no longer has borrowing privileges because she would borrow something, keep it for months... She once forgot she had borrowed a copy of Reorient from me for school and *sold it back at the end of the semester.*
Flames. On the side. Of my face.
@Scandyhoovian :O I WOULD KILL HER.
This is partly why I write my name in it if I lend it out.
@SuperGogo I lent my perfect (exactly pocket-sized, cover art that I loved) copy of The Outsiders to my high-school boyfriend and then we broke up and I never saw it again, and I've NEVER found another edition that was as nice. I'M STILL MAD.
@SuperGogo I lent a friend a graphic novel that was a birthday present. Never saw it again. STILL MAD.
@Al Cracka I hate book pushers! I have a stack of at least ten forceborrowed books that I'm kind of indifferent to in this very room. I can't give them back without reading them, but am too lazy/neurotic to fake it..
@Al Cracka FORCEBORROWING. OH MY GOD. Even worse when I was in college and was reading and reading and reading novels and more novels ALL THE FUCKING TIME and a woman three times my age somehow KNEW I would like The Help? I am very good at turning down forceborrows, though.
Re: lending books, I never lend out a book if I would be crushed to never see it again. This is especially the case if a book came into my possession from a used book place or garage sale or being found or whatever. I tend to pay that forward on the condition that the person I lend it to does the same.
@Third Wave Housewife @mascarasnake So glad I'm not alone.
I've cultivated the perception that I'm just super freakishly uptight about which book I'm reading next, so even though their book looks great I'm probably too OCD to fit it into my schedule. Works pretty well, since it's true.
@Al Cracka Argh. Forced borrowing. Argh. My worst forced borrowing ever was Jeffrey Archer'sKane and Abel. Worst part was I had to actually read enough of it to comment on it, since the lender was a lady who was very active socially and a friend of my parents'. Fortunately, this also meant I was not forced to keep the monstrosity.
I converted to the kindle last year (I know, guys, I KNOW! But its just so much easier and compact and blah, I'm just trying to justify my impure choices) and I have to say this thread has really made me miss the good old days of treating my books like dirt. Reading them on the beach and forever getting sand in the pages, no matter how vigorously I shook them. Using all sorts of random shit for book marks, but most often dog-earing the pages. Spilling an assortment of liquid on them. It almost makes me want to go back....
But then I remember how I have a million things to do before I get on a plane tomorrow for a week long vacation and being able to buy a new book for the flight from the comfort of my bedroom while I frantically pack my bags is kinda nice.
@jennie No need to apologize! I firmly believe that ereaders and physical books can live happily, side-by-side, and it makes me sad to see people denigrate one format or the other when they're both great.
@figwiggin Yes! My nook sits quite happily on my bookshelves full of books. Since I tend to use it for travel, it's full of trashy novels, while my physical books tend to be the ones I really want to keep/love. (edit: not to imply that I don't love trashy novels, because I do.)
@figwiggin YES THIS. I love both, and have been known to buy a book on both.
@jennie Yes yes, you are exactly the type of person who needs an ereader. Assuming the fact that it cost over a hundred dollars prompts you to treat it better than a paper book?
KINDLE!!!!!!
@jennie I'm about half and half, tree-books vs. e-books. Your choice is fine!
@figwiggin You can either have everyone else's underlines, ever, or no underlines but your own, or no underlines at all! Everybody's happy.
@figwiggin oh my gosh I just noticed that you can now like comments without signing in! that is awesome
and also yes, I love my ereader. I also love my bookshelf full of my beloved books that I neurotically organized to be perfect in every way.
@redheaded&crazy Oh good, someone else neurotically organizes their bookshelves. What system do you use? Mine are...chronological in order of setting, so Dante's Inferno is next to Name of the Rose is next to some nonfiction about the 1300s. It has the double advantage of being impenetrable to anyone else and incredibly boring to hear about.
@Al Cracka haha your organization is far "crisper" than mine. I don't actually have a system, I just want my bookshelf to be aesthetically pleasing, and it is organized to that end. Like this: tall book, short book, middle book, short book, tall book, middle book. Colour is also taken into account. And then maybe somewhat genre.
take THAT dewey decimal system!
@redheaded&crazy If I ever go completely mad or become a shut-in or whatever, my library is getting put in LoC call-number order.
@Al Cracka I'm glad we have all the same books. Were you also a medieval history major, by chance?
@Ophelia Sorry to disappoint, but I just read some medieval books a while back. Did not really understand Inferno. Many contemporary political references. But I would like to be friends! with you, not with Dante. Dante's dead.
I have a bookmark fetish. I own a lot of bookmarks. Some bookmarks are book-specific, like I bought one in Mexico while I was reading Borges and that one just stays in that book. When I pick out a new book I also pick out the right bookmark for the job. It's not weird! It's not weird.
I write in the margins. Because I read some article about famous peoples' marginalia, and theirs was very interesting, and just in case I'm famous someday I would like people to review my marginalia. I've only been doing it for like a year. Not long enough to judge whether I'm going to regret it or not.
@Al Cracka I love marginalia, because a) it's cool to see other people's thoughts, and b) the word always sounded slightly dirty to me.
@Ophelia Marginalia: Note: Hamlet reference
@Al Cracka I usually love marginalia, but recently I bought a used copy of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore, and whoever had had it before wrote the most pointless marginalia. For example, the text would be, "My husband, who is a doctor..." and this person would write in the margin, "doctor." YES. It is IN THE TEXT. No need to write about it! It took away from my enjoyment of the book and still makes me kind of angry.
@meetapossum *snort* oh dear.
I'm sure my marginalia is way more interesting.
Sadly, I still have college marginalia in my battered, beloved Riverside Shakespeare...one is just the word "trees," next to a mention of trees. In my defense, I was probably drunk.
@meetapossum Oh my god, my copy of The Sound and the Fury had such HILARIOUSLY INANE annotations that I made a humorous poem out of them. Off the top of my head: "Bitch!" "ew." "He is dead." "War." "Canadians do not understand slavery."
@martinipie I might start writing "Canadians do not understand slavery" in all my books.
@Al Cracka NO not at all weird. I have had an ongoing bookmark collection since I was about 7. My mom was a school librarian and used to give me all the cool "READ" bookmarks and other freebie Scholastic-type stuff. I also went through a phase where I made a bunch of my own by laminating them with either tape or proper laminating proper. I still have a few of those homemade ones, mainly the ones with family pictures.
A few years ago I weeded out some of the crappier bookmarks in my collection, but still proudly have some that I bought with my minimal birthday money back in elementary school, like my sweet Jurassic Park one, Disney ones, etc. I also have some that I got from book fairs/ conventions such as American Girl lightweight paper bookmarks with blurbs about the Girls, and also some actually out of books, like my beloved cardboard-ish Baby-Sitters Club ones.
Whenever I travel I see if the gift shop/ gas station/ whatever has bookmarks (they're so hard to find) and get a couple. I have bookmarks from all over the world and anytime I used one, or organize my collection, the memories come flooding back and make me so happy.
Currently, I am obsessed with these bookmarks (http://mooviestudio.com/rubrique.php?id_rubrique=5) and interchange them depending on the book's subject matter. For example, right now I am reading My Custom Van by Michael Ian Black and using my 3-D beavers on scooters bookmark, because duh.
Yeah, my crazy collection is weird and I am super anal about it but I suppose it could be worse and I could be collecting something larger that takes up precious home space like, I don't know, National Geographic magazines? Also, my collection was always popular during show-and-tell!
@New Hoarder Aw, high five. Cool.
Handmade laminated bookmarks can be damn useful. (See: my War & Peace bookmark, with the cast of characters printed on it.)
I do have one 3D one. With skulls on it. Given to me by my niece, who was then four so I suppose she probably just went for the shiniest one. Currently in Zamyatin's "We."
And yeah, I have my eye permanently out when I'm traveling.
Why aren't you reading Black's new one? That thing's getting surprisingly gushing reviews.
Sigh...I collect Nat Geo too.
@Al Cracka I have it on hold at the 'brary. =-D I can't justify buying any books by comedians because, while hilarious, they're so teeny.
I used to collect Nat Geo (and Entertainment Weeklys when I was younger) but my collection was shut down for storage reasons. I donated those collections to my mom's school library, and any magazines I get now I "throw away" by bringing them to work and placing them in the common kitchen. That way I can live guilt-free!
I dog-ear, but no food near my books! Now I have an iPad so sadly I haven't bought an actual book in a while though.
I use the thick paper proper bookmarks if they're around, otherwise I have plenty of other scraps of paper being saved for no reason. The most I write in them is an asterisk in the margin next to a profound/hilarious part, and even that is seldom. I can't get rid of books I really enjoy, but I'll lend them out to friends (not my pocket hard-cover Cat's Cradle) knowing that there's a good chance of never getting them back. If it was mediocre to me, I'll sell them somewhere. I buy books faster than I can read them. At this point I think my two shelves are about 50/50: read/unread.
I am, and have always been, an unrepentant spine breaker. @figwiggin knows this and somehow keeps loaning me books.
@SheWhoReadsInSkirts please don't break my spine.
Two book stories:
1) I once briefly dated a guy who would get super excited to show me his hand anotated (and highlighted) copy of 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'.
Awww.
*snigger*
2) When I was a teenager me and my friends used to have loads of sleepovers and I always got a kick out of leaving funny notes in the books they were reading to surprise them later when they were reading their books, though one of them accidentally turned out to be an exam text and I think I very nearly got her kicked out the exam. Woops!
@teaandcakeordeath I like to make dirty poetry-by-deletion by lightly circling words in pencil.
@teffodee
I like you teffodee.
Anybody here read Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris?
@Decca Anne Fadiman's written anything other than The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down?!
@Decca Yes! Isn't there an anecdote about a housekeeper leaving a note one of her books reprimanding her for breaking its spine? Have to dig it out for a reread
You all are my kind of people. I did CTL F for Fadiman to see if anyone else brought up this essay! Ex-Libris is one of my favorite, favorite books and the first thing I thought of when I saw this headline. @figwiggin, you must run out immediately and get yourself a copy.
@Decca YES.
@PrimarySource YES to CTL + F
Why isn't this book more beloved? The Antartic explorers? LOVE. Sooo much love.
@PrimarySource Yessss it's at my local library. Reserve'd!
@Decca I love all things Anne Fadiman!!! Ex Libris is definitely the BEST!!
@PrimarySource Ngh, she's the greatest. I'd love to meet her (for a cup of coffee, naturally) and have a long conversation with her about all her varied interests. That essay she wrote about sonnets which ends with her and her blind dying father in the hospital trying to piece Milton's "On His Blindness" together line-by-line from memory...oh, gosh. @figwiggin I'm excited for you!
What is with you people who use all sorts of things including strands of hair to bookmark a book? DOG EAR. That's what the books are for. You turn down the page that you're on so that you can find it again. I do not understand the problem with that.
@thebestjasmine Yes! I love dogearing books, and I do it on the top to find where I left off, and the bottom to mark notable bits. Although, I definitely do NOT dogear other people's books, or library books. But I like my own to have some character!
@thebestjasmine I dogear places I want to get back to? So most books I've read a lot/am thinking hard about/love significantly will have about 10 places marked at all times. The bookmark differentiates where I am from where I'd like to be (all the dogeared places).
@Lenora Jane Oh hey, I'm agreeing with you again. I like to use little sticky arrow things to mark passages I might want to return to later, but since I never actually have those with me when I'm reading, or sometimes they're way over there on the table and I'm way over here on the couch, I dogear instead.
@thebestjasmine I hate dog-earing library books, because they're not mine, and like 95% of the books I read are library books. And I also hate dog-earing really old books because.....I have actually ripped pages doing that and then I have BOOK GUILT!
I once received a book in the mail with two dust jackets. Because I am weirdly attached to books and book things, I've never been able to bring myself to throw out/recycle that second book jacket, and it just bounces around my shelves.
@thisisunclear That makes sense to me.
Bathroom readers? Anyone? When I was a kid I would, like, hide my books under my sweater so my mom wouldn't catch me, because I thought it was shameful or something. Now that I live on my own, all bets are off.
(When I was a kid, I also used to read by the light of my nightlight until my stepdad found out and took my nightlight away. After that I stole a miniature flashlight off the top of the fridge and got very good at hiding it and pretending to be asleep.)
@figwiggin Sneaking reading a book in bed is the BEST when you're a kid! Relatively easy to do and stay up late doing my own thing without anybody knowing...most of the time. Definitely got in trouble a few times when they came in to check on me at midnight and I was in a weird, dimly-lit cover tent on the bed.
@figwiggin i have a distinct memory of being in preschool where they used to lend out these super simple yet fascinating books, usually something like "the fly in the sky" or I dunno something like that.
i just remember my dad coming into my room where i was supposed to be asleep but had instead turned my light back on and was reading this fascinating tale of one lonely little fly exploring the wide open sky
Who's a badass preschooler?! I'm a badass preschooler!
@figwiggin Yes, I'm one of those people who goes to the bathroom like every forty-five minutes so I would lose a ton of reading time otherwise. I used to have my own bathroom right off my room and I would just keep books in there. It would also be a good way to get myself to read something I'd been putting off because I would only be obligated to read like a minute at a time if I wanted to. Now I share a hall bathroom with two other people so I would be embarrassed to do it!
@figwiggin : YES YES YES!!!
My mother actually had to instate a time rule in the bathroom if we had a book--she was the only non-reader out of the four of us, and got irritated at how occupied the bathrooms always were.
I get more reading done in there--it's quiet, you're usually not bothered--I love it and seriously don't *get* people who think reading in the bathroom is weird or gross.
@OxfordComma my boyfriend is building me a bookshelf in my bathroom.
He had never read in the bathroom before me, and he put a fishing magazine in there. It's the first magazine that he's read cover to cover.
It's wasted time. I used to do it all the time as a kid, and my parents used to have to remind me to come out.
I was also the 'just one more chapter' kid. And I would read two or three more. I devoured Enid Blyton as a kid.
@sparkles : I might have to sneakily steal your boyfriend because *that* is true love.
@figwiggin Possibly the Kindle App for smartphones is good for bathroom reading. Possibly. THEORETICALLY.
@figwiggin Growing up, the euphemism in my family's house for taking a poo was actually "I'm gonna go read for a bit." Reading in the bathroom was 100% accepted, and stacks of magazines were always piled up on the toilet tank. Even today when my brother and I visit you can tell who's been in the bathroom last, depending on whether "Car Craft" or like, "Time" or something is on the top of the pile.
If I'm reading a book that has a job to do (textbook, cookbook, other learning books), I will definitely make notes all over it. But if it's a novel or other for-pleasure reading, about the most I'll do is make a faint line in a margin to mark out a passage I liked. Having notes/underlines everywhere is too distracting for me when I'm re-reading, although I do like the idea of being able to go back and see my thoughts later. It has JUST occurred to me while reading this thread that the best solution would be to make footnotes of sorts - put a "1" next to a passage and then use the blank pages in the beginning/end of the book to write my notes, so I can see them if I want but not be distracted by them.
Although most of my reading these days is done on Kindle so it's becoming less relevant.
Oh, I treat 'em like crap. I annotate, note, star, write phone numbers on the endpapers. I toss them into my bike bag with all my other dirty things, staining edges and denting corners. People who borrow from my library always eventually give them back to me with the advice, "You gotta stop eating when you read." Chili (or whatever) fingerprints everywhere. Sorry, books, but at least I love you.
I write Fermat's Last Theorem in the margins of every page of all of my books. It does too fit, he just had too big hand-writing.
I'm firmly in the Velveteen Rabbit camp of book treatment, as long as it is accidental, rather than deliberate defacement. However, a few years back, I came across a used copy of Johanna Lindsay's Brave the Wild Wind with a smutectomy. (Yes, I've read it. I own it.)
Someone had gone to the trouble of surgically removing all (really, all, with a knife) phrases, sections and even individual smutty words from the book. Oddly, the old-school cover remained intact. An example of the editing (from p.39) "Then she got her first reaction from him, as the blanket fell away and he saw her[xxxxxxxxx]"
To this date, I can only imagine 3 possibilities: 1) Someone was Making A Point. 2) An anonymous letter writer needed to express the wish to skim curves, press mounds and pebble various things. 3) Art? I never considered nuns, because of a) the cover and b) I live in a pretty atheist country. (there are nuns, but not in abundance).
@EvilAuntiePeril Pervert mad-libs!
@EvilAuntiePeril That is kind of amazing, yet also horrible.
@EvilAuntiePeril I really hope it was possibility 2.
Sometimes I find myself using the corners of the pages to clean under my fingernails while I'm reading... I KNOW I KNOW it's terrible! I don't even know I'm doing it!
I don't do too much writing in my books, except I write a lot of rage-marginalia when I'm reading something I really don't agree with. Sometimes I'll write whole paragraphs of counter-arguments in the margins.
@cuminafterall I DO THIS TOO! I was trying to find a poem for a friend the other day in the textbook I used highschool and the number of rants and angry exclamation points/comments was incredible. I must have really really hated it? At one point I just wrote "FUCK ALL OF THAT SHIT" under a section on...I don't remember what now that I'm trying to type it, but apparently something I disagreed with their take on VIOLENTLY.
@cuminafterall Agreed. Especially if I'm reading it while wine is happening.
I have never used or really understood the point of bookmarks. I have literally never picked up a book I was in the middle of and not been able to find my place in about half a second or less.
I don't dog ear much. Sometimes I take notes even on a non-school book if I am super into it. And once in a while if I feel the need to share something insanely gripping I'll write something in a library book to turn it into a palimpsest, but always in pencil and in little writing. Or if I want to argue with something someone had previously written in the book. I recently read this library copy of "Into That Darkness" by Gitta Sereny and some moron had written comments throughout about how her "sentimentality" and "preachy tone" was "irritating." Fuck you bitch! If you're not "preachy" about running an extermination camp being wrong, what the hell can you be "preachy" about?
@Ellie Clearly you have a power I do not. If I put down a book without something to mark my place I am doomed. I don't recall numbers very well and will often misremember the approximate location and spend an awful lot of time flipping back and forth thinking, "No, I didn't read that part... no... no... wait, I read this but it was ages ago... and this... and this..."
It's like being very good at getting lost but with pages instead of streets.
@Ellie : You're a relatively fast reader, aren't you? I am, and I always remember where I was in a book.
@OxfordComma Is that a thing? I too have that quirk. Bookmarks get in the way.
@bibliostitute : I am surmising, based on my amazingly scientific conjectures from two comments on the 'Pin, that this is, indeed, a thing.
And bookmarks TOTALLY get in the way.
@OxfordComma This is the sort of science we need to be funding!
@OxfordComma Hey now! I'm a very quick reader but I'm still in the "help, I need a bookmark club." :-/
@H.E. Ladypants : Oh, no! It's not an insult at all! It just seems like there are more fast readers amongst the folks who don't need bookmarks.
@OxfordComma Yeah, I've always been an incredibly fast reader (although that has diminished somewhat in comparison to my peers as I've got older). I hadn't thought about that being a factor in this! Interesting! I also think bookmarks just get in the way.
@Ellie : I think it might have to do with the fact that we don't usually have long gaps of time between reads, and most fast readers are able to keep a long thread of narrative in their heads. There is a direct correlation between fast readers and good reading comprehension, which is probably part of this.
Yay, science!
My books are a history of where I've been and what I've done. I carried thirty pounds of books on a three-week trip throughout Greece, I studied Shakespeare in the same Collected Works my mom used in college, so our notes spill together in the margins, and I always have a book in my purse. ALWAYS. So they get beat-up and stepped on, damp and dried so their pages are wavy, written on and loved beyond reason. Some of these books are my best friends, and have been read so many times they're falling to pieces, and that's its own kind of wonderful. A pristine book, just like a pristine person, hasn't been really and truly loved.
@Tessa Rexroat@facebook LIKE
@Tessa Rexroat@facebook : I don't buy a purse if it's too small to fit a decent sized book in it!
@OxfordComma Me neither! The smallest purse I have purchased doesn't fit your typical American book (in all its varied sizes) but it's perfect for most French paperbacks--so I made sure to stock up on those after getting the purse!
I prefer to just remember the page number over using a bookmark. It's a problem when I put the book down for a few months, but I can usually find my page within a few seconds. I hate dog earing and when an ex-boyfriend did it to one of my books (pretty heavily, I mean every third page or so, and not just the corner but huge folds in a paperback) I made him buy a new copy. Er, I tried to make him buy a new copy and ended up buying it myself (and his dinner, and his bus ticket.. but I digress).
Only underlining and comments in pencil, in books for classes. Highlighter only in textbooks.
I'm kind of a perfectionist so I hate it when people break the spines, but some books, like used ones, older ones, or thick ones (George R. R. Martin, I'm looking /straight at you/) are practically impossible not to break the spines on.
I have a friend who splits her cruddy paperback bestsellers into 100-page chunks so she can easily fit them in her purse for the Metro; what do we think about this, folks?
@Lenora Jane I'm going to be brave here: I am okay with this. I've heard of people doing it on vacation, too: as they're done with chunks of their book, they just tear them off and throw them out. It makes me want to vomit up my nose, but it does....actually....make sense in a way.
@Al Cracka Yeah; I mean, she did it with, for example, the Song of Ice and Fire books, and when I made her read Gone With the Wind she bought an $8 paperback and did it instead of taking my copy (that one she ducttaped back together afterward, which I thought was the weirdest/funniest part of all). It really does seem to be a space issue, because shorter books she'll just carry. I, on the other hand, do things like lug around the entirety of The Witching Hour by Anne Rice (hi, I am embarrassing) when without it I wouldn't even need a bag, so who is really being more ridiculous here, I guess.
@Lenora Jane I'm not sure I can be down with doing it to real literature like GWTW. (And I hear those Fire & Ice books are good.)
As long as we're making embarrassing confessions, I carry a murse solely because I need something to put my book in.
The duct taping is a little adorable.
@Lenora Jane The only book I ever wanted to do that with was A Suitable Boy. I didn't want it to end, so carried it around for about a week with only 200 pages unread. But mostly vomitupmynose feelings here, too.
@Lenora Jane : ARGH NOOOOOOOOOO
@Lenora Jane: Apparently, I have strong feelings about this. And also a tic on my eyelid just from reading that.
@OxfordComma I mean that was my first reaction but then I thought about it and she is usually a reasonable kid, so I am trying to be benefit-of-doubtful? Mostly I am still just doubtful though.
@Al Cracka I mean, you could just carry the book?
(Not that I have an issue with murses, just...if you were only carrying one thing, now you are carrying two things. And if you are anything like me soon you will be carrying 97 things simply because you have a place to put them.)
@Al Cracka And yeah, whenever I see that copy of GWtW on her shelf I smile a little.
@Lenora Jane The Witching Hour! Totally worth lugging. I was visiting NYC when it first came out, and there I was, on the subways, in the bars, at lunch, hauling around this ginormous hardback and pulling it out whenever I had a few spare minutes. I still think it may be Rice's most readable book.
@Lenora Jane But it goes on my shoulder, so I'm carrying no things. I can't just carry a book around at, like, a bar. Best-case scenario: people will think I'm showing off that I read.
There are a few other things in it. Gum. A pen. One of those reusable shopping bags that rolls up tiny. (Also probably unmanly but that shit is USEFUL.)
I have had a woman say to me, "I know those are considered unmanly but you are the world's only boyfriend who's not always whining about 'Can I put this in your purse?'" Just sayin'.
omg I'm a Murse Warrior.
@Lenora Jane : Doubtful. So, so full of the doubts.
@Al Cracka Okay Murse Warrior, you win, all that is fair/valid! (I just accidentally typed "valis" and spent a sec trying to come up with a valid/valise joke but it didn't happen. Damnit)
@Lenora Jane I'm OK with that except what does she do if she finishes the section and isn't home yet? I get a little antsy if I have to sit still without a book, or if it's good and I have to stop reading it for some reason. I read crap-novels super fast though, and I tend to read a book a day if I have long bus commutes or a slow day at work.
@Lenora Jane Wow. While this technically makes sense, it also makes me so so sad. I mainly read library books, both physical and on my Kindle, so when I buy a book, it's because I am making a Commitment*. I've only "thrown away" books when I've bought super-cheap used novels for travel, and by "thrown away" I mean left with friends/ relatives/ backpackers.
*This does not mean that I don't own a ton of books, because I do, but I have them because they are either a) keepsakes, b) hard to find in a library (i.e. my linguistics books), or c) beautiful.
I am an unrepentant dog-earer, but otherwise I am generally very gentle with my books. The worst (best?) thing that I have done to one of my books was to go through and edit it because it suffered badly from first-novel-itis and the excessive unnecessary foreshadowing made me crazy and I knew that I would want to read it again and that it would make me just as crazy as it did the first time.
@celacia I approve highly of this.
@celacia Ooh! Ooh! Was it The Most Wanted?
I read them.
this is the most inspirational article i have read on the hairpin. no joke.
I'm very kind to my books. I used to be a fan of dog-earing but those days are long past and I can't do it anymore! I like fancy bookmarks because I love small luxuries like that - just little things that make my everyday life more beautiful. I usually take the dustjacket off and put it somewhere safe while I'm in the process of reading, cause I don't want to mess up the edges, but I put it back on the book when I put it on the shelf. I don't write in them ever, really. I went through a romantic period in high school where I thought it would be SO COOL AND INTELLECTUAL but I just felt stupid and couldn't think of anything to write.
If it's a favorite book of mine, it gets treated very, very gently, no dog-earing, no spine cracking. I just about puked when the cardboard cover of my 1960 edition of "Till We Have Faces" BROKE, despite my tender care.
If it's an academic book, I can guarantee it will have my marginalia all over it, and probably those mini post-its, but no highlighting. Ugh. I hate highlighting.
I always take off dust jackets so they don't get scrunched, and have considered purchasing a laminating machine, just to protect them. When I was reading Murakami's "1Q84", I had to keep wiping off my hands because the hardcover was white, which is MEAN, Alfred Knopf!
Oh! Some of my books, alas, have faint pink stains on their edges because I have a bad habit of picking at my hair when I read...at least we know which books are mine?
In high school we had to read Franny and Zooey and do the highlighting and notes in the margin thing - it was part of the assignment! And now it is one of my favourite books but it is covered in highlighter and notes in sparkly gel pens from both me and my sister and dog-eared corners. It is tacky and horrible and part of me wants a new, clean copy but there is something kind of comforting and familiar about this one so I haven't replaced it yet.
But otherwise, no dog-ears, no writing except inscriptions and maybe some subtle and appropriate underlining, and especially no writing in sparkly gel pens by 15-year-old girls.
@phlox Buy another copy and just keep them both? Or am I the only one that thinks having a "nice" and "regular" copy (or sometimes just a straight up "backup copy") of my favorite books is reasonable?
I actually buy 100-foot mylar rolls from a Pennsylvania library supplies company. Any first edition I buy, and most hardbacks, I cover the dust-jacket in the mylar (exactly as they are on library books). Call me crazy, but it does help to protect them.
@purefog AND -- I have a roll of laminating plastic that I picked up at a garage sale, so I make my own bookmarks out of ephemera that amuses me (my late mother's lucky $2 bill; the label from Heater Allen's "Bobtoberfest" beer; certain New Yorker cartoons; stuff like that.
@purefog Ahhhh! I also made bookmarks with laminating plastic, when I was younger (too lazy now). I looooove it and we have a laminating ROOM at work that just makes me salivate. Oh, the stuff I could protect!
My daughter knitted me a bookmark last week. It was the first thing she knitted.
@Tulletilsynet adorable
Reading this made me realize I am completely OCD when it comes to my books. I can not BEAR dog-earing pages; drives me crazy, so I must always have a bookmark. For library books, I just use the check-out receipt because it has the date due on it.
For books I buy, I try to use a bookmark that is somehow related to the time I am reading the book, which is weird, I know, but it's fun when I look through some of my old books, and find that bookmark that totally reminds me of the time when I read it, (things like business cards; movie tickets; grocery lists; it's a mini time capsule!)
And I always take the dust-jacket off hardbacks because it drives me nuts how it slips and slides and gets wrinkled if I dont...
I've been a heavy reader since I was, oh, four, so over the years I've perfected my "reading a paperback without damaging it" technique. I'm always surprised and appalled when other people haven't done the same. If I loan out a paperback book and you break the spine? I will never loan you a book again.
But on the other end of the spectrum, I've recently started collecting super nice hardback editions of some of my favorite books and I REFUSE to treat these things with kid gloves, despite their $100+ price tag. Books are functional art: what is their purpose if you don't read them? Yes, it will wear the corners and rub the gilt off the edges of the pages, but they'll look loved and not vacuum-sealed.
@Artemis47 I'm terrible on my own books, but I would NEVER abuse a borrowed book. I kind of hate borrowing books because I am not a very careful person generally, but I am extra careful with other people's books.
Actually, this is a subject on which there are no rules.
i read in the bath and the shower. NO RULES. i destroy books.
@emmapeterson@twitter OK, reading in the bath is totally understandable, but please to explain the logistics of shower reading? HOWWWWW. Every situation I imagine ends up with a soaked book or a cold, achy arm and strained eyes.
@martinipie I would also like to know the answer to this question.
@emmapeterson@twitter
I would eventually scrub my back with the book. I am always sleepy and in a hurry.
I'm way late to this game but I obsessively catalog my books:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/night_owl13/yourlibrary
Death to the e-reader, long live pizza stained pages!
I have weirdly specific book-treating habits. I dogear pages, but only in paperbacks, and I try to refrain from doing so in library books. I used to just remember where I was in hardcover books, since I'm really good at remembering numbers, but now that I don't have as much time to read for fun I end up using whatever scrap of paper-like substance that is close at hand for a bookmark.
Writing in books: yes, only with pencil. And I mean ONLY with pencil. Which is a pain sometimes, because I usually write with pen when I'm taking notes in a notebook. Even if I have to dig around in my bag for a full minute in the middle of class to find a pencil so I can mark a passage, I will do it. I will also sometimes dogear a page to come back and mark later if all I can find are pens. Seriously, I NEVER write in books in pen. I think it may be my music background, because I've had it drilled into me since before I can remember to NEVER EVER write in music with pen, and I think that's carried over to books.
Speaking of, (this isn't entirely relevant, but where else can I foist my idiosyncrasies on strangers if not in the Hairpin comments?) I prefer to write in music with real wood pencils. Even though I use mechanical pencils for all my other pencil needs. This doesn't go as far as the pen-in-books thing, because I will use a mechanical pencil if necessary, but I won't like it. No, I don't know either why I have so many habits that lead to extra work for me and don't actually make much difference in the long scheme of things.
Also, instead of underlining I will mark passages in books with a vertical line in the margin. It takes half a second, it jumps out a lot more when I'm flipping through the book later, and it doesn't slow me down when I'm reading the passage again later. And I always mark things in the outside margin, because it's easier to find later.