# Are you a book nazi?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-book-nazi/61581>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [April 11, 2001, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-book-nazi/61581 "2001-04-11T11:25:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-book-nazi/61581/21 "2001-04-12T10:59:04Z")

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It occurs to me that I might want to borrow a book from a fellow Doper someday, so let me clarify something. Although I am casual with my own books, I am _extremely_ careful with borrowed books. Including library books. Am I the only one who loves the idea of all these Doper houses with stacks of books everywhere? \<happy shiver\>

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**Author:** ![Francesca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@Francesca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francesca)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-book-nazi/61581/22 "2001-04-12T12:25:22Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Barbarian \*  
> \*\ ***Francesca,** the words may be important, but the packaging does count too. Just like people 😃  
> \*\*

This is true, and i didn’t really make it clear that i wasn’t talking about hardbacks. I respect hardbacks as much as the next person, but i’m too poor to buy them so i generally only have paperback versions. It’s killing me to wait for Steven King’s autobiography to come out in paperback over here. But i find reading a book in paperback more enjoyable anyway - then it isn’t some lofty tome, it’s something you can be intimate with. With a hardback i always feel like i should be sitting up properly but with a good paperback i can curl up and properly lose myself. I love books.

And _obviously_ i wasn’t talking about library books. They’re not your books to defile.

> [@](#):
>
> It’s not so much a Nazi thing as it is simply taking care of one’s possessions. I might (gasp!) actually want to read a book again, so I take care of the ones I have, paperback or not.

I read my books over and over again too- that’s why they get so tatty and i **love** them tatty. It’s like a little record of my enjoyment of and attention to them. I haven’t got to the stage where any of them actually falling apart, but if i did it’s just a matter of getting another copy. I’d keep the old copy though. I’m with Manda JO on this - it’s like you’ve made your mark on the book - staked it out as your territory and important to you personally. In fact, when/if i have the money i intend to start collecting annotated books and antique notebooks. Now they would be treasures.

Fran

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**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-book-nazi/61581/23 "2001-04-12T15:25:38Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Barbarian \*  
> \*\*If I bent the spines, how the hell would I identify them on the shelves? Keep 'em clean, keep 'em tidy . . . \*\*

**Barbarian,** are you sure you’ve chosen an appropriate username? 😉

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**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-book-nazi/61581/24 "2001-04-12T21:50:00Z")

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Certified book Nazi. I hate seeing books crumpled up, corners folded, scribbling in them, dirty, creased covers, etc. For one thing, it seems disrespectful. You have to destroy a book to read it?

Second, books are expensive. Even paperbacks run 6 or 7 bucks. Who wants to spend $25 or more on a hardback? Paperbacks stretch that book budget so much farther. And even though I’m no longer a teenager on a $5 a week allowance, books still get expensive when I follow my obsession. (Believe me, it’s an obsession. I haven’t quite been skipping work to read… yet.)

I like to keep my books - they’re trophies of what I’ve read, and they come in handy if I want to reread them later. Also, they can be lent out and shared. I’m now in a reading club where we do exaclty that. Sure is much easier to read a book in good shape than crumpled, stained, water-logged, and scribbled in. Plus, I grew up sharing books anyway. Three siblings buying and reading the same books, often fighting for the order to read them. Makes book buying stretch further if you don’t have to buy 3 copies of the book (1 each), but can buy three different books and take turns.

Finally, it is distracting to try to read a book that someone has marked up, highlighted, and made notes in. I can’t follow the story for all the annotations, it’s annoying. And that’s not just with books. I have the same problem at work. It frustrates me to try to keep clean copies of drawings or documents around the office when others borrow them, then scribble all over them. Why? Sometimes I have to include a clean copy in a data file, or send it to someone else. Maybe I have to give a copy to the shop to manufacture from it. Maybe I need to copy off a figure to put in a presentation - sure sucks to have some hand-scribbled notes across the pretty picture.

I tried reading a book while eating - too difficult, as it is hard to keep the book open and turn pages, and easy to get food stains on it. I do read magazines while eating, but they tend to lay flat on their own, something books don’t do.

If someone wants to trash their own books, that’s their business - I just won’t lend them mine.

Oh, and the paperbacks I read often have pretty pictures on the cover - I hate to see those messed up, too. Do NOT use a book as a coaster!

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**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-book-nazi/61581/25 "2001-04-12T22:21:48Z")

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No no no. I’m really hard on books, but they’re usually in serviceable condition even after I get done with them. Hardcovers get _no_ special treatment from me, although I try not to buy them anyway because they’re too goddamn heavy to carry on the train with me.

I’m not much of a marker, at least not since I’m out of school, but I do bend over pages (no Senator jokes here, please) on the rare occasion I find something really interesting or quotable.

I hope everyone’s read 84 Charing Cross Road? If you haven’t you must - anyway, the author talks about her great pleasure in buying used books and letting them fall open to the prior owner’s favorite passages…

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**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2001, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-book-nazi/61581/26 "2001-04-13T09:23:37Z")

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I use books as a medium for getting the content therein from the author to me, not as precious objects. If I feel like writing, folding, highlighting, whatever, I’ll do it. Usually I don’t, and I usually make it through a book without breaking the spine. If it’s a hardcover, or I think I might lend it out, I’ll probably abstain from marking it, but I don’t buy the damn things for a pretty set of bound sheets of paper.

There was a horrible textbook (Boyce and DiPrima’s Differential Equations book) where I found it easier to use a black permanent marker to keep myself from rereading useless text. It also developed several obscenities directed at the authors in the margins. Needless to say, I didn’t try to sell it when I was done, despite the “improvements”.

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**Author:** ![Tedster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@Tedster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tedster)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2001, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-book-nazi/61581/27 "2001-04-13T10:35:36Z")

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I have a nice collection of books, and they are one of lifes best pleasures. I love the internet and all, but somehow it doesn’t compare to reading in bed. (Maybe laptops or something similar will supplant bookshelves someday) Still, a collection of books is a beautiful thing–No electricity required, handy and portable.

Now, to the more fascistic aspect of books.

Well, I had a roommate in the Army who had a paper back of something or other I wanted to read. I casually asked him “Hey can I read your book?”

He sort of pondered me for a second and said “Yeah, but if you’ll notice that I only open the book partway in order not to crease the spine; All my books (gestures towards stack) don’t have any creases in the spine, I hate that.”

Sure, no problem. It was sort of awkward, but I think a good practice. My pet peeve in general is the poor quality of the books themselves. I cannot stand it when I’ve paid 20 bucks for a book and the cover starts separating from the book. Pages falling out? Well, the bindery people who signed off on that need to be beaten severely. (kidding!)

It seems like pre-war books (World War II) were of better quality paper, I have some older ones and the paper hasn’t yellowed. Then around the 40’s the books got much lighter and the paper pulpy and rough. Lot’s worse has happened since then as well, but definitely a sign of impending anarchy and mob rule.

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**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2001, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-book-nazi/61581/28 "2001-04-13T11:13:15Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Francesca \*  
> \*\*The way i see it, there are two types of book readers (well, ok there’s thousands, but for the sake of this post…) - there are those that will **never** turn the corner of a page down or bend it back too far, keep their books lovingly [sub]anally[/sub] stacked neatly on shelves or the floor and recoil in horror at the thought of reading in the bath lest the book become tainted by water, the mark of the beast as far as these readers are concerned.  
> Then there are those who will devour the book- write on it, muddy it, bend it, enjoy it for all it’s worth and when done with it, cast it aside like the defiled shell that it has become. Well, maybe not cast it aside. And maybe not defiled in the biblical sense.
> 
> Anyway, how anal are you about your books? Because i just don’t understand this - it’s the _words_ that are important, not the paper. If it’s a first edition then fine, keep it safe. But other than that why so uptight? I don’t like other people messing up my books, but i like to leave my mark on my books, i like them to at least look like they’ve been enjoyed. Where’s the joy in a row of sterile unread/unloved books? Feast upon the books!  
> \*\*

A) I’m not _any_ kind of Nazi. (I know what you mean, but I can’t let that comment go…I _hate_ \<Noun\>-Nazi as a descriptor)

B) I like to keep my books in good shape.

C) You’ve created a false dichotomy. You’ve insinuated that people who don’t treat books like toilet paper don’t enjoy books. It’s entirely possible to love books, read books and not ruin them. Guess which camp I fall into?

D) Sure it’s the words that are important. But the words are on paper. If the paper is mildewed from being dropped in the tub (I admit to reading in the tub…carefully), if the words are obscured by food stains, or magic marker or whatever, it’s harder to read the words. If chunks of words are missing because the corner of the book you dog-eared finally came off, pages have fallen out because you’ve broken the glue on the spine, the words are gone.

E) I’ve got paperbacks from the early '50s, pulp magazines from the '30s and hardcovers from the turn of the century. All of them have been read, reread and loved by me and the previous owners. The reason I’m able to reread them is that someone back when took care of them and that on each reread, I try to care for them too.

Also, you said

> [@](#):
>
> . I haven’t got to the stage where any of them actually falling apart, but if i did it’s just a matter of getting another copy. I’d keep the old copy though.

That’s great, if another copy is available, but try to find another copy of (to choose a fairly recent book) Sherri Tepper’s Marianne, The \<something\> and the Malachite Mouse for less than $100. It’s only 10 years old, too. You never know when a book will go out of print or become hard to find. I keep 'em in the best possible shape as long as I can so that they’ll _be_ there to re-read in 10 years.

Looking over the above post, it seems far more strident/antagonistic than I’d intended. Here’s a bunch of smilies: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 to use as you see fit. 😉

Fenris

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