So, I may not have done much of my promised blogging about books last week, but I was at least thinking about the subject. Cranky Robert and I exchanged a flurry of e-mails which resulted in mutually recommended reading for both of us, as well as my discovery of the Titanic Book Site, a wonderful resource for anyone interested in the world’s most famous sunken ocean liner. And I also walked up the street from my office one day to Sam Weller’s and bought a couple of books. That may not sound terribly noteworthy, but it sort of is, at least to me. You see, I don’t buy many books these days. And that’s quite a change from The Way Things Used to Be.
If you were to graph my lifetime book-buying habit, you’d end up with a sort of lopsided bell curve that starts off gradually in elementary and middle school — obviously, I had no real income as a child, and my only sources of bookage at that time were the wire racks at Riverton Drug and the occasional Scholastic Book Fair — then begins a gradual rise around my high school years, corresponding, as you can imagine, to my new-found mobility upon getting a driver’s license, the construction of a nearby shopping mall, and the inclusion in said mall of a Waldenbooks location, the first bona-fide bookstore I can remember visiting. The curve arches sharply upward in the college years, when I discovered that I could buy old paperbacks for five or ten cents each at thrift stores and the campus library‘s open-twice-a-week sale room. Sure, everything I got from those places smelled a little musty and was printed two decades earlier, but how could a lit major resist the temptation of picking up an entire stack of reading material for only a couple of bucks? I carried home many such stacks in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
And then came the mid ’90s, the arrival of the Barnes and Noble chain in the Salt Lake area, and the revelation of the remainder table, where you could buy last year’s hardcovers for less money than this year’s paperbacks. That was followed by the appearance of catalogs and then online stores where you could find many, many more remaindered books, and then finally there was Amazon. Needless to say, my book-buying bell curve suddenly starts to resemble Mt. Everest at this point. I was in bibliophile’s heaven. There was only one problem: I was buying books at a faster rate than I could read them, and had been for years. I realized one day that I had dozens, if not hundreds, of volumes that I’d never read, had never even cracked open. Suddenly, all the pleasure drained out of my book shopping. I felt guilty and more than a little ridiculous. I wondered if I had some kind of addiction. I certainly felt out of control, and I didn’t like it one bit. The curve falls as rapidly as it ascended sometime around 2001.
For a long time, I didn’t buy any books at all. I just worked on reading down the stacks a bit. Recently, however, I’ve begun to purchase again, but slowly, just one or two on occasion. It’s all I will allow myself. And I find that such enforced moderation, which forces me to be selective about what I get, has actually made book-buying fun again.
Well, somewhat fun. There’s still a problem. You see, the publishing industry has changed in the last few years. It used to be that you had basically two choices when it came to how you spent your biblio-dollar: there was the relatively expensive hardcover, and the relatively cheap paperback. When I was younger and didn’t have any money, I naturally opted for the cheap option. When the remainder table came along — coincidentally around the same time I started making some real wages instead of the pittance paid to movie-theater ushers and projectionists — I happily switched to hardbacks, believing them to be more prestigious and durable. But they were also more bulky, an issue which has become very important as space in the Bennion Archives is now at a premium and steadily shrinks with each new acquisition. So I’m back to favoring paperbacks, on the grounds that they’re more compact and easier to store in quantity.
Except that the good old-fashioned paperback seems to have become an endangered species. These days, many, if not most, new titles — at least the ones I’m interested in — are published as trade paperbacks, a larger format that looks like some kind of intermediate step between traditional hard and soft covers. Naturally, this new flavor costs more than standard paperbacks, too. They’re not as pricey as hardcovers, but they still put more of a bite on the old debit card than I’d like. I bought just two books last week — John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley and a new “science fantasy” novel that caught my fancy, Chris Roberson’s Paragaea — both in trade paperback format, and they cost me over 30 dollars. I used to buy a whole box of books for that much, two boxes if I bought used. (Most of the used bookstores I used to frequent have vanished, a topic I hope to cover in another post.)
Not only is the initial outlay more, but the high price of trade papers is affecting how I handle my books. I’ve never been one to abuse them, but I find I’m much more concerned about condition now. I have to consider resale value in case I don’t like the book, and even if I do, I have an investment to maintain. I feel like I’m only a couple of bucks away from wearing white cotton archivist’s gloves as I read, and I don’t like being so self-conscious about it.
As far as I’m concerned, trade papers have all of the cons of the two traditional formats — the bulk of a hardcover, the relative fragility of a paperback — and none of the pros. Frankly, I miss the days when you’d spend two or three bucks on a pocket-sized paperback that you really could shove in your pocket without worrying about it. Life was simpler then…
Good topic, Jason. I’m also guilty of buying more books than I can read. Since organizing my book collection, the surplus of unread books has become even more obvious. Still, when it comes to purchasing books, I’ve come to accept certain (personal) truths . . .
1. It’s never a waste to spend money on books. One never wants to spend above one’s means, but when it comes to buying books I just don’t feel guilty the way I do when I buy CDs, DVDs, electronic gadgets, etc. Books are what matter in life, and they are forever.
2. You can almost always find what you want used, in great condition, for less money. The advent of online used book search engines liked abebooks.com, alibris.com, and bookfinder.com has revolutionized book-buying. You can tap into a worldwide inventory of used and out-of-print books, something that would have been unimaginable just twenty years ago.
3. Hardbacks are just better. Here’s where we disagree, Jason. Personal preference.
4. Dustjackets are basically wrapping paper. I’ve agonized over this one for a while, but I’ve finally become comfortable throwing away the dustjacket as soon as I buy a book. It’s an advertisement. And books look better on the shelf with their cloth binding and stamped titles.
Those are my four cents. (I’m bracing myself for your response to #4!)
Cranky Robert
Thanks for numbering your points, Robert – so much easier to keep everything straight! 🙂
1. It wasn’t exactly the expense of the unread books that got to me; it was more the storage problem, as well as a growing consciousness of the overconsumption and wastefulness of our society at large. Basically, I just started to feel like I had too much unused stuff, of all descriptions, and it was difficult to justify to myself. I still haven’t quite reconciled either of those issues. Curiously, I tend to lump CDs, DVDs, and books into the same category in my mind; they’re all media, and I feel more-or-less the same attachment and/or guilt toward all of them.
2. I have used abebooks.com, on your recommendation, and been greatly pleased with the service. But I find that online sources are really only useful if you know specifically what you want. I find it much more pleasing to go and browse through a physical store, looking for nothing in particular until a title jumps out at me.
3. I agree that hardbacks are generally better in overall quality and aesthetic terms (although I do like the aesthetics of older paperbacks — the cover art of the 60s and 70s, especially in the science fiction genre, and the smell of the paper and glue they used back then are fabulous). I’ve drifted back to paperbacks, again, because of space concerns. They’re smaller, even the trade papers, which means I can stuff more of them into my available storage space. It’s not a question of which is better.
4. Well, here’s where personal preference definitely comes into play. As you expected, I disagree with your view on this one. I do tend to remove the dustjacket while I’m actually reading the book, because I want to keep it from getting beaten up, but it always goes back on before the book goes on the shelf. I myself dislike a “naked” book — the gold stamping on the title usually comes off from handling, and that makes the book look shabby to my eye. And even if the stamping stays on and the cloth escapes any staining or fading, a jacketless book looks unfinished to me. As for the jacket being an advertisement, I suppose you could make that case, but it’s not something that bothers me, especially if there’s some nice artwork or an eye-catching graphic design. (Admittedly, these are rare commodities these days. Photoshop has virtually destroyed commercial art — DVD covers and movie posters are especially bad these days, but book covers have been affected, too.)
Storage will always be a problem. Ruthie and I go back and forth on this–at a certain point she thinks a room full of books looks oppressive; while I love being surrounded by my beloved books.
I’ve actually seen a few blogs where people debate the dustjacket issue. It’s hotly contested, and I see both sides. I have some books where the jacket art is so striking that I have to keep it. But to respond to the wear-and-tear issue, I think a shabby book is a well read book. I generally crack the spines, dog-ear the pages, write in the margins, and spill cookie crumbs all over (the latter turn up years later as powder on a grease stain). When I read in the bathtub I usually wind up dunking a corner in the water. So my books look pretty worn out. But I love them all the more, like a leather travel bag that bears the marks of many an adventure.
The smell of books is an underexplored topic. I know just what you’re talking about with those old paperbacks. Having bought a lot of used books in the last couple of years, I find that older hardbacks come with several distinct categories of smell. There’s the mildew smell that nobody likes. Then there’s the baked-dust smell that permeates used bookstores. And then there’s a smell I can’t quite identify, but it reminds me of certain libraries. It’s almost a combination of baked dust and new paint. When I open my mail and that smell comes out, I’m right back in college pulling an all-nighter in the library.
Gaaaaah! Philistine! Book abuser! Defiler of the crisp white page! Sacrilege!
Just kidding. 🙂 I suspect your treatment of books as utilitarian objects is probably a lot more common than my, ahem, more archival approach. I don’t remember when I became so fastidious about condition — certainly I wasn’t so careful when I was younger, as the earliest volumes in my library are pretty hammered. But beginning sometime around my college years, I became much, much more careful — probably because of the textbook buy-back program that gave you more money if the book was in better condition. Whatever the cause, I’ve gotten to where I can’t bear to do more than minimal damage. It drives me crazy when I see people fold their paperbacks in half as they read. And I cannot abide writing in the margins; I just can’t bring myself to do it, or to buy a used book that has it. Anne says it’s a symptom of my OCD, and I can’t really argue because my response to it is so visceral.
Book-smell is an interesting topic, now that you mention it. I respond strongly to things printed in the ’70s that have retained some of their “new” odor, probably because of the childhood memory triggers, but I also like what you call the “baked-dust” smell. My favorite smelly used books in my collection (that sounds odd) came from an old hippie head shop, so they retain a little hint of incense…
Next time I want to rattle your cage I’ll send an abused paperback in the mail. Better yet: pictures of one and a ransom note.
Speaking of your OCD, we haven’t even brought up the subject of how you MUST find the perfect, pristine book (or anything else) before making your purchase. And I hate the fact that this has rubbed off on me. 🙂
Robert: you are an evil, evil man.
Anne: sorry, hon. I can’t help it if it makes me shudder to think of how the first item in the rack has always been handled by who knows how many people with who knows what all over their grubby, sticky, icky little fingers… ugh!