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One reader's thoughts as she steps from book to book.
Books I've Finished
- "A Christmas Memory"
- by Truman Capote 12/8/12
- "Child's Christmas in Wales"
- by Dylan Thomas 12/7/12
- "One Christmas"
- by Truman Capote 11/29/12
- "The Thanksgiving Visitor"
- by Truman Capote 11/29/12
- Inside Mrs. B's Classroom
- by Leslie Baldacci 11/28/12
- The Bee Eater
- by Richard Whitmire 11/15/12
- There Are No Shortcuts
- by Rafe Esquith 10/28/12
- I'd Like to Apologize to
- Every Teacher I Ever Had
- by Tony Danza 10/21/12
- Corked
- by Kathryn Borel 10/15/12
- Year of Learning Dangerously
- by Quinn Cummings 9/30/12
- A Hologram for the King
- by Dave Eggers 8/23/12
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- by Harper Lee 7/18/12
About Me
- Christine
- I often have a few books with bookmarks in them at once. I enjoy classics more than contemporary works of fiction, often read historical fiction, and love to get glimpses into other people's lives by reading memoirs and biographies.
13 comments:
I have lots and lots of animal reference books - field guides, zoo books, books from zoos, old Golden guides (my favorite), Audubon guides...and I love finding animal reference books that have good photos or illustrations in them - I got a doozy at the library last weekend.
But how do you treat your books, Sophia? Do you keep them neat and safe, or do you mark in them, or read them in the shower like other people we know?
treat them? Oh, well...they are all stacked or shelved downstairs. When I reference them I treat them very well - no splayed binding. But because some of them are old, the pages fall out. I don't care about dust jackets - I would just as soon throw them away - except Chris's "Headhunting in the Solomon Islands" which features a great polynesian font.
i've only written in one that i can remember - a William Styron one about his journey through the darkness of depression. most of the paperbacks, i like to feel "readable" and so will bend covers back as i'm reading. don't bend pages down unless i have absolutely nothing to mark w/. hardbacks i usually try to preserve the jacket until i put it back on the shelf unless i use the flap for my bookmark.
Depends on the type of book.
Reference books I treat with care because they need to last a long time.
Paperbacks are comfy books and though I don't abuse them, they don't get treated with kid gloves. They are stuffed in a bag to go with me on a trip, or left open at a page when my reading is interrupted. And yes, I will occasionally dog-ear a paperback.
Text-books that I use to teach the kids are the only ones I'll write in and then only in pencil. Notes to remind myself what to supplement, maybe rearranging the order in which to teach. I'll often copy pages from workbooks for my kids, so I'll make a note of which child has done the page and the date.
I "hate" dust jackets: they get in the way when I'm reading: if I take them off they lay on a shelf and get crushed and torn under some other book or just sit and gather dust (hence their name?). So I usually throw them away. It really bugs me when the book cover is just plain, no illustration, no title. Then I have to keep the dust jackets. Harry Potter books are a case in point.
I've always tried to instill in my kids respect for books. I hate to see books abandoned on the floor. I have handed down books to them that I had as a kid (they're REALLY old!). Many of them were from my parents and they were not new to them (truly ANCIENT!). I'd like to think my kids' books can be handed down through generations.
I'll sometimes leave books open and face down if I'm too lazy to grab a bookmark, but usually I use bookmarks. I keep my place in my $2 dot sale cryptogram book (just a puzzle book) with a pencil, and of course I write all over that, but I generally don't write in or dog-ear my books. However, I've already decided that if I ever buy the Double Bind (which will only happen when/if it comes out in paperback, if I buy it at all), I will write in that.
~Lisa
I rarely write in books, only when they're very stupid and I can't stand to leave them in unchallenged black and white, and even then only when they're not nice-quality books. I never dog-ear, it drives me crazy. I have been known to turn a book upside down to mark a place, but I'm extremely picky about the spine otherwise. I barely open mass market paperbacks so as not to damage them, and it's gotten to the point where my mother won't borrow paperbacks from me because she can't stand the way I want her to read them.
I hate dust jackets with a passion. I always take them off to read the book, and then I only put them back on if, like the HP books, the actual covers don't look nice. Other dust jackets I save in a pile in my closet (gathering dust) to use as protective book covering at some unforseeable point in the future. DRD
I don't mind dustjackets. If a hardback book has one, I keep it on. Most of my books are paperbacks because they're easier to handle and smaller, so they're better to take on trips. I try to keep my books in as good a condition as possible; I'd never, ever write in a book, not even in pencil. I don't dogear (or use bookmarks). But you can tell which ones I've read over and over again, because there's a worn place down the spine.
I never write in a book. Not even a text book - I find my notes make it hard to concentrate on the book. I always use bookmarks unless I am putting the book down for just a couple of minutes - then its open and face down. I'm like Erin, I like to keep my books in as good as condition as possible, but I love to see the worn places on the spine. I, also, generally keep dustjackets on, if they bother me then they come off when I read but are put back on when I'm finished.
Insomniac, I must say I treat my books very much like you treat yours, but I don't dog-ear unless I'm desperate. I also really dislike dust jackets and throw most in the recycling bin. Writing in a book, fo me, makes it pretty much un-loanable. It would be like letting someone peek into my relationship with the book, see what lines I loved, see my own little silly questions. Too private!
And I could go on about the smell of a book, the weight of a book, the fwump of a book. . .
My very favorite books to touch are worn, library-bound chapter books with printed-on covers from the 1960's and 1970's, the books of my childhood. They have browning, buttery pages whose edges have spread and softened and are no longer crisp. I love to smooth them in my hands like lucky stones.
I write in books when
A.) it's a textbook or used for school, and I'm taking notes.
B.) there is a spelling error
I NEVER dogear my books. I did that growing up, with books from the public library, and in retrospect feel like quite an ass. (Not an excuse, but obviously many others had done it before me.) Now I usually use folded up post-its or some such thing to bookmark my place. And I NEVER crack the spine. If a book comes to be like that (used) I don't mind, but that first crack breaks my heart...
Ooooh, this whole conversation is making me tense! I'm a total Type A book freak...I always leave dust jackets on, and it drives me nuts when the edges get crumpled. I never dogear pages (I did as a little kid, but I haven't since then). I've got a nice stash of construction paper bookmarks that the boys made for me for Christmas (some are even laminated to last longer), so I'm rarely without something to mark my page with. The only books I'll write in are cookbooks, and that's only because my mother did it before me...I own several copies of the cookbooks she used when I was young, and I went through & copied her notes into mine. That way, I know which is the *best* chocolate chip cookie recipe, and whether I really ought to tweak a recipe to be like I remember it. And, it's nice to write down the changes I make to recipes, because my memory is like a sieve lately, and I'd be hosed without my notes. Cookbooks are the ONLY books I'd write in, though. I don't even write in my knitting pattern books...I'll print the pattern off & write on that if need be. It also drives me bonkers when my husband reads in the bathtub...not so much that he's reading in the tub, as he's never dropped a book yet, but that after he's done reading, he'll lay the book on the sink & take a STEAMING hot shower. It steams the heck out of the pages & loosens the glue in the binding. He tends to be pretty patient with me & my rigid-as-heck tendencies, though, so that's good. ;-)
I dont write in books unless its a text book, i always take off the dust jackets when reading them, and never fold pages. i keep most of my book on my shelf, and when thats full, in random piles around my room and in boxes.
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