Maintaining books.

Just the other day, I was talking to a friend of mine about how books are treated today by other people. Both of us have a fairly decent collection, and we both are generous about sharing them with our buds. Unfortunately though, we both have a decent collection of stories in which our books have been ruined and/or lost.

Now personally I have never lost a book. I don't see how it could possibly happen. For me, losing one is basically  having it mixed up with my other novels. Honestly I did not realize how mistreated books are. Yesterday I discussed this topic with my school librarian and he claimed that an average number of lost/ruined books a year are in the 200 -300 range from the library.

Seriously? How can this happen?

So I'm here now to help everyone properly maintain their precious books.

First of all, I want to say if you are looking at your worn and torn books thinking I am going to bitch about keeping them out of the sunlight and blah blah blah.... Don't worry about it, books deserve a little wear and tear, you don't want it to look like your books are there to collect dust. YOU SHOULD READ THEM. If the spine is wrinkled a little bit, don't freak out.

You should start getting nervous when there are coffee stains and missing pages. These are generally the signs of an improper handler of books. You should, as a rule, never ever leave books on a kitchen counter or table that is used regularly by other people. Someone eventually will spill something and if your book happens to be in the path...

Second of all, do not leave books on the floor. Thats just common knowledge. They don't deserve to be trampled on by your various pets and your nasty feet.

Thirdly, do not let small children around the collection. They enjoy destroying things. Let it be your pots instead of your books.

Fourthly, do not, let me repeat, do NOT BEND PAGES ON A BOOK . Bookmarks were made for a reason, and bent pages are really bad looking.

And finally, leave a certain space for your books. For example, I like to read in the bath tub ( don't do this if you have a tendency to drop things), so when I am finished I place them on a special shelf behind the tub. When i finish with the bath, they go upstairs to the bedroom where they are safely placed on my desk until I am ready to return them. This ensures that you won't misplace them, and other hands won't get to them


If you have a book that needs to be repaired, please do not tape it together. Send it to a book mender, just like you would send your child to a hospital. They are trained to help

I hope this helped give a good understanding of properly maintaining your books. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment