Book Treatment
Posted November 20th, 2007 @ 10:37am by Erik J. Barzeski
John Gruber's essay on Amazon's Kindle contained this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
If you would know how a man treats his wife and his children, see how he treats his books.
I've always been appalled at how people treat books. I go out of my way to choose thin bookmarks that don't damage books. I've never been one to highlight or write in books, even in college, and I certainly don't dog-ear pages as a means of bookmarking.
How do you treat your books?
P.S. I'm not entirely certain I agree with the Emerson quote, but it got me thinking…
Donate Life
Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 10:53am #
Same for me. When I lend a book, I tell the borrower: “See this book? It looks new, but I've read it four times…†🙂
Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 7:02pm #
I always go out of my way to treat books with the utmost respect. I have a real problem with throwing books away, too; I still have books from when I was about 5 years old in pristine condition.
I recently worked on a cruise ship for 8 months, and took away some brand new books... The cabin stewardess knocked a can of Coke all over them, and it's fair to say I wasn't very happy. Even though the books were still perfectly readable, I managed to get some money out of the company and replaced them!