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| Hearsay: |
This guy hates second hand books. Why? Because they’re gross. I have to say, I can see some of this. There’ve been a couple of times I’ve opened a recently purchased second hand book and played the guess the stain game. But then, try looking up the stats on fecal matter, even just for your office environment, and you see that it doesn’t really matter what precautions you take, you’re still always eating shit at work.
As someone who buys far too many books – and even reads some of them – I should be the sort of person who jumps at the chance to save precious funds by purchasing second-hand. Thanks to the growth of Amazon Marketplace, and the continuing presence of charity shops on every high street, it is now easy to spend pennies rather than pounds on a book. This is great news for bookworms everywhere.
Well, not quite everywhere, because I can’t stand second-hand books. For me, as a literary experience, they are akin to sloppy seconds, a salad bar in a staff canteen at the end of a hot weekday, or a recently-vacated cubicle in a public toilet. Let’s be clear: I don’t merely have a mild preference for buying brand-new. No, I’m digestively squeamish about used books. It’s all those stains, thumbprints and creases that get me so queasy. I’m far from a gentle reader and by the time I’ve taken in the first few chapters of any brand-new tome, it will often be creased and coffee-stained beyond recognition. But they will be my creases and my stains, and that’s what matters.
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June 20th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Yikes. Did it ever occur to him to, I don’t know, examine the book beforehand? Just a thought. And considering that I don’t think all employees at a Chapters or Borders are oh so considerate about washing their hands before they shelve, you’re pretty much just one degree away from an ebola outbreak at the best of times.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I’m with this dude at the Guardian. But I’m really, really picky about the appearance of a book when I buy it. Has the book been written in? Not buying it. Are the pages stained, torn, or brittle? Not buying it. Is the cover torn or falling off, or does it look like someone had taped something to it, and then ripped off the tape taking half the image with it? Not buying it.
I’ve completely given up on libraries. The last book I took out was a copy of Iris Murdoch’s The Bell (first edition) from the Sudbury Public Library. The middle 50 pages had been torn out, and the pages adjacent to that scar were covered in what appeared to be feces, applied it seems, with a paintbrush.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
So you were in possession of an original artwork, August!
It was a long time in my home province before the idea of re-using textbooks in the classroom was accepted. Why? Germs. Same province that has for decades liberally sprayed its potato fields with toxic pesticides. Actually, that does kind of make sense, come to think of it…
June 20th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I found a bone from a chicken drumstick in a book at the NYPL. Just sayin.
June 20th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
I took a book conservation course a long time ago under the misguided idea that I could become an antique book restorer as an economic sideline to writing (okay I was naive) and one of the teachers talked about all the things that stain books, including cum, shit, snot, food grease, urine, blood, and the various fungi that grow upon these things.
I’m sure there is a story in there somewhere…
June 21st, 2008 at 10:48 am
You like to think it was chicken bone.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:49 am
I recently heard through the library grapevine that TPL is soon going to allow people to eat food in all their libraries, save for the rare books section. Because, well, who cares about the regular circulating books?
June 24th, 2008 at 2:43 am
Used to be a librarian. Weirdest bookmark? Bacon!