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silverflight8I don't actually care about books.
No, no, don't run away!
BACKING UP TO EXPLAIN NOW. I've always defined myself, for lack of a more widely understood shorthand, as a a lover of books and reading. What I really mean is I don't care about the book's physical format. I do have preferences between books "bound in 1850 with spines falling off", "bound in 1960 and grungy with that ugly university bindery", "bound in 2007 never opened as a paperback" and "bound as a hardcover in 2007 and opened" and "ebook as a .pdf" and "ebook as .epub" and "printed out with 1" margins on white paper".
But what I mean is I evaluate all these on the axis of how easy they are to read.
I have terrible eyes, so reading on a computer is kind of not all that great, and makes me feel like my eyes are radioactive after too much; reading destroys my sense of time passing and so I can read for two, three, four hours at a stretch. (It doesn't stop me from consuming fic and borrowing epubs though.) I like books bound hundreds of years ago, but purely as a historian and for general wonder - look, here is a book that has passed through hundreds of years into my hands! I wonder where it's been, and who's read it, and how it has come to be here. But I don't care so much for them as a reader, because if I try to open them on my pillow (I like to read under the covers), it's sure to get grit all over the place, so I have to actually sit at my desk to do it. Hrmph! And paperbacks - you have to either break spines, or else open them a crack and cant your head one way and then the other to read them. Hardcovers are heavy to carry. The bindings on the 30-year-old books, and their dusty and dirtiness are not to be mentioned; those I have to read at my desk too.
Think of me as a vampire. The Bookish Vampire. (I am sure that will sell.) I re-read a lot, but I also have very good memory, so I need only read the book once to create a version in my head. Like I've sucked the lifeblood of the book - the ideas, the world built in there, the characters, the themes and atmosphere - and kept it inside me. The physical shell I don't care about. I like to reread, to refresh the world over, and - if the writing is enjoyable in itself - to wade through the words again. But the most important part has already been imported. Next time I have to wait for the bus, I can think of this particular book's core, or cackle, or replay events.
This is what I'd like to tell the friends I have who don't like books, and are badly puzzled by me liking books. (Also the random guy participating in the lab who was intent on psychoanalyzing me on why I didn't like movies and preferred books: seriously, lay off.) And the people who assume that since I like books, I should want to spend time in the library, or am suited to working in a library*. I like words a lot, but ultimately it's the soul of the book. I like libraries all right, but the library isn't magic in itself; it's what it houses and what it stands for that's magical. If the Library of Alexandria were still standing I would go visit - but as a historian, not as a reader; a book that came from that fabled library and from my home branch, four streets over, makes no difference to me whatsoever as a reader. All I need is the words and the things contained therein.
This is why I don't have shelves and shelves of books. In addition to having no space, little disposable income, and the necessity of moving - I just don't see the point. I can borrow from the library, and it's the exact same book. Other than to re-read, why should I keep copies of books? They're already inside me, and a book is nothing but ink and paper and paste, a physical burden that I can carry in another way.
*OK, so I do work in two separate library systems, but those don't count! It has nothing to do with my reading.
No, no, don't run away!
BACKING UP TO EXPLAIN NOW. I've always defined myself, for lack of a more widely understood shorthand, as a a lover of books and reading. What I really mean is I don't care about the book's physical format. I do have preferences between books "bound in 1850 with spines falling off", "bound in 1960 and grungy with that ugly university bindery", "bound in 2007 never opened as a paperback" and "bound as a hardcover in 2007 and opened" and "ebook as a .pdf" and "ebook as .epub" and "printed out with 1" margins on white paper".
But what I mean is I evaluate all these on the axis of how easy they are to read.
I have terrible eyes, so reading on a computer is kind of not all that great, and makes me feel like my eyes are radioactive after too much; reading destroys my sense of time passing and so I can read for two, three, four hours at a stretch. (It doesn't stop me from consuming fic and borrowing epubs though.) I like books bound hundreds of years ago, but purely as a historian and for general wonder - look, here is a book that has passed through hundreds of years into my hands! I wonder where it's been, and who's read it, and how it has come to be here. But I don't care so much for them as a reader, because if I try to open them on my pillow (I like to read under the covers), it's sure to get grit all over the place, so I have to actually sit at my desk to do it. Hrmph! And paperbacks - you have to either break spines, or else open them a crack and cant your head one way and then the other to read them. Hardcovers are heavy to carry. The bindings on the 30-year-old books, and their dusty and dirtiness are not to be mentioned; those I have to read at my desk too.
Think of me as a vampire. The Bookish Vampire. (I am sure that will sell.) I re-read a lot, but I also have very good memory, so I need only read the book once to create a version in my head. Like I've sucked the lifeblood of the book - the ideas, the world built in there, the characters, the themes and atmosphere - and kept it inside me. The physical shell I don't care about. I like to reread, to refresh the world over, and - if the writing is enjoyable in itself - to wade through the words again. But the most important part has already been imported. Next time I have to wait for the bus, I can think of this particular book's core, or cackle, or replay events.
This is what I'd like to tell the friends I have who don't like books, and are badly puzzled by me liking books. (Also the random guy participating in the lab who was intent on psychoanalyzing me on why I didn't like movies and preferred books: seriously, lay off.) And the people who assume that since I like books, I should want to spend time in the library, or am suited to working in a library*. I like words a lot, but ultimately it's the soul of the book. I like libraries all right, but the library isn't magic in itself; it's what it houses and what it stands for that's magical. If the Library of Alexandria were still standing I would go visit - but as a historian, not as a reader; a book that came from that fabled library and from my home branch, four streets over, makes no difference to me whatsoever as a reader. All I need is the words and the things contained therein.
This is why I don't have shelves and shelves of books. In addition to having no space, little disposable income, and the necessity of moving - I just don't see the point. I can borrow from the library, and it's the exact same book. Other than to re-read, why should I keep copies of books? They're already inside me, and a book is nothing but ink and paper and paste, a physical burden that I can carry in another way.
*OK, so I do work in two separate library systems, but those don't count! It has nothing to do with my reading.
I object!
Date: Oct. 5th, 2012 06:30 pm (UTC)Not necessarily, that's just the result of decisions made at the publishing houses, presumably to go with designed obsolescence.
As evidence, I point to the 1970s and 1980s paperback editions of Samuel R. Delany's brilliant 879 page Dhalgren. My edition dates back to the late '70s. Its glue is intact, you can bend the pages back to a comfortable reading angle and not a one is even threatening to fall out.
Lousy bindings have always been a pet peeve of mine. Something I guess will go the way of 8-track tapes as I transition to e-books.
Still objecting!
Date: Oct. 5th, 2012 06:40 pm (UTC)Re: Still objecting!
Date: Oct. 5th, 2012 07:00 pm (UTC)That said, I am with you on caring about books for the words within, rather than as objects. I have a couple of particularly old volumes, and it's cool to think of all the hands they've passed through, but that's all. As you say, it's the words that count, not the container.
Re: Still objecting!
Date: Oct. 5th, 2012 07:54 pm (UTC)AUUUGHH! The worst is that you can't really paste the pages back in perfectly so that they lie flat or square (unless I guess you completely cut off the spine and rebind them, and most people don't have the tools for that - just tape!)
Re: Still objecting!
Date: Oct. 6th, 2012 05:02 am (UTC)Re: Still objecting!
Date: Oct. 10th, 2012 03:45 am (UTC)I think I'll take the sturdy books. Gahh.
Re: Still objecting!
Date: Oct. 10th, 2012 04:23 am (UTC)