# I Destroyed a Book Today **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 3, 2010, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495 "2010-01-03T07:17:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rabies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f0a364/32.png) [@Rabies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rabies)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495/21 "2010-01-04T21:13:13Z")
> [@EvilTOJ](#): > > May I suggest [The Secret](http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Rhonda-Byrne/dp/1582701709/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262524047&sr=8-1) as your next book project? Be sure to read the [most helpful review](http://www.amazon.com/review/R2X2TB3S4O5I60/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R2X2TB3S4O5I60). Hey, it’s not that terrible! ---
**Author:** ![melodyharmonius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/melodyharmonius/32/21310_2.png) [@melodyharmonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melodyharmonius)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495/22 "2010-01-04T21:30:17Z")
I once saw a home-decorating show (Trading Spaces maybe?) where the designer wallpapered a room with pages from an old paperback. It felt so wrong. And yet it was just a yard sale book she got for a quarter, not some first edition. I hear ya totally. But I wanna do a project with an old book anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Intercourse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Textual\_Intercourse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Intercourse)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495/23 "2010-01-04T21:45:30Z")
> [@EvilTOJ](#): > > May I suggest [The Secret](http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Rhonda-Byrne/dp/1582701709/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262524047&sr=8-1) as your next book project? Be sure to read the [most helpful review](http://www.amazon.com/review/R2X2TB3S4O5I60/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R2X2TB3S4O5I60). But due to its small size, the book will only hold the flimsiest of contents. Yet…that’s what you had to begin with so I don’t see the trouble. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Intercourse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Textual\_Intercourse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Intercourse)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495/24 "2010-01-04T21:53:52Z")
I did this once when I was 16 or so. Straight up xacto knife style. It took forever and the result wasn’t that pretty but it was deep enough to hold a small bag of weed and some paraphernalia. IIRC, I had just read a digital edition of the Anarchist’s Cookbook and wanted to make something cool but also something that wouldn’t explode in my face. ---
**Author:** ![Alistair\_McCello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/58956e/32.png) [@Alistair\_McCello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alistair_McCello)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495/25 "2010-01-05T22:17:17Z")
> [@](#): > > We have a friend who destroys books to make birdhouses. Each birdhouse is unique. We have a few of them. [Here is one example](http://www.uncommongoods.com/item/item.jsp?itemId=15807). Those look awesome. I finally made it through all 700+ pages of the book. It took me two full afternoons and at least 8 hours of solid cutting. I sanded down the interior edges of the cavity and it ended up looking pretty nice. Now I just need to find something to put in it. I also need to find something to do with all of these pages I have sitting on my desk now. Perhaps I can blend it up and make my own paper with it. ---
**Author:** ![Neverending\_Elbow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e274bd/32.png) [@Neverending\_Elbow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neverending_Elbow)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495/26 "2010-01-05T22:33:50Z")
Would you mind posting a few pictures? I’d really like to see the final result, as well as how inconspicuous it looks among normal books. 🙂 Also, allow me to congratulate you on the choice of book title, as it will be a very secure hiding spot indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495/27 "2010-01-05T23:12:43Z")
I know exactly what you mean. It took me ages to do anything but mark my school textbooks with anything but light pencil. And I gasped audibly when my SO out an old novel in the recycling bin. I also just read an article about an up-and-coming artist who paint on collages of antique books (egads!). Apparently he doesn’t tell the book dealer what they’ll be used for because he knows very well that, if he did, the guy wouldn’t sell them to him. ---
**Author:** ![Alistair\_McCello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/58956e/32.png) [@Alistair\_McCello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alistair_McCello)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495/28 "2010-01-06T21:51:23Z")
> [@Neverending\_Elbow](#): > > Would you mind posting a few pictures? I’d really like to see the final result, as well as how inconspicuous it looks among normal books. 🙂 > > Also, allow me to congratulate you on the choice of book title, as it will be a very secure hiding spot indeed. Sure thing. [Here](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/quelkron/Misc/shelf.jpg) is a shot of it on a shelf (its the red one in the center). [Here](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/quelkron/Misc/closed.jpg) is one of the book closed, and [here](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/quelkron/Misc/open.jpg) is one of the interior. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495/29 "2010-01-07T04:31:06Z")
That review is the most awesomest thing I have read today. > [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > 😃 > > As for candidates for altered book projects, there are approximately 2.6 gazillion Reader’s Digest Condensed Books available. These are usually sold at used book stores by volume…that is, you go in, tell the nice clerk that you need about ten feet of books, and they’ll measure out ten feet of books. I am told that some people do this because they want to fill their empty book cases. I’m not sure that I believe that it’s POSSIBLE to have an empty book case. Right now, I have quite a few boxes of books in storage, and all my book cases are not just full, but overfull. > > I think that the OP chose the right book for the project. The information is no longer useful, but it’s still physically attractive, and much nicer looking than a Reader’s Digest condensed book. My grandfather had a secret compartment book…that he got FROM Reader’s Digest. He had a lot of those “Condensed Books” and the hollow book looked just like them. He used it to keep various important crap in. We have it now that he’s in a nursing home – my dad uses it for Pap’s important cards and documents and stuff. My cousins and I thought it was the coolest thing ever when we were kids. Destroying books? Please. If I could, I’d get my hands on every copy of _Twilight_ that exists and hurl them into the biggest bonfire I could manage, and then dance around it, cackling like mad. ---
**Author:** ![myskepticsight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495/30 "2010-01-07T04:50:37Z")
I mentioned this last year, but Christmas 2008 I opened my gift from my boyfriend and saw that it was a copy of Twilight, which he knew I had a HUGE amount of disdain for. I was very WTF and sad for a moment. Why would he buy me Twilight when he knows I think vampires are dumb? ☹ He had gutted the book and put an iPod Touch inside. I still have the gutted copy of Twilight because it was a very awesome gift prank. He didn’t do a beautiful job (didn’t glue all the pages together, it was the paperback after all) and he had to wrap a ribbon around the book for the iPod to stay inside, but it worked. He had to tell me to take the ribbon off before I started to get it. ---
**Author:** ![Elyanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5ac83/32.png) [@Elyanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elyanna)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495/31 "2010-01-07T04:58:25Z")
I burned a book on New Year’s Eve. We tore the pages out and made paper airplanes and flew them into the fire. I was tipsy. It was great. I don’t know what book it was. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-destroyed-a-book-today/523495.md?page=1)