Comments on: Would you cut up a book?

By: Roger Hurwitz

Roger Hurwitz — Sun, 25 Jul 2004 02:31:20 +0000

as some of the postings suggest, there’s need to distinguish between the book as an object/ fetish and as a means of communication. Here’s another way of asking the question to get at that difference: Would you cut open the pages of a book with uncut pages, in order to read it? Would you do this, if you knew its value as a rare book would drop 50%? Would you read the first (London) edition of Moby Dick, at the risk of soiling it, when you could read (maybe) the same text in a paperback copy? Do you throw away dust jackets of modern first editions?

By: Mary Kay

Mary Kay — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 05:45:15 +0000

I swear, sometimes I feel like a space alien and this is one of them. I am a retired librarian and have been a reading fanatic since I was 10 years old and I have never ever regarded a book as a sacred object. What’s important, if it is any good, is what the book says, the words and their meaning, not the physical manifestation. I highlighted and wrote in text books and I still will if reason presents itself. My books have gravy, spaghetti, and iced tea stains on them. Mass market paperbacks are not going to last much longer than you are anyway. Now the book in question is one I take very good care of and would not cut up to send our hostess pictures. But that’s because I love it and the dammed thing cost $50. I think my favorite is the moonlight on water one. MKK

By: Enrique

Enrique — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 18:14:29 +0000

The scanning and printing is an excellent idea, particularly for the purposes in question here. Regarding destroying or tearing up books, with one notable exception I have never done so, and can’t imagine the scenario in which I would. The one exception was a coffee table print book of MC Escher that I wound up taking apart to put the prints up on my cube walls, simply because there was little to the text that I was interested in or would ever read. I don’t know that that justifies it in any way (strangely enough for me it somehow doesn’t after reading everyone’s thoughts here), but it was my reasoning and wasn’t too far from what you were wanting to do to collect the ads. Side note re: paperbacks. An aunt’s ex-husband was a voracious reader of paperbacks and the like. He used to “eat” his books as he read them. He would tear off pieces of the cover and chew on the pieces as he went along. You know how much he liked a book by how much of the cover was left. No front or back cover was his version of a must read. Weird stuff.

By: eszter

eszter — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:53:05 +0000

Doug – That’s a great idea about scanning and printing photo quality, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that! Unfortunately, the Absolut Budapest ad (the one I’d most like to find) is not featured in that book. Maybe I can get a good printout from a Web site.

By: Mac Thomason

Mac Thomason — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:43:54 +0000

I was thinking you might try to pick up an ex-library copy. For more popular books, anyway, lots of them wind up back at the distributor a couple of years later (picture entire truckloads of Stephen King and John Grisham, speeding towards Kansas or whereever the warehouses are) and get sold along with the remainders. Since they’re already mutilated (stamping, taping, often rough handling by patrons) it’s not a big loss if a page is cut out. Public libraries run through books pretty rapidly.

By: pw

pw — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 15:47:43 +0000

I would consider cutting up a book if I had another copy to hand. Paradoxically, the very wide distribution and bulk-product nature of many modern books makes them that much less replaceable. If you don’t get a spare during the three months between publication and pulping, you’re going to have a heck of a time finding one later.

By: James

James — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 11:26:21 +0000

I absolutely can not tear up a book. Or mark one with a pen. My fiance is trying to get me to give to a charity shop some of my old, very poor, fiction titles. I can’t do it. I might read them I say, though I know I never will. They generally reflect some awful phase of my teenage life, which I should be embarressed by. My University has a large number of Greek students, and the most infuriating thing about getting a book out of the library is that I know there will be Greek script IN PEN scrawled around all the “difficult” words. Horrifying.

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 08:55:43 +0000

Eszter, as a practical decorating matter, why not scan and color print at photographic quality? The big honking design or advertising books that the ads are probably in will certainly survive their time on a flatbed scanner. Printing it out is dead cheap and just a matter of time. Even if you don’t know anyone with a color printer, getting it done at a dtp place is bound to be far less expensive than what you’d pay for a poster-like approach. Plus no metaphysical concerns about hurting books.

By: schwa

schwa — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 06:52:36 +0000

bob – I read hardcovers with the jackets off, but not so much for the aesthetics of the exercise (though I am one of those happy freaks who breaks out in hives at the thought of a bent paperback spine) as because dustjackets get in the way. Unless the book is flat on a desk (which is a bloody annoying way to read for pleasure) the dustjacket is an inconvenience.

By: anne

anne — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 05:43:00 +0000

Libraries do this all the time, in order to microfilm. Some see this as a scandal. A Guardian article: [http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/referenceandlanguages/story/0,6000,672274,00.html]

By: johnny p.

johnny p. — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 04:39:47 +0000

I’ve destroyed a few books in the process of scanning them. A couple century-old ones that I paid a good deal of money for too. Of course the substance of the books lives on in the (usually illegal) digital copies.

By: vivian

vivian — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 02:26:35 +0000

I used to rescue books from ‘discard’ piles at the end of library sales and even yard sales, knowing otherwise they’d be destroyed. As others do with stray cats – my parents would not let me adopt stray pets, but they put up with the book thing. (Lack of shelf space at home has ended this habit – I can’t bear to get rid of the old ones either.) I always loved reading centuries’ old books at the 42nd street library and reading the ancient marginalia – communion with readers from so long ago, perhaps. So I don’t mind making margin notes as long as they seem worth keeping as long as the book. Underlining is annoying fwiw.

By: Lindsay Beyerstein

Lindsay Beyerstein — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 02:22:05 +0000

I think reverence for books goes beyond their residual associations with wealth/power/influence. I wouldn’t mind taking apart an decrepit BMW or scavenging a broken Rolex for parts, but I’ve never cut up a book. I think it’s partly that books are designed to be permanent. Newspapers and magazines are disposable. Saving all one’s magazines is eccentric, saving all one’s old newspapers is prima facie evidence of mental illness. It’s irrational, but I feel uncomfortable throwing away books, even admittedly worthless ones. I have to put them out for other people to take. I own one book that is so bad that it stays on my shelf because I don’t want to burden some random passer by with it, but I don’t feel right just throwing it away. I bought it for 1 cent plus shipping, so I think its former owner had a similar attitude.

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 02:19:46 +0000

Related question:Do people here read their hardbacks with dustjacket on or off? To preserve the dustjacket. :)

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 02:14:02 +0000

Like Anthony, I won’t even bend the spine of a bought-used $2.95 Stephen King thriller. 1) The inhibitions discussed here. 2) Aesthetic appeal. I am right now looking at several thousand (and there are the other rooms & closets) paperbacks, arranged alphabetically, etc. The closer to new, the easier they stack and the better they look stacked. 3) Reciprocity. Since I buy many books used, and usually the best copy on the shelf, I have some weird faith that if I treat mine well, others will also. Not for resale value, they all go for a dime no matter what shape. 4) For a while I was collecting Science fiction for reading purposes (wanted to read everything before 1975) and had an unspeakable pleasure in finding (among many others)Bradbury’s “Martian Chronicles” (194?)1st pb in mint condition in a small town used bookstore. I would like to give somebody else that pleasure 50 years from now.