In response to Jade Sterling: The way I treat books is a sign of respect—or is it?

In response to Jade Sterling

The way I treat books is a sign of respect—or is it?

They say (whoever ‘they’ are) that the popularity of books is declining and—as a bookshop assistant, then publisher, and finally as an English teacher (the latter for nigh on 20 years)—I am willing to believe they might be right: perhaps fewer people are now ‘bookish’. However, apparently, over three in five Brits bought a book in the last 12 months, and over half of those were physical print books, evidencing my own conviction that the love of books will never die—nor will the magic that surrounds the reading of one. Far too many people are simply too passionate, not just about the content of books, but about the feel, the smell and the look of physical books over their electronic substitutes, for them to fade away. Books are real, they are personal, and they can bring about irrevocable individual and societal change. They are not a thing to be trifled with.

However, Jade’s assertions in her recent article made me stop and think about my own response to book etiquette, and, after spending way too much reflection time on the subject, I realised that the way we treat our books is as personal and inexplicable as whether we put the cream on our scones first, or rather begin with the jam and then add the cream!

Jade asserted that she ‘desecrated’ her books—and she even did so with a ‘lol’, which raised my suspicions at once! She then proceeded to give a list of these desecrations—with which, in my head, I agreed or disagreed so ardently and instantly  I surprised myself!

·        I snap the spine immediately to make it mine: How could you! That will eventually cause the pages to fall out, you vandal!

·        I turn down corners with reckless abandon to mark my place: And thereby tatter its appearance and potentially risk its corners falling off, in old age! Not to mention spoiling the adventure for others who may not share your personal favourite bits. How very dare you! Vandal, again!

·        I flex the cover as I read: Of course! How else can you get it into a comfortable reading position—perfectly acceptable and normal behaviour—but watch the spine!

·        I drop them in the bath: Whaaaat?! Don’t take them near water!They will get damp patches, discoloration, even mould—and the paper will go weirdly out of shape! And the same applies to the unmentionable habit of reading on the toilet, if you please!

·        I throw them carelessly into handbags: Obviously! You can’t leave home without a book, and you don’t always want to take a backpack or holdall; although ‘carelessly’ worries me slightly! Be wary of squishing the book against something which bends the pages, or worse, stains them with chocolate or drink! And remember that, if a handbag is too small for a book, it is clearly too small to be useful!

·        I spill coffee on the pages: How can you?! I refer you to the point above! The double sin of discolouration and a lurking coffee-smell—which will subsequently repel all potential readers, especially those who are either pregnant or hungover!

·        And leave sand in the spine: Perfectly acceptable—in fact, really rather lovely! How else would you expect anything to come home from the beach? (As long as the pages aren’t wet!) Anyway, who doesn’t love a bit of holiday falling out of a book, a few months later?! I even press flowers in my holiday books—so that, randomly, every now and then, a flattened brownish daisy or anemone falls into my lap, to remind me of something special that happened, on a faraway summer day.

·        I store them haphazardly and crammed into whatever space I can find on the shelf: This is one of the sacrifices which I acknowledge is the lot of the serial book-buyer—and I do not like it, but I have to accept it. Even the most doting parents and partners get sick of buying or building endless bookshelves eventually, so creative stacking is an occupational hazard. However, please never double them up, or you will obscure the titles of everything in the layer behind, thereby preventing future bookish visitors from judging you and silently assessing your suitability and worthiness as a potential friend, based entirely on the books in your bookshelves!

Thus far, my reactions were clear—and then I got to this one: ‘but worst of all? I write in them. I underline, highlight, scribble, scrawl, mark dates and leave comments, edit.’

Here, my certitude faltered as I realised that my response was ridiculously and embarrassingly illogical! You see, in my world, there are two kinds of books: those that are truly beautiful artefacts—to be read without folding, marking or, ideally, even breathing on them, carefully and with quasi-religious awe and wonder, because they are illustrated first editions, signed copies or just jolly nice books; then there are all those others, with which the very nature of reading demands that you engage fully, so you must ‘underline, highlight, scribble, scrawl, mark dates and leave comments’! As a result of this strange personal code, many of my most beautiful and loved books are totally clear of writing and all other forms of desecration; but others, which are equally dear to me, have annotations, quotes underlined and (in lieu of folded corners—just sayin’!) post-it notes to mark my favourite bits! And, of course, all that is absolutely fine and normal! This weird, contradictory thinking even extends, although I promise it is rarely, to buying a second, annotatable copy of a book, where I need a more hands-on relationship with the text, but my initial copy is ‘too nice’ to do anything except read safely at home!

Anyway, moving swiftly away from my views on Jade’s book desecration, there are other, deeply controversial book issues, which cause unprecedented displays of anger, shock or sadness when they are discussed, even amongst people I might otherwise have branded as ‘not book-loving types’! Here are just a few of those which seem to cause the most angst (although I am sure you have more!):

·        Borrowing books: you should always return a book—swiftly, and in the same condition in which you borrowed it—and in case of unforeseen accidents, offer to buy them a new one! To some people, books are like their children, and they will not forget who borrowed them—or what they did to them while they were away!

·        Vandalising books: it is never okay to sculpt, fold or art-work a decent, readable book, even if you no longer want it—and this extends to the abhorrent craze for boring holes in old books to make archways and other curiosities.

·        Faking books: it is never okay to put empty boxes, decorated with imitation book covers, on the shelves in hotels and public houses, in lieu of the real thing. In a world where we have apparently so many old, unloved books that we can bore holes in them, why not rescue a few and use them to decorate your shelves. At least then people can read them if they want to!

·        Binning books: you should never bin a book, even if you have decided not to read it again; some reading desperado will be so grateful when they come upon it later. Take old books to a charity shop, hospital, recycling centre or give them to a friend. Or you can start a book swap shelf at work, advertise books on freecycle sites, or even use an old red phone box as a book swap—something which is increasing in popularity. Binning books is murder… please recycle them.

·        Studying books: we have all had copies of texts which we have learned to dislike over the duration of an examination course and, for some, this aversion becomes so extreme that they wish to tear them up or burn them. Please don’t! There is something demoniac about this sort of behaviour! Also (see my point above), someone, somewhere, will love it if you don’t—even if it is annotated with incorrect interpretations, and has a large penis drawn on the inside cover.

As I write this, and my own book prejudices pour out, I wonder, with wry amusement, how many vociferous disagreements this will raise in others.

Let me leave you to your unseemly wrangling: I have a book to read!