How well do you treat your books? Do your books look battered up? Do you keep them in an immaculate condition?
I don´t.
Well, Let´s say: I try to keep all my books in great condition but that hardly ever works out the way I wish it would.
First and foremost Books tend to age. Bummer, right? And here I was thinking print books never get old. I was wrong.
Aging books are hardly our fault, right? It´ll happen even without us helping to speed up the aging process by re-reading.
The thing about re-reading books, especially if it´s a beloved book, is… they start to fall apart. It all starts out with a cracked spine….
As you can tell, I´ve re-read the Black Dagger Brotherhood series.
Like re- re- re- re- re- read. I´ve re- read those books so often that I´m afraid if I re- read them again they might fall apart.
It´s what happens next that breaks my heart.
A 30-year-old children´s Encyclopedia. What an ancient hardcover! I´m so happy it survived for so long.
A little duck tape here, a little duck tape there… and the spine is fixed!
Apparently, I loved to look things up. I still love to look things up. Imagine google was a hardcover.
Then we have the hubs. The person I married. The one guy who´s humor matches mine. The person I can rely on. Him. He´s truly my better half.
But not when it comes to books. We´re enemies in that department.
This. My husband´s german copy of Christine by Stephen King. CHRISTINE! One of my favorite King books. It´s actually MY FAVORITE King. And thank the fluff that my Christine copy looks nothing like his.
To see my own husband has no love for his books just pains me. IT HURTS!!
And it doesn´t get better, either. I´ve come to the conclusion that the man I love is a book abuser. A book whore. Someone I´m thankful I didn´t meet when he was a teenager because I would have run for the hills.
WHO DOES THIS?!
I get it. He was forced to read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley in School. I wasn´t happy when I had to read it myself. So? That doesn´t excuse the abuse done on this book! First he sticks a hideous sticker on the cover then writes IN NOMINI SATANAS on the pages. WHO DOES THAT? Looks like my husband did. His excuse:
“I was going through a dark phase.”
Sometimes…… I just wanna…… Throw a hardcover at him.
But that´s just him. Weird. Even more weird. Let´s get back to my own shameful book abuse.
Then there´s that 4 legged neighbor who slips into the house when I leave the patio door open. That cute ball of fur who shows his love by chewing on new cook books.
That same day, the dog chewed on my new purse. I didn´t find that cute or funny at all.
Despite the book abuse done in my house, I do try to keep my books in prestine shape. Most of my books are spotless ( Key word: most ).
But some… Dear Heavens, some of my books have grease spots from eating chips while reading. I feel ashamed. So, so ashamed.
On the bright side: Dog ears don´t exist in any of my or my husbands books. Yay, for us!
Thank you for showing interest in my shameful book abuse post.
PS: I wouldn´t advise googling Abusing Books unless you´re interested in being bombarded with books on actual physical abuse. It´s the reason I pulled out my own treasures.
Much Love,
Morgana ❤ ❤
I love a Brave New World haha. That picture breaks my bookish heart. I have always been a stickler about my books, so I keep paperback editions I find in thriftstores of the ones that I reread and give a lot of love to. You can find some pretty worn Tolkien copies on my shelves ❤ Fun post!
LikeLike
Your heart and mine… both broken. He´s just a brute when it comes to HIS books. I would LOVE to shop in thriftstores… if we had any around here * hangs head * The only chance I´d have at buying older books would be at garage sales or at a local bookshop. Garage sales aren´t a thing over here ( seriously. I have no idea why people here wouldn´t want to do garage sales!) and the next bookstore is in the next big city ( 40 min. drive ). Village life sucks.
Oooh, my Tolkien copies are in fab shape! I hope they stay that way, too. Crossing fingers! Thanks for commenting, my dear ❤
LikeLike
Hahahha so funny! I used to deliberately break a spine so I could lay a paperback flat to read… Now my books are oh so pristine, lol. That newspaper over the face gif perfectly shows how I feel looking back on my book abuse days. ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
HAHAHA. Reading that gave me chest pain. Lol. Deliberately breaking in a book spine is something I´ve done back in the day as well. How do you keep your books in great shape now? HAHAHA. Right? That gif- Wins the book-net! Thanks for commenting. ❤ I totally appreciate it. ❤
LikeLike