paper, please

I love paperback books.

And I like to get them used.

I like used paperbacks that are just used enough to be floppy and easy to hold/fold back/read, but not so floppy that their pages are falling out of their binding (yet). I like to see and read books that have been read and enjoyed by others. Scuff marks, bent bindings and dogeared pages are signs of affection, I think, and it makes me happy to see such affection.

An unread book - especially a good unread book - makes me sad. An paperback whose cover is uncreased at the binding, a book whose pages are crisp and unbent ... it's a waste of paper and ink. Books were meant to be read, and an unread book is a conversation that was never listened to; a fantastic adventure that was never experienced. It's the (non)reader's loss, but a loss all the same.

Hardback books (or clothbound books, for those who worked in bookstores and are binding lingo-savvy ... ahem) are fine, and they look nice on shelves and make their readers look distinguished ... but they come with annoying dustjackets that have to either be left on the book and carefully handled so as to not be wrinkled or ripped, or they have to be removed and kept in a safe place so they can later be returned to their books.

I have a bad habit of forgetting to put the dustjacket back on the book, and so it happens that bookless jackets are found under my bed; beneath my sofa; tucked between other books on shelves; squished, folded and stuffed into other books or notebooks ... or they're just never found again, and I have jacketless, dust-collecting hardback books sitting with naked, mute-colored spines staring at me from my shelf.

Also, hardback books - while difficult to break in - are too quick to let go of their pages. My copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" can't have been read more than three times, yet its pages are coming loose, and I was much kinder to it than I am to many of my paperback books. And I managed to keep (and return) its dustjacket. It seems ungrateful of the book, then, for it to be spitting pages out at me as I attempt to read it.

Which is why I like paperback books.