The way I treat books is a sign of respect

I have many a bad habit. I peel off my nail varnish, I leave half-drunk glasses around the house and I correct people’s grammar while they’re speaking. But if you ask my sister, she’ll tell you my worst habit is the way I treat books.

I’m an avid reader and commuting into London every day means I use my Kindle, rather than lugging around physical copies in a bag already laden with pens and snacks. But as glued to my Kindle as I am, still nothing can compare to the real thing. A real book. The look of a shiny new cover, the feel of the pages turning, the smell of fresh paper, the weight of a hefty novel in the hand; palpable pleasures. From my waxing lyrical, you’d assume I have a healthy respect for the integrity of a book.

Lol no. I desecrate them. I snap the spine immediately to make it mine; I turn down corners with reckless abandon to mark my place; I flex the cover as I read; I drop them in the bath and throw them carelessly into handbags; I spill coffee on the pages and leave sand in the spine; I store them haphazardly and crammed into whatever space I can find on the shelf; but worst of all? I write in them. I underline, highlight, scribble, scrawl, mark dates and leave comments, edit.

Take one look at my bookcase and you can immediately see which ones are my favourites. I’m talking the battered, dog-eared, barely-held-together masterpieces I return to time and again. They’re in such a parlous condition, anyone would shudder to behold them. But their state is a testament to my love for them: their well-worn pages and scruffiness comfort and entice, and their scribbles and dog-ears remind me of who I was. I’ve heard the classics are timeless because they offer a different meaning, an alternative interpretation at the different stages of life; these knackered books are my diaries and my history. These books define me as a reader and their pages are swollen with my thoughts and feelings.

‘…Books are like flypaper—memories cling to the printed page better than anything else.’ Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

I can pinpoint the moment I started drinking coffee—not by remembering the first cup, but by the splash marks on my copy of Watership Down. I could tell you exactly how I felt embarking on the first stint of my year abroad from the worried edges of Pillars of the Earth. My copy of The Subtle Knife is missing the final chapter—those pages fluttered away from me out of a tram window in Lyon. My library tells many stories, including my own.

I was super excited to move in with my husband (then boyfriend) as I entertained romantic notions of intertwining our book collections and marrying our libraries on one shelf. Those dreams were quickly shattered; his books are pristine. I seriously question whether he has actually read them; he has. He loaned me his favourite very reluctantly: ‘you will take care of it?’ And wow, did I take care of it. For the first time, I felt book guilt—I spent so much time watching how I held it, I barely read it. Two days later, I’d downloaded it to my Kindle so I could read in peace.

Reading is sacred; books are not. Lose yourself in them and leave yourself in them.

‘Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.’ Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind