I’ve been putting off writing this post because as far as discussion posts go, this one is a total drag, but I can’t help it anymore.
I borrow books from the library a lot. I’m more likely to check a book out than buy it. I’ve borrowed a lot of books and seen many of the books my library system has, whether I grabbed them or not. Generally there’s the wear and tear that can’t be helped and signs of the loving old books have gotten over their years in and out of the hands of various people. Sometimes people write little notes in the margins or underline their favorite quotations. I once found a book of poems that someone had used to annotate a biography of the author with. (It was Sylvia Plath, BTW.) I’m totally cool with these types of things. In fact, I really like it when I see little notes penciled in, as long as they don’t hinder the reading experience.
Things I’ve seen that I’m not okay with:
Marker scribbles all over the cover/pages (The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight) – I’m thinking the culprit for this one was a small child. I totally understand that stuff like this happens and sometimes can’t be helped. Believe me, I’m the first person to understand that, but there are several pages scribbled on throughout the book. That took time… where was mommy/daddy/guardian? Or even, how hard is it to keep the book OR markers out of reach? Sorry if I’m stepping on any parenting toes, but honestly.
Pages glued together (Witch World) – This is simple, don’t do craft projects on top of books. Please? It took me a half hour to get the pages apart with indirect heat and a lot of patience… and the pages were STILL ruined. Sigh. I tried.
Gum on any part of the book (Divergent) – I almost gave Divergent back to the library because there was old gum stuck onto the back cover of the book and I didn’t want to accidentally touch it. How does that even happen?
Pages torn out/missing (just about every photography book) – No. Just no.
Sigh. Honestly. Where is the love for these books? I don’t understand how people pull these things off. Or are okay with letting them happen. I am very protective of books, my own and other people’s–especially other people’s books and it annoys me to no end when I see people treating books like shit.
I could probably go on forever with this topic.
Lisa Likes Books 