new icon post!
So, berrylicious877 made me this icon based on a conversation we just had about my general distaste for mass market paperbacks.
I used to have pretty much nothing BUT mass market paperbacks, but somewhere in between moving out of my parents' house, my reading tastes changing somewhat, and starting my book collection almost from the ground up, I stopped buying ( Read more... )
I used to have pretty much nothing BUT mass market paperbacks, but somewhere in between moving out of my parents' house, my reading tastes changing somewhat, and starting my book collection almost from the ground up, I stopped buying ( Read more... )
Secondly, The thing I like most about MMP's is the concept of books being sold in non-bookstore venues. Too many people stay out of bookstores and thus don't read much. Mass market paperbacks have that neat little gem in their favor. That's really what makes them more democratic and more accessible. They're gateways to reading. I will never fault The Da Vinci Code for this reason - I know a ton of people who don't read who have read that book and maybe read a few more books afterwards because of it.
Thirdly, you would know from my hippy open-tech lifestyle that I am ALL about ebooks and technology. My uncle Alberto Manguel is a scholar who fetishizes old books and libraries and has written like half a dozen books all about how the pages crinkle and transport him to far-off lands in the comfort of his personal library built out of an old monastery in the French countryside. I am not him and I strongly disagree with that line of thought. I don't carry that many books. I've thought about it a lot because I love books, but I just don't want to deal with owning all that stuff cluttering up my space, so I'd rather give them to someone else and let them enjoy it after me.
I will say this about books being beat up. Of the very few books I actually own, my favorite is a paperback copy of Roald Dahl's The Witches that I have had since I was 7. It's beat up to all hell but it's still totally readable and enjoyable. I've used that book when reading to kids as an adult, I've used it to re-read the story myself. Beat-up books you've gone through multiple times can be a badge of honor, and the creases and ruffles in an especially long MMP you just got through sometimes take me back through the story itself. But now I'm sounding like my uncle again.
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I'm fine with other people reading MMP, I just don't want to colect them on my shelves if I could get a nicer copy. As for books being "clutter"...well, you and I just disagree when it comes to that. I LOVE books. I am not in a place I would consider to be truly home unless I am surrounded by my book collection. I am totally with your uncle on this one. Someday I will have a house with a room that I can turn into a library, filled wall to wall with books, and I can't wait. If I don't like a book, I sell it back...but if I like it, I keep it. It's pretty simple. If I had to pare down, obviously I could, but I don't have to, so I won't. They are a comfort to me and they make me happy.
I don't need my books to be beat up to be badges of honor...my most read book is a copy of Gone With the Wind that is older than I am. I've read it once a year since I was 13. It's a hardback. I also hate writing in non-academic books...I'm OK with making notes in textbooks or informational books, but writing or highlighting in a novel bugs the crap out of me.
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Writing or highlighting novels bugs the crap out of me too :)
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