My Favourite Books Look Terrible


A couple of months ago on Twitter, an author I follow commented on how much she loved seeing photos of her books from libraries that are really worn and battered as it showed that lots of people had been reading and really enjoying it. It got me thinking about how some of my own most treasured and favourite reads/books in the world that are some of my most precious possessions look like they've been run over several times and chewed by some mythical beast.

To a certain degree I don't like my books being bunged around too much, especially by other people (this is why I also prefer hardbacks to paperbacks because I can lend them to people without worrying they're gonna come back to me in little pieces lmao). But I think it's interesting that I see books with the most creases and bunged up bits as being much loved books.

My copy of Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix for example. It is ragged, ripped, torn and rough around the edges. The cover is faded and the corners blurred and the cover will never sit flat again. Being a) a paperback and b) a big book, the spine is cracked and bent in a dozen different ways. I am certain that this book will fall apart and crumble in my hands one day. It's not very pretty.

It's bent and cracked and blurred from all the times I've flicked the cover and bent back the page. The spine is so split from the way I've held it so wide and tightly when I've become so absorbed in the book/while reading and from the many, many times I've read the book. I know when I folded that page and why. I know which pages are tear stained and why and I know the cover is worn thin and the spine in broken split pieces from all the times I've poured over it and read it front to back.

But I absolutely love every single one of those things about my copy. And I wouldn't change a single thing.

what are your thoughts?