This has been a post a loooong time coming. I’ve been reading blogs and following Facebook as well as Instagram for years now. I’m always in awe of the beautiful pictures people take of a specific book or their beautiful bookshelves. Such as this beauty below… No it’s not my picture!! Let’s not think I have this much creativity flowing through my body nor this much care to make my books look beautiful.
Credit: Google-Perpetual Page Turner Blog
Now after some research I realized that so many of these types of beautiful pictures came from a younger generation of book readers. I’m 34, far from the 17-25 age range that I’ve seen doing this. That being said I’ve also noticed that so many readers today don’t actually read these gorgeous books… Heh… They apparently download a book on their Kindle and then buy the book as a piece of art if you will. I’m not so sure I understand this particular phenomenon but who am I to judge. I enjoy the pictures so do your thing….
I’m sure you’re wondering where I’m going with this, so let me enlighten you. I’m usually out and about doing something with my family and I always keep a book in my car or purse. Now I’m the worlds worst at charging my iphone or iPad so my electronics usually die and if I’m into a good book that’s on my kindle app it would suck to have it die on me. So I carry physical books.. Yes ! Those amazing things with pretty covers and pages and ink not to mention that amazing book smell… one of those! Anyhow, I was at the hair salon sitting under the dryer and was re-reading Molly McAdams book From Ashes. Yea, I had the book all the way open and reading the hell out of it. I have book marks but I don’t know where the heck they go, usually my kid uses it for some boredom project and poof it’s gone. So when it was time for me to get my color washed out, I did what any woman of 34 with no book mark reading a physical book would do, I dog eared the page. Just a teeny tiny bend.
The cute little teenager next to me huffed. Yes, that girl huffed at me. Now never one to ignore a huff, I stared straight at her trying to figure out what caused her to lose what little air that tiny body could hold and she was glaring daggers at me like…..
She proceeded to open that tiny mouth and ask ….
Her: “Why did you bend your page?”
Me: “To mark my place in the book.”
She then proceeds to lecture me. This poor girl had no idea what she was doing because I’m legit crazy when it comes to young know it alls.
Her: ” Maybe you don’t know this but there’s an app on Goodreads and you can find every book and mark that you’re reading it and then mark your progress on the book so you don’t have to disrespect your book in that way.”
Now what I did next was childish but it gave her a big middle finger without being so tacky.
Me: *Opens book while looking at said teenager, starts dog earring every damn page while looking at her*
Suffice it to say she didn’t say another word. Maybe I was a jerk but I wasn’t concerned then and I’m not now. Dog earring a page in a book isn’t bad, it’s my book that I earned the money for and bought. My books have gaps between the pages, not from neglect or abuse but from my love of reading and re-reading a book. When you pick up my books you can tell the ones I like from the ones I love. I’ve even had to replace books because I’ve read them so much! I do own a kindle and have a ton of books on it but I would take a physical book over an electronic one any day.
A few days after the said book nazi incident I was scrolling through Facebook in one of the amazing book groups I’m a part of and saw a post about a woman loaning her book to a friend and how the spine of the book had a crease and she was never loaning the friend any more books again. I was legit sitting there trying to find the crime in a creased spine. I mean you have to open the book right? Maybe the friend had man hands and a firm grip? Or maybe she didn’t want to fight the shadows demons because she barely had the book open. Then I started wondering, am I doing this whole book reading thing wrong. Nah, I’m just different. Sooooo this long drawn out dissertation leads me to this question/statement:
Question: I never borrow books, it stresses me out because I know some of the strict book owners I speak of! But I’m left wondering why is it wrong to read a physical book and it be left like it was read and what’s wrong with dog earring the page? I’m not saying abused with food spilled on it because that would bother me and not bent to hell, but a simple creased spine and the fluffy book look of a read book.
Let me know your thoughts and opinions !!
Elle
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