On the preservation of books

My attitude towards the visual appeal of my books is changing – just a little.  You see, for pretty much all of my life, I have been rather fastidious about preserving the new-book feel within my library.  In fact, with most any of the books I’ve read and own, if you held up a book I’ve read next to a brand-new one at Chapters, you’d be hard pressed to spot the difference.  With the exception of really large books, I’m generally able to complete a tome without even cracking the spine.

Then I met my wife.

She wasn’t my wife at the time, but I met her nonetheless.  And, in the course of our courtship, I lent her some books.  Good books.  Hardcover books.  New books with clean covers and sharp corners and crisp spines.  Books that later returned to me looking as though they had spent the better part of their time away in the lower reaches of a badger’s intestines.

This bothered me, at first.  After all, reading a book is still a very visual and tactile experience (which is why I don’t see myself using digital readers, at least for the time being).  So there’s a very visceral pleasure for me in picking up a fresh book and devouring it.  Figuratively.

I’m starting to soften just a hint on this.  As my wife and I sat on a beach in Mexico last week, sipping fruity drinks and reading book after book, and occasionally spilling some of said drinks on said books, I realized that there is something to be said for the well-worn, well-read volume.  My copy of Lord of the Rings, for example, has been read several times and is starting to show its use, and I like the fact that it reflects the re-reads to which it’s been subjected.  I am also starting to appreciate those books in my library that have traveled with me (to Korea, Sudan, Mexico, and even into the wilds of Southern Ontario), and that bear the scars of those journeys.

I don’t see myself taking a cavalier attitude toward my covers anytime soon; just ask my wife what happened when she tried to remove the dust jackets from my hardcovers.  But I am starting to see the other side of the equation; the side that values the content of the book over its appearance, and the appreciation of the book over its preservation.

I’ll leave you to devise your own pithy “don’t judge a book by its cover” remark to wrap this up.  Me, I’m going to wander over to my bookshelves and admire the rows of neat and uncreased spines – at least on the books that haven’t been on vacation with me.  Or with my wife.

photo credit: guldfisken