One of the things my mom taught my sister and I, by example, was to love reading. Another thing she taught us was to love books. My fiction books (the picture is one grouping of books in our guestroom) are pretty pristine. It took me a long time to feel comfortable enough with my writing books to highlight and make notes on the pages. I have a wee bit of guilt when I do that, but the point of those books is infinitely different from the point of my novels.
Besides, I own them.
I've been checking a few books out of the library lately and am ready to string a few Book Bashers up. Creased pages? Have these people never heard of a bookmark?
One of the first Dean Koontz novels I checked out not only had creased pages, but wherever Koontz used a word that was more than two syllables, it was circled with a question mark. The second Koontz was just the same.
I think I'm following this reader through my local library. The book I'm currently leaving my bookmark in had an editing faux pas . . . corrected on the page by my nemesis.
Now, this is gross, but what are all of those ooky things on the pages? Am I going to catch something by reading books Creasers and Markers and Germy people have read?
Books checked out from the library are guests in my home. I need to treat them as guests. And when I crack them open to read, I'm a guest within those pages. I need to be a good guest.
What? Am I wrong here?
What I'm currently reading: Fox Evil by Minette Walters
What I'm currently working on: Some practical issues in an early scene that I hadn't caught the gazillion times I'd rewritten it before. Sheesh.
It's all better with friends.
