What’s to stop you from buying a book that the person you’re giving it to doesn’t want but you do want to read it? Well, what’s to stop you from buying sexy underwear for your wife that you like but which you know perfectly well she hates? What’s to stop you from giving anyone in your household an item that you know they won’t (or indeed can’t) use but you will? What’s to stop you from giving anyone a set of books about your personal political/philosophical/social/religious beliefs that you already know that they hate and will just throw out? Eventually it comes down to you knowing how much the person will enjoy their gift. If you can’t do that, arbitrary rules about the condition of the item will be useless. If you are so blind to other people’s needs and wants that you can’t figure them out, no simple rule will help you.
Yeah, I don’t think my sneaky subconscious is going to trick me into buying books I want for someone else and passing them off as gifts.
As far as gifting a book from my own shelf, I don’t see anything too terrible about that either. Can I really not give a beloved niece a George Selden boxed set in good condition with a “these were mine when I was your age and I wanted you to have them”? As a child I treasured such gifts, far more than if someone had bought me some random paperbacks.
As far as gifts you plan to use first go, sometimes circumstances come up in which it makes sense to buy an item you don’t need to own for a single use–perhaps you are traveling and have one at home or will have nowhere to keep one at home. I’m thinking about something like a bike, a guitar, or a chainsaw. And suppose your friend would like to own such an item and Christmas is coming, but you would spend $50-$100 on a gift for them normally, not the full cost of these items. Is it wrong to buy the item with this in mind, specifically spending $300 or so on the thing with the intention of using it a few times and giving it as a gift when you’re done? Does it matter if the item is new or used at the time of purchase, so you’re now using up the shiny newness?
No one who actually hopes to enjoy playing their guitar or riding their bike would prefer a brand-new $100 Walmart made-in-China version instead of a carefully-chosen decent-quality $300 used one that probably cost $600 new. Paying $600 for a new one just for them was never a possibility.
Or is it better just to buy them the latest pristine Stephen King hardback and a coffee-table book with pictures of bikes or guitars or chainsaws, so long as I don’t smudge up the pictures with my greasy paws?
AnaMen, stop setting up these strawmen, it’s ridiculous. Nobody is actually talking about gifting a far larger gift than would be expected, gifting a high quality used item instead of a cheap new item, or gifting a sentimental keepsake.
The person in question bought a commonly available book, with the intention of reading said book before giving it to the intended recipient. That is the situation, it is not so overly complicated or nuanced to require intense thought or convoluted analogies, despite the fact that I participated with one myself.
Generally speaking, if you buy a gift for someone, it is not with the intention of using said item yourself, that’s not the point of buying a gift. Now, if you have a Mi Libro Es Su Libro understanding with your recipient, they are not likely to be offended if you read the book in advance, but wouldn’t it be kind to give them first crack at the story?
There is nothing about this particular situation that warrants violating the general point of gift giving. The buyer is not stuck in a snowstorm with no viable alternative entertainment, they’re not stuck at the dentists office, they’re not giving a $200 chainsaw instead of a $50 bottle of scotch, they’re not giving a valuable signed first edition.
Yes, actually they are. It has been said that gifts must be “new,” must have been purchased expressly for the recipient and only the recipient, may not already belong to the giver, etc.
The original situation in which one teen planned to read the books she was giving her sister struck me as delightful, actually. The idea of two young sisters so eager to devour the latest books in a series both enjoy that one buys the books for the other and rushes home and carefully reads them in secret, wraps them up and gifts them, and then both share and bond discussing them is adorable. I can picture them giggling together over not being able to wait, the little one exclaiming she’d have done the exact same thing, etc., all over books. Books!
Certainly - depending again on the situation. If I’m a collector, giving to another collector, it may even be expected.
Actually I don’t think anyone posted ALL gifts must be new. I think the sentiment is that gifts intended to be given as new should be new and unused. Gifts that are intended to be used (such as the list of reasons I’d give someone a used book in my post) or are explicit about them being used are fine.
Seems awfully mystical to me. Assigning some sort of inherent gift-ness in the act of purchase, as opposed to the act of careful selection. Given that the recipient is likely to notice the selection, rather than the purchase-status, I’d submit that as far as the recipient is concerned the former is more important than the latter.
To my mind, the “specialness” in giving a book often relates to the fact that I know it is a good book, one that the recipient would want to read.
I very often give away my favorite books for just this reason - because I think (say) my brother would really enjoy reading The Master and Margarita. Maybe I’ll buy him a new one, or maybe I’ll give him the one I’ve just read. I see no real difference.
Knowing whether a book is good or not sort in many cases suggests that you have already read it yourself.
Whether you read this particular copy or not strikes me as quite irrelevant - except in the aforementioned mystical sense - unless you are the sort who damages books in the process of reading them.
Certainly there is. “Books” are not like (say) soap, stuffed toys for tots or sweaters - all analogies made above. With stuffed toys, soap or sweaters (or indeed most other gifts), you know more or less exactly what the thing is before you give it without having personally used the product; moreover, personal use of the product can damage it or seem gross.
Not so with books, movies, or other media. For such things, it is sometimes the case that the giver will want to very carefully select what they are giving to suit the taste of the recipient, which can only be done if they know the contents. That implies that the giver has in fact read the book him or herself. The “gifting” effort lies in the careful selection, not in the “newness” of the object - about which the recepient is in any event likely to be ignorant.
That said, there are certainly situations, as I mentioned above, where buying a book, reading it yourself, and then “gifting” it is tacky and in bad taste: two sisters who both want to read the latest Harry Potter or whatever stike me as one of 'em, because ne “newness” of being first to read the latest story is in effect the point of that particular gift; the sister reciving the gift is likely to be annoyed that the other one already knows the story. But in the case of books, I’d really hesitate to elevate such specific situations into a binding “general rule”.
I don’t think I’ve ever given anybody a book that I had not already read myself years ago, and was now buying a new copy to give to them.
However, if I was gifting a book I had not read before and did have interest in, I would read it before giving. It’s completely possible to read books without leaving a trace. Hell, a lot of books at new bookstores have been partially or fully read already by staff or customers.
I also tend to fan the pages of books I buy for gifts to make sure there are no loose pages or folded misprints inside. To me that would be enough motion (it loosens the pages slightly from one another and makes it less “bricklike”) to have “ruined” whatever newness the book might have had (I mean hell I did “look” at all the pages and that’s about the same as reading them). So I guess nobody ever gets a “new” book from me…
And they’ll never know it!
I buy the majority of my books used anyway due to out of print reasons so I really don’t give a damn. A used book has much better qualities in my opinion - the scent for one thing is 10x better. However, I also want to keep 99% of the books I read so if I read their book I’d probably feel compelled to keep it and would have to get a second copy for them.
I once had somebody give me their used scanner as a birthday present because they knew mine broke. I was ecstatic. I still use the scanner today. Newness is not required for a present to be great - it was great because she knew I wanted it.
Post #102, Hampshire:
“‘Giving’ someone used items, sure.
‘Gifting’ someone used items, not so much.”
How do you go about “intending” that a gift be new versus used? You wrap it and give it to them. At what point are you responsible for declaring its provenance? I see no reason to keep secret that the book has been read if it has, but nor do I think there is any obligation to tell someone where I got their gift or who may have read it before them. Their gift is whatever is in the package. If they aren’t happy about it, then I guess I failed as a gift-giver.
Giving gifts is something I enjoy very much, and personally I’m far more likely to pretend I had something going to waste and thought they might like it or just happened to find brand-new books at the used bookstore to cover for the fact that I spent more on their gift than seems reasonable. I know it’s not entirely honest, but giving someone exactly what they wanted is such a pleasure that sometimes I can’t resist.
You guys (Read-It-Firsts) are really going out of your way to justify your behavior. We’re not (at least I’m not) discussing a situation where we’re passing down family heirlooms to the next generation, or giving someone a book because you liked it and think they will too. The scenario, as I read it, and as I’m reasonably sure the other Againsts read it, is as follows:
Person A buys a book (sweater, luxury car, whatever) with the intent of it being a gift for Person B. The entire, singular point of the transaction is attaining a gift for Person B. Then, between the time the gift is purchased and the moment the gift is given, Person A decides to use the gift for their own enjoyment.
Is this okay?
I say definitely not. Other situations described in this thread may or may not be okay. This one is not.
Please let me know if I am completely out of line here.
Most of the anti-consumerists I know don’t buy each other stuff for gifty occasions. Especially not stuff they could obtain from a shared public resource like the library.
I get book sharing, I really do. I grew up in a family that reads each other’s library books before taking them back, ffs. I’m all about not being all hoggish with one’s books for all the reasons people outline here–sharing is good for the soul, re-using is good for the environment, etc. But the person who bought/received/borrowed the book gets to read it first. Always. Nobody’s gonna fall out because they have to wait a bit to read the thing, ya know?
There’s a big, big difference between telling someone “Merry Christmas! If you enjoy this as much as I hope you will, I might borrow it from you at some point” and telling them “I thought we’d both like this, and I’m done with it now, so Merry Christmas!” Handing things down is awesome. Buying used stuff is awesome. Giving used stuff that you’re up-front about it being used can be awesome, depending on the specifics. Buying something, using it, and then giving it with the pretense that it’s new–not awesome.
You have restricted it to a pretty small subset of book gift-giving. In my experience at least, it is pretty rare I’ll buy a book for someone else when I’ve never read it myself, at least, a book of fiction.
Even then, I’d say it’s still only a subset of cases in which the fact that the giver has read it first is actually going to matter to the recipient - cases in which the “newness” of being the first to read the story is actually important. As I’ve already said, such cases include cases where the reason you are buying the book is because it’s the latest installment in some hot series that both of you are into.
Otherwise, it strikes me as sorta mystical. Why on earth would it matter to the other person if your intentions are pure and lack any self-interest in reading the story? Surely what they care about is that you selected the appropriate gift for them - unless, as I’ve said, this is one of those cases where it is important that they be the first to know the story. Juding the appropriate gift, in the case of books, often requires knowing the content.
Again, analogies to sweaters and the like are not helpful, for the obvious reason that it is legitimately sorta gross to wear clothes and then give them to someone else without washing them first. It is not gross to have others handle your books, otherwise bookstores are doing a disservice to customers - people have flipped through those books on the shelves before you bought them.
Nah, you’re not out of line. We just don’t agree. I think it’s just fine if you do what you have described, with the caveat that the book still looks the same as when you started reading it.
Most things can’t look the same due to packaging and the removal thereof to use, but books are not one of those as they are their own packaging. With care, they can look exactly the same before and after reading.
That doesn’t concern me at all, because I don’t read every single book that I’ve ever given someone before I give it to them. I will only read the book first if a) I’m interested in the book and b) I have time to read it before giving it to them. The majority of time, both of these conditions aren’t met. The few times they have been, I’ve read a book and not felt bad about it.
I think you summed it up pretty well, other than the people who think it’s okay to use an object before giving it have the caveat that it’s only okay if the object isn’t damaged.
For me, I wouldn’t mind if someone gave me a book they had read already. If they wore a sweater first and then gave it to me, that would be weird in almost any circumstance, since they would have to take the tags off and would hopefully wash it between wearing it and giving it to me, and it could be damaged between when it was first bought. Maybe they are more equivalent that I’m realizing, and I’m weird in thinking using a book first is okay but using a sweater first is not.
If you bought me a luxury car, I wouldn’t mind at all if you drove it all over the place before giving it to me, I would just be thrilled to have a luxury car. It’s probably not a good comparison, since gifting etiquette can be different between relatively cheap things like books, and relatively expensive things like cars.
Forgot to comment on this - it isn’t the case that it is necessary to “justify our behaviour”. From my POV, it’s a case of struggling to understand exactly why you are assering that the behaviour requires “justification”.
So far, we know from the responses from your side that you guys don’t think it is OK, but articulating exactly why it isn’t OK has proven difficult - other than the visceral such as “it’s not awesome”, or making analogies to other types of gifts where everyone agrees using the product first is not OK (such as soap, sweaters, etc.).
My point is pretty simple - what matters in gift-giving is that the gift be appropriate, showing thought and consideration for the recipient. Part of the “gift” is the effort that goes into selecting the right gift, and very often, in the case of books, that effort requires knowing the contents.
In some cases, admittedly, having the recipient be first in your circle to read the book may be an important part of the gift, but that’s the exception, not the rule.
This exactly. There are a few books that I have purchased multiple copies of because I loved them so much I wanted to share them. I’ve also given away or loaned most of the books in my library but buying a book I wanted to read as a gift for someone else so I could read it first just strikes me as wrong.
The one exception I made to this for years was I would always read books I was giving to my kids before I gave them. It allowed me to be prepared for most of the questions they were going to ask. This came to an abrupt halt when my son got into scary books.
Yes, scary books for the 10-12 crowd were too scary for me. I am a card carrying overactive imagination wimp. It’s not the reading time, it’s the not sleeping time that follows it 
My motives matter to me. If that’s mystical, so be it.
I restricted it to how I interpreted the OP, which is what I have been responding to. Other situations are other situations. I’m not attempting to argue all of them, just the one. I’m not sure how else to articulate why I believe it’s wrong, other than to say that using something for your own enjoyment, which is intended to be a gift for someone else, is inherently selfish.
I take back the “justify your behavior” part. What I meant is that there is a lot of moving of goalposts to explain why it’s okay, when I’m really only focused on the one specific scenario. (As defined in the OP.)
Lastly, in an effort of full disclosure, I totally think it’s gross to have other people handle my books*! I’m strange! I know it! I wig out when I flip the page and see a thumb-smudge or food stain. (Aaaaahh!) If I buy something at a book store, I’ll take five from the back of the shelf and pick the most pristine one. If the cover is bent or a page is dogeared, I don’t buy it.
Edited to add: You’re right that to the recipient, it might not matter if you’ve read the book or not. I believe it should to you, though.
*This only applies to novels, for some reason. Totally okay for reference manuals, textbooks, etc.
Yeah, I’m talking about the situation in the OP, too.