ConditioningMariel suggested this week’s question.
Are you a spine breaker? Or a dog-earer? Do you expect to keep your books in pristine condition even after you have read them? Does watching other readers bend the cover all the way round make you flinch or squeal in pain?
With new paperbacks, I do 'condition' the spine. I try hard NOT to break the spine, just loosen it up a bit. I don't dog-ear. It does make me cringe when I see others folding books back. The worst is when I see someone one doing this in a bookstore; most of the time I'll see them put the book back on the shelf with the broken spine and pick up an unbroken copy to buy! That makes me see red. I want to hurt those people... badly.
I don't expect my books to stay pristine (especially not with a 2 year old running around), but I do try to keep them looking nice. I'm more careful though if it is a borrowed book.
I read a bunch of these this past Thursday and everybody was all "I keep mine pristine," so I tried to read my latest book (Gatsby's Girl) without conditioning the spine--my hand ended up getting tired and I ended up just opening it up all the way.
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