Fantastic Metropolis

Intro · Likes · Rituals · Necessity
Examples · Memories · Bios

Barry Hughart

I open it fast and hard [in] at least four places, seeing how well it takes the strain. Then I read everything except the text. Then I either put it in the To Read pile or the Exchange at Bookman’s pile, which gets a lot on it because of illiterate or bullshit blurbs.

Rhys Hughes

I always wash my hands before reading a book that I have already decided is special. But I never dust my books, because this creates the illusion that the unread ones are equal to their more regularly consulted brothers and sisters. It is the responsibility of time and usage to maintain or dispel this distinction. I hate cramming volumes too tightly on shelves, though I might make an exception for literature which comes from the age of corsets. I no longer arrange my books chronologically. Although this is still less mundane than arranging them in alphabetical order, the comedy of interweaving books of different authors according to year has worn thin. I have a small model bookworm which rests on my books. I move it from book to book at infrequent intervals. I suppose I imagine it is reading them. This ritual is slightly original and somewhat irritating. I allow myself to sip coffee with a book, but never to eat oranges. I only read old books in bed.

Shelley Jackson

I hit myself in the mouth with it until I draw blood.

Harvey Jacobs

I never bit a book spine but it sounds delicious. If the books are used, I do give them a sniff or two and a look-over for stains, the source of which might be spine biter dribble.

Stephen Jones

I always take the jacket off and check the binding (especially Arkham House volumes). I also flip through second-hand books to check for signatures, annotations, letters, or interesting clippings. I’ve found all of these over the years. My favorites include discovering that the cheap copy of This Mortal Coil (Arkham) I bought with no dust jacket (I got a mint one later) had been annotated by Lady Cynthia Asquith herself, or the Canadian edition of Weird Tales that had been signed by Robert Bloch. Sometimes it’s just a newspaper review or contemporary postcard that had been used as a bookmark. My friend David Carson once picked up a copy of H. Russell Wakefield’s Arkham House collection Strayers From Sheol for 15 cents in a box outside a bookstore. That would have been a find in itself. However, it turned out to be Wakefield’s own copy, fully annotated by him!

Henry Kaiser

[I] leave it in a stack for a while (often forgetting where and which stack), then sometimes lose it when I need it then find it again and read, or put it on the shelf.

James Patrick Kelly

Not really, although when I read a hardcover, I always remove the dust jacket to keep from fraying it. Alas, sometimes I will then misplace the dust jacket and it will disappear, no doubt into that same nether region where unmatched black socks hide.

Rick Klaw

I’m a big fan of smelling books. Also, I will carry a newly acquired book from room to room in my house until I find it a home.

John Klima

Nothing for hardcovers. If I’m going to read it right away, I’ll remove the dust jacket and put it upside down on the shelf so it sticks out to my eye and I get to reading it. With paperbacks, new and used, I always smell them. New books remind of the summer between grade school and middle school when I discovered Stephen King short stories and Piers Anthony (maybe a little advanced—or even too explicit!—for my young mind, but my mother loved that I read). I would always gravitate to the spinning paperback rack in the grocery store or drug store (this was well before B&N infiltrated the world) and pore over the lurid covers, trying to find another King or Anthony. Whenever I smell a new book, it smells like that summer. Old books remind me of my grandmother and aunt (on my Dad’s side—his mom and sister), who were both great proponents of my reading. They introduced me to C. S. Lewis, Philip Jose Farmer, among others. They had all sorts of great “old” books that I could sit among and look at. Used books remind of those two women whom I love dearly.