The Physicality of Books
Do you have any rituals or procedures you go through after acquiring a new (or used) book?
Intro · Likes · Rituals · Necessity
Examples · Memories · Bios
Carol Emshwiller
Some books smell better than others and some feel better than others. I don’t know why. I frequently open them back then front then back then front then middle in order to make sure they don’t get lopsided from only being opened in the beginning only in the front.
Brian Evenson
When I buy books, I bring them home and then put the stack next to me on the couch, carefully peel off any price tags, read the cover copy, glance at the contents, try to get a sense of the book as a book. Recently purchased books go on a special shelf and are either quickly read or sit on the shelf for several months unread until I decide to file them with my other unread books.
Tim Feeney
Not quite when I buy a book, but how I treat it after I’ve read it borders on ritualistic. I mark the calendar when I’ve finished a book, which I mainly started out of curiosity to see how many I read in a year. Only when I’ve finished the book does it go in the shelves (I keep unread books in the closet). Then I alphabetize by author, regardless of genre—Donald Antrim is next to Aurelius is next to Exotic Tropical Fishes by Herbert R. Axelrod—and then chronologically by date of publication. This is probably neurosis-free compared to some bibliophiles’ quirks. (Though if for some reason you want to talk about the smell of books, as referenced in your question, I could go on for a creepily long time…I have a copy of the collected Addison & Steele Spectator from 1854 [bought from Babbitt’s Books, Normal IL, US$35.00] that smells incredible, dusty and smoky and slightly mildewed and somehow noble. My 1952 hardcover of Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano [book club edition, seventy-five cents at a Bloomington IL library sale] still smells like the world’s mustiest basement—the mildew hits you even before you open the cover—but again, it’s very appealing. Possibly perverse. I wonder what a Gutenberg Bible smells like…)
Jeffrey Ford
If it’s a non-fiction book, I rarely ever read it from cover to cover. I usually start in the middle somewhere and then skip around until I can’t find a place I haven’t read before.
Karen Joy Fowler
I probably do usually smell the book, but not in a ritualistic way. My ritual consists of throwing it into the pile on my nightstand of books I plan to read soon, unless I’m actually going to read it, in which case I start pretty immediately.
Neil Gaiman
It’s personal and kind of embarrassing, and involves a tea ceremony, scented candles, and a highly paid blind chaperone. Er, make that “no”.
Stephen Gallagher
No, although I once held a 1920 copy of The Return of Tarzan in the steam from a kettle after a maggot crawled up out of the top of the spine and sat there watching me as I read.
Theodora Goss
The book must find its place. English literature is in roughly chronological order, with accommodation for preferences. Kipling, Haggard, and Conan Doyle, for example, prefer to be next to each other, and away from James. Foreign literature is geographic, beginning with Greece and ending with Japan. First, even before reading, I must make sure that the book is comfortable with its neighbors.
M. John Harrison
I read books with an exaggerated care, presumably as a result of childhood warnings to “respect” them (as if they’re rare objects, which maybe they were in lower middle class households in the UK in 1952, who knows). I often take the dust jacket off a new hardback, partly to have a look at the boards, partly so it doesn’t get damaged as I read. How sad is that?
