Confessions Of A Book Abuser

The Chicago Tribune just published an interesting article about the way people treat books. While some people consider books themselves -- not just the information they contain -- to be beautiful objects to be treated with respect, others consider the ideas to be more important and treat the "package" as a disposable shell.

Having read the story, I now feel it my duty to come out of the closet and confess to my book bashing ways. Though I draw the line at book-burning, I really have very little respect for the objects themselves. Herewith, a list of my chief offenses:

1. I'm obsessed with traveling light. So when I'm on the road, I prefer whenever possible to read books in electronic form via eReader on my PDA than lug a bunch of paper around.

2. I have few qualms about giving used books away. I'll even throw cheap paperbacks away on occasion if I need to make room.

3. I use page corners as bookmarks.

4. I have a nasty habit of flicking the corners of pages between my fingers as I read. The more exciting a book, the more ragged the corners.

5. I often write in books. I underline words, phrases and passages of interest and scrawl notes in the margins.

6. When I give someone a book as a present, I always write a message inside the cover.

7. I'm a heartless bender-back of book spines.

8. I often eat and drink while reading. If I drop some butter, jam, tea or wine on a page, I tend to leave it there.

9. If a book is thin enough, I'll roll it up like it's a magazine.

10. I've been known to use a pile of several sturdy hardbacks as a stool. I've even used hardbacks as weightlifting aids, in the spirit of Jack Lalanne, when I can't get to a gym.

11. I've left books out in the rain.

12. Books that people have lent me often look so ragged by the time that I've finished with them that I end up buying the people who originally lent them to me new copies.

13. I use the crisp edges of new book pages to clean dirt from under my finger nails.

I could go on.

Where did I learn this stuff? I'm not proud of my misdemeanors. I've tried to get over the worst of them, but bad habits are hard to shake.

In my defense, there are limits to my crimes. There are, for instance, a number of special books in my collection. I don't mess with these. And one of the sorriest things I ever did, was give a great many of my theatre-related books to a charity store a few years ago. I was in a bit of a desperate situation moving-wise and I had to lighten my load. I regret doing what I did and have been trying to rebuild my collection ever since.

I suppose I do fall into the category of reader that values -- for better and for worse -- the content inside a book more than its cover. I wonder if there's an AA (Alcoholics Anonymous)-type class for BAs (Book Abusers) like me?