Top Ten Bookish Superpowers I Wish I Had
(x-posted to Wordpress)
This is such a fun Top Ten Tuesday topic I could not miss out on it! I’ll admit, one superpower-equivalent I do have is that I can spot a spine from my wishlist no matter how giant and disorganized the mass of books for sale is, and the simple truth is it is damn near impossible for me to set foot in a place with books for sale and not find at least one I want. (This one is both superpower and mild curse.)
I also feel like I sort of have a superpower in my ability to recall or find lost book titles for people, at least within my area of expertise (realistic YA, or animal books of the 20th century).
But as for the ones I would like to add:
1. Perfectly match a given plot summary, character description or relationship dynamic to the closest existent book (like if AI were effective and not evil). I am frequently inspired by something on film that I want to experience in book form, and while I’ve spent a lot of happy time googling for matches and have found some great reads, it would also be great to have an instant guarantee.
2. Inspire widespread public “rediscovery” of my favorite out-of-print or at least backlist books. Make my faves great again.
3. Shrink the size of my books at-will to dollhouse-sized samples for easy storage (or a Tiny Library display) - and then regrow them when I want to read or display them on a regular shelf.
4. Guarantee free, lifelong library access to a physical copy of any book I want to read (I specify “free” because some states charge for inter-library loans). Universities and low-funded libraries with less collection turnover are actually pretty good at archiving the old books I love these days, but there are a lot of newer indie-pubbed books they’ll never get, or that so few libraries get that they’ll all be weeded sooner rather than later.
5. Spontaneously duplicate text-free prints of book cover and endpaper art that I love (there probably IS some way to do this for a price - like the way you can order some Goosebumps ones - but we’re talking superpowers here).
6. Enchant OpenLibrary so that publishers and anyone else with authority would simply…not care about it. They’d know it existed, but not be concerned about its possible effect on their bottom line and would simply let it do its thing unmolested.
[Because the thing is, when I can’t access a physical copy, I like scans of the actual book, and it’s not enough to just cross your arms and say “buy the ebook if you want a digital version, cheapskate.” Even aside from possible cover changes, so much soul is lost when you format a book’s contents into an actual ebook, in ways I don’t even think about until I directly compare them to copies of real pages. Sometimes font or line spacing is improved (I do think this format has value even if I don’t personally read it yet), but not always.]
7. Step into books and wander around in that scene/world - noticed or unnoticed, at my will. (as long as there’s a clear way to also leave the book when I’m done)
8. Keep my books in perfect condition no matter how I handle them - read in comfort, free of worries about cracked or crinkled spines, banged corners, dust jacket/page tears, etc. (exception: writing/highlighting in books remains, in case I ever want to annotate something. but maybe I can also eliminate that at will, like when I’m ready to sell/donate?)
9. Edit the text for personal use. If someone has a name I hate, or a book contains unnecessary cursing, I’d like to change or strip that out at will; nobody else has to know. And if I feel like changing an entire scene, why not. Editors get paid to do this, and I am convinced that sometimes they make books worse. Let me reverse it.
10. Make certain authors more successful…and other authors less successful. And that's all I'll say about that (except that this is not about JKR).
This is such a fun Top Ten Tuesday topic I could not miss out on it! I’ll admit, one superpower-equivalent I do have is that I can spot a spine from my wishlist no matter how giant and disorganized the mass of books for sale is, and the simple truth is it is damn near impossible for me to set foot in a place with books for sale and not find at least one I want. (This one is both superpower and mild curse.)
I also feel like I sort of have a superpower in my ability to recall or find lost book titles for people, at least within my area of expertise (realistic YA, or animal books of the 20th century).
But as for the ones I would like to add:
1. Perfectly match a given plot summary, character description or relationship dynamic to the closest existent book (like if AI were effective and not evil). I am frequently inspired by something on film that I want to experience in book form, and while I’ve spent a lot of happy time googling for matches and have found some great reads, it would also be great to have an instant guarantee.
2. Inspire widespread public “rediscovery” of my favorite out-of-print or at least backlist books. Make my faves great again.
3. Shrink the size of my books at-will to dollhouse-sized samples for easy storage (or a Tiny Library display) - and then regrow them when I want to read or display them on a regular shelf.
4. Guarantee free, lifelong library access to a physical copy of any book I want to read (I specify “free” because some states charge for inter-library loans). Universities and low-funded libraries with less collection turnover are actually pretty good at archiving the old books I love these days, but there are a lot of newer indie-pubbed books they’ll never get, or that so few libraries get that they’ll all be weeded sooner rather than later.
5. Spontaneously duplicate text-free prints of book cover and endpaper art that I love (there probably IS some way to do this for a price - like the way you can order some Goosebumps ones - but we’re talking superpowers here).
6. Enchant OpenLibrary so that publishers and anyone else with authority would simply…not care about it. They’d know it existed, but not be concerned about its possible effect on their bottom line and would simply let it do its thing unmolested.
[Because the thing is, when I can’t access a physical copy, I like scans of the actual book, and it’s not enough to just cross your arms and say “buy the ebook if you want a digital version, cheapskate.” Even aside from possible cover changes, so much soul is lost when you format a book’s contents into an actual ebook, in ways I don’t even think about until I directly compare them to copies of real pages. Sometimes font or line spacing is improved (I do think this format has value even if I don’t personally read it yet), but not always.]
7. Step into books and wander around in that scene/world - noticed or unnoticed, at my will. (as long as there’s a clear way to also leave the book when I’m done)
8. Keep my books in perfect condition no matter how I handle them - read in comfort, free of worries about cracked or crinkled spines, banged corners, dust jacket/page tears, etc. (exception: writing/highlighting in books remains, in case I ever want to annotate something. but maybe I can also eliminate that at will, like when I’m ready to sell/donate?)
9. Edit the text for personal use. If someone has a name I hate, or a book contains unnecessary cursing, I’d like to change or strip that out at will; nobody else has to know. And if I feel like changing an entire scene, why not. Editors get paid to do this, and I am convinced that sometimes they make books worse. Let me reverse it.
10. Make certain authors more successful…and other authors less successful. And that's all I'll say about that (except that this is not about JKR).