My Precioussss August 13, 2003 - 5:02 p.m.

I treasure my books.

One of my goals in life is to have at least one room that I can turn into a library. If I ever manage to become megarich, I'll build a huge library.

For now, I have a very small collection of books. Maybe filling only one bookcase. And I'm very picky about the shape that they stay in. If I buy them used, that's one thing. But when they're brand new, I am as careful as possible to not crease, wrinkle, dent, or get anything on them. The spine especially. I hate cracking the spine of a paperback. I've seen people completely bend the front cover all the way to the back, and I cringe. It's those people that cause this one book to look years and years older than it should, with only one read. After I've read a paperback, there may only be a couple small cracks on the paperback's edge, because it's unavoidable really, but not bad. I've managed to read a few without splitting the spine at all. This may be one reason why I love hardback books. That, and they just look cool.

Being that I'm so anal about the condition of my books [I'm the same way with my dvds/tapes and cds] I rarely, if ever, lend them to other people to read. I lent a book to Chris' friend recently and whinced when the very bottom edges of the duskjacket were a bit worn. But that's tolerable.

About a month ago, I lent The Nanny Diaries to Chris' mom. I've seen the books she has here, and I know she reads a lot and have seen other books that she's had. They didn't appear to be in bad shape, so I figured she would be a safe borrower. Besides, this was a bookclub edition, so some slight wear was not a big deal at all.

She came in town yesterday. Even brought me a couple of books to read, which were in good shape save for the typical paperback spine. Then she handed me my book and commented on how much she enjoyed reading it.

I noticed the bottom of the dustjacket looked really wrinkled, the edges were curling very badly and part of it even tucked under itself. There was definitely an inaudible gasp. But I set the book down and didn't say anything. I didn't want to inspect it with her sitting right there, as I thought it would appear rude. Unless the front cover was torn off or something, I probably wouldn't have said anything anyhow.

So we continue talking, Chris comes home, she takes us to Cracker Barrell, and she leaves for Texas this morning. Blah blah blah.

I sat down in the other room not too long ago, to watch a movie. Absently picking up the book she returned, I notice that the book itself seems very worn. Just along the very bottom though, where the duskjacket was gimped. When looking close, I saw that the very bottom edge was almost shredding... It looks like a little kid dragged it along a vent or against the blade of a serrated knife. Looking a little more, and the bottom of the dustjacket is slightly discoloured, as well as some of the actual pages in the book. Then I noticed even more damage on the front and back of the book itself.

It was obvious that there was water damage. Only along the bottom edge and creeping up the sides of the covers, but damage all the same. I almost had a fake heart attack when I saw all of it. One of my precious books, my library babies, my tree with words... was mutilated. That's like having a child, then having its ear whacked off.

Now, I'm sure she didn't do it on purpose. She may not have known it even happened. I'm assuming she had a drink or something cold that the container was sweating, and the book was against it long enough to absorb the moisture and cause the damage. There wasn't enough to make the pages even stick together, but they and the cover are warped. Yet there's still this big, giant UGH lurking in the back of my throat and this feeling that I don't want to let people borrow anything, ever again.

Vent, vent, vent.

It's not like it's really this huge deal, mainly because I know it was an accident and only minimal damage involved. It just bugs me that one of my books got messed up, and since I have nothing else to write about, I figured this topic would be the next entry to add to my ever-expanding diary of boredom.

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