There are two types of readers in this world: the ones who keep their books perfect and pristine as if they never left the printing factory, and the others who crack, mangle, and scribble all over them.
Books are like trophies (which is why I could never exclusively use a Kindle.) They dominate our shelves and remind us of the lives we’ve lived. Pieces of us scattered between the pages, our thoughts and feelings, and even our tears, staining and warping the pages forever.
Perhaps controversially, I’d say there is a difference between loving your books, and loving your books. Reading your books, and reading your books…
Absolutely no hate to anyone who keeps their books in perfect condition, who doesn’t dare crack the spine, nor put pen to paper. I, too, was once someone who would give friends direct instructions not to dog-ear pages. How dare anyone strip them of their fresh-from-the-factory look?
Much like the generational split between types of sock you should wear, there is a divide in the BookTok community on how we should be treating our books.
Spine-cracking
The way most books are printed (in the UK at least), with stiff pages and nearly no flop, makes it near impossible to comfortably read without getting a hand cramp or, heaven forbid, cracking the spine. Especially books with more than 400 pages.
I used to absolutely despise cracking book spines, and I still do to an extent. It’s a physically painful process. But sometimes there is no way around it.
Bookstagrammer Megg Woolls said, “I’m particular about my books, I do not break spines and even if picking up a second hand book from a charity shop it has to have its spine intact.”
“I leant a book to a friend, and the spine came back broken! End of the world! Next time I wanted that friend to read the book I had just read, I bought them their own copy.”
Megg Woolls
Annotating
Okay look, I get it. Not everyone wants to permanently stain the precious pages of their books with lines and doodles. Completely understandable.
Some of us, however, were forced to for our English Literature class and have never once looked back.
It is addictive and cathartic; what better way to communicate every thought and feeling than writing it down next to the emotion provoking line and having that thought cemented on the page forever?
Annotating provides a whole knew reading experience. My friend and I once spent a ridiculous amount of time choosing the perfect colors to annotate with. It can be a fun, but rather obsessive activity I fear. If you don’t believe me, one can set their eyes on the explosion (literal) of pink ink in my copy of Pride and Prejudice.
And it isn’t just your own thoughts and feelings that can make annotations so special. I love finding books in charity shops that someone has previously gifted to another and left a loving note on the first page. It is always a treat to discover books that were once loved, and that can be loved again.
“Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.”
Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Bookmark or dog-ear?
Dog-ear: fold down the corner of (a page), typically to mark a place.
There is simply no wrong way to mark where you are in a book. Who among us hasn’t used a receipt, or something ridiculous but close at hand, like another book, or the TV remote for example.
I’ve already expressed my slight-dislike for dog-earing pages, but really, it’s not that deep. In all honesty, I am currently using this method for one of my books.
Not everyone has a bookmark. Dog-earing gets the job done. So what?
It’s rather convenient if you want to go back to that page and relive the moment.
What I can’t get behind is those of you (you know exactly who you are) who, rather than marking the page with a bookmark (or similar device) or dog-earing, will instead simply RIP OUT THE PAGE as you go! Excuse me? Jail.
Sun-damage
I learned the perils of sun damage to books the hard way when I noticed the spine of one of my once bright orange books had faded into an identical yellow hue of the book sitting next to it. In an attempt to revive the orange, I hastily colored it in – it has since faded back to yellow again.
Warning! Anyone who has their books on their window sill, check the pages (or spines) of your books NOW for the lovely tan they will have undoubtedly gained.
I don’t think that sun damage to the pages is necessarily as bad as sun damage to the cover and spine, unless it’s a particularly ugly cover. In that case: no harm, no foul.
But sun damage warps the pages, so just be careful.
The wrong way to do it
When I say damage, I don’t mean ripping out pages and spilling drinks all over it – that is actually damage. I mean the fun sort of damage as shown above.
I have damaged (the bad kind) a book in the past, and I struggle to justify my treatment of it as love. It went moldy, so no, it clearly wasn’t as loved as it could have been.
Long story short, I left it in my school bag where it was almost chronically damp with no air due to the rainy climate of my school.
Therefore I would argue that there is definitely a wrong way to “damage” your books. It’s supposed to be fun and cathartic, not a clear example of your neglect.
The best way to read your books
To each their own. Leave your book the way you found it. That is a completely valid decision. If you have any solutions (that actually work) to not cracking spines but still being able to comfortably read it, teach me your ways, please!
I’m team “damage.” I firmly believe you can love a book a lot more if you leave traces of yourself in it.
