Fantastic Metropolis

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

Anna Tambour

Delaying gratification. Not always, but usually. Certainly, never having the first real sit-down with any book at a time when it would get distracted attention.

Jeffrey Thomas

I’ve never heard of biting books, but I love to crack a book and smell its crisp inky whiteness if new, its ivory warm attic mustiness if old.

Scott Thomas

I’m a book smeller, I admit it.

William Thompson

The only ritual I go through, besides a physical examination of the book, is the application of brodart covers to protect the jackets. However, I should mention that all my more valued books are kept in a well-ventilated, as much as possible temperature controlled room with the blinds drawn to protect the books from potential environmental damage, such as light. Similarly, the lamps within this room are incandescent, and remain off unless I am needing to locate one of the books.

Jeff Topham

What I love about used books is that they are saturated with the lives they’ve lived before. They smell of coffee or cigarettes or curry. I’ve found books that contained pressed flowers or pieces of paper containing scribbled notes that time has transformed into an unintelligible cipher.

Lisa Tuttle

No “rituals,” but I do sniff the pages of my new books, and always slip off the jacket to see what the binding is like.

Alan Wall

I usually lose it, though this is temporary. It seems to slip off to introduce itself. I have no idea how many books there are in this house—a lot. People remark upon it. If books don’t furnish a room, then we have a lot of radically unfurnished rooms. After a week or so, the book re-appears, from under a table or behind a shelf. Ready to be opened. One of the crew now.

Michael Walsh

Take the jacket off, look at the binding.

Liz Williams

Well, I usually lose it immediately, but that’s inadvertent.

Neil Williamson

I do sometimes smell a new book. I often run my thumb along the unopened edge, feeling the thickness of pages. If I’ve bought more than one book, I’ll arrange them in a stack or spread them out and work out which I’m going to read first; maybe I’ll read the first paragraph or so of each and see which grabs me. Before I start reading the text, I read everything else: every word of title, author’s name, blurb, and quotes on the cover and spine; the copyright information, and who printed it; what other books the author has written. I might read this information two or three times before starting the story—it’s as if once I start reading the thing it is no longer the new book as artifact, it is now simply a container for the story within, and the story becomes the thing that is important. I’ll procrastinate more—noting what page number the story starts on, and on what page number it finishes, so I can use this information to keep tabs on how far through I am. I might sample random passages by flicking through and reading from the place where my gaze alights, knowing that I’ll easily have forgotten what I’ve read when I get that far in the story. Only then, when I’ve exhausted the range of possible things you can do with a book, will I start to read it.

Richard Winters

I will usually write my name and the date in it—defacing it just enough so that it’s mine.