BOOKING THROUGH THURSDAY – CONDITIONING

**updated to add links – I can’t believe I forgot those:(

This week’s Booking Through Thursday question is:

Are you a spine breaker? Or a dog-earer? Do you expect to keep your books in pristine condition even after you have read them? Does watching other readers bend the cover all the way round make you flinch or squeal in pain?

Our family passes books around – as one finishes, someone else is waiting to grab it. Very often, books come back with coffee or diet coke stains on the pages, or little bites taken out of the page tops if the birds were anywhere near the reader. One of our newest members, Dickon the Terror of the Thames (a corgi puppy) loves to read, only he reads from the spine forward. We learned very quickly to put everything in the middle of the table because, although his legs are very short, his body if very long, and he can stretch himself quite tall.

Pets aside, we all love books and take care of them. Yes, there’s the odd spill, but it makes them look homey and loved. I’ve been in houses where the books look like they just came off the shelves and I wonder if they are just show pieces or if the owners actually read them. For me, if the book shows a little wear and tear, it probably is a good read because lots of others have read it before me. Some of the best books I’ve read had to be kept with a rubber band around them because they had been read so many times, the spines had disintegrated completely. That is a sign of a well loved book:)

I have a few, a very few volumes where my love for the book overcomes my love for the story. And those, I don’t loan out to others. But with everything else, if something awful happens (like someone eats the last chapter), books can be replaced.

How do you read your books? For more answers, go to Booking Through Thursday and see where you fall in the clean vs. scruffy challenge.