Gilded Volumes and Beat-Up Paperbacks

[Note: The following post was written around this time last year. I had planned to put it on my old blog, but it slipped my mind. Still, this saves me having to think of something new.]

The Office of Letters and Light Blog - What do you "do" to your books?

I felt the need to write a blog post answering this question, because as soon as I saw that picture of the messy, damp book lying in the grass, my heart began to expand with nostalgia. I was always forgetful, even (especially) as a kid, and I had a good-sized collection of books with wavy pages from a night spent out in the rain. It was always a little disappointing when it happened, but as long as I could still turn the pages and read the words, it didn't matter.

As I grew older, I became more careful. I hid books that I particularly liked. (And promptly forget the hiding places.) And I learned to treasure big volumes with silk bookmarks, gold-edged pages. Books like that were almost like bibles. I admit to eyeing my family's new copy of The Complete Chronicles of Narnia with an especial reverence, even if I did wish there was some kind of Deep Magic available with which I could scramble the books into written order.

(The first Narnia books I ever owned were a paperback set I bought at about age six or seven with a Barnes & Noble gift card. The inside covers all say something that's supposed to be my full name--first, middle, and last--but it's in a crippled combination of cursive and print, and it dips down the page because there's not enough room. My mom smiles every time she happens upon one.)

And I definitely have the books I'm all hoighty-toighty about not ruining. Especially my Pelican Complete Works of Shakespeare. It was given to me as a gift by my Shakespeare director. It had a silk bookmark and a thread cover with a perfect little paper patch, like a plaque, that bore the title. As soon as I got it home from the cast party and out of the plastic wrap, I started getting all obsessive over it, thinking every little shadow that fell on the cover was a stain. Keeping it out of the sunlight, checking the pages for creases. I knew, I just knew, that something horrible was going to happen to it. It was hanging over me. The inevitable.

And then it happened. I put it on the round coffee table in my hallway for an airing, and my little brother plunked a big old cup of his favorite drink on it while he read, as Fate would have it, another book. A book lover jumping in another book lover's grave, completely unintentionally. The irony was bitter and apparent, and it pricked at my skeleton like static even as he apologized. I wished he hadn't. It would have been so much more relieving to be mad at him.

But you know what? Life is about attitude, and since it's been a couple of days, I've managed to get over the initial trauma and give the stupid thing a wry smile every time I've seen it. It's at the top of my bedroom closet at this moment, safe from the cuffs and cups. But I feel as if that Shakespeare book and I have finally broken the ice. I won't be afraid to actually read it now--sprawl it across my lap and turn the pages with my oh-so-human fingers without wincing. This could be the beginning of a deep and beautiful friendship.

Paperbacks are inherently different. A bad paperback is the one that stays all shiny and barely bent, lounging around on your shelf or counter until you wonder why you're still keeping it there and throw it out. A good paperback has a worn and weathered cover. When you've had it for a month it's beaten up. When you've had it for a year--especially if all your siblings have read it--it's cracked like lightening from corner to spine, and the only way to make it lie flat is to put a bunch of stuff on top of it to stop it springing open. Paperbacks are friendly, paperbacks are cheap. You can buy a paperback at the grocery store with your extra money. Paperbacks, if the New York Times is to be believed, are rapidly becoming obsolete thanks to ebooks. Not that I don't love my Kindle. But there's something nice about owning something that's going just a little bit out of style. Like a typewriter, a paperback is a relic of the not-so-distant literary past. I feel cool having one around.

In my notes for the novel I'm currently attempting to write, I find this frenzied aside:

"They'll sell it in paperback at CVS and in book stores on the subway. People will read it over and over, until it's tattered."

And if they also care to use it as a coaster while they read some other author's worthy effort, let them.