I read a lot. I've always got at least one book on me, and if I'm near the end, I'll have an emergency back up book. Just in case. I read at the bus stop, on the bus, in really long lines at the post office, on my break at work. Basically, as far as I'm concerned, any time I have to do just about anything, it's something that's getting in the way of my reading time.
Like most people, I often don't get to finish a book in one sitting because of all those other things that need doing (although on my recent holidays I had the chance), so I use bookmarks.
I hate, hate, hate dog-eared pages. Whenever I let someone borrow a book from me, I make very sure to tell them if they turn down the pages they will not be borrowing from me again.
My bookmarks are specially made just for me. My mother (River - you all know her) makes them for me. Sometimes she makes them from pictures I email (did you get the one I just sent?), sometimes they are pictures she knows I'll like, and I get some surprise bookmarks I wasn't expecting. I keep them all together in a drawer, and I'll use one for a little while, then put it back in the drawer and use another one.
You might be wondering now why I don't make them myself. There are a lot of things I can do very well. There are some things I'm useless at. One of those things is using clear plastic contact. I always get bubbles. Weirdly shaped ones that don't smooth away. They stretch and break and look funny.
So mum makes them for me, and I really appreciate having bookmarks that are different from anything anyone else has.
While we're on the subject of books, I was reading one from the library today, the first book in a trilogy. I was really enjoying it and found I could buy the entire trilogy at Amazon in a box set for under $15. Yay, affordable books! For anyone who's interested the trilogy is The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson.
5 comments:
I've given up lending out my books, too many dog eared pages and one person thought "borrowing" = "permanent gifting".
Love the idea of personal bookmarks :)
Borrowers who don't return. Grrr. When I was in my final year of primary school I had a copy of Judy Blume's 'Forever'. Everyone wanted to borrow it, because you needed parental consent to get it from the library. One girl borrowed it from me right before telling the class she was moving interstate. She kept promising to return it before she left, and I never saw it again. 23 years later, I'm still annoyed.
My husband, who is almost perfect otherwise, had a habit of leaving books open and face-down, and quite a few of our paperbacks have suffered as a result.
He gets it now though.
I make and give bookmarks rather than birthday cards -- much more practical, I think.
I use a leather bookmark that i bought from Tullamarine Airport about fifteen years ago give or take a few months and its still going strong today :-).
I'm terrible the way I treat my books. I don't dog-ear the pages anymore, but I do leave them open and face down if I'm interrupted suddenly and have to stop reading. I've also been known to open them far enough to crease the spine so that the pages I'm reading stay flat enabling me to use both hands for eating...in my defence however, most books I owned as a child were second or third hand or borrowed from the library and were already "broken in", so I just did the same, not really thinking about it.
Nowadays, I try to remember to treat them nicely, keeping them pretty by using bookmarks and my bookseat to hold the pages open while I'm eating.
I'm still not over losing a cherished book, an anniversary edition with a gold cover, that I lent to a friend when M was a tiny baby 36 years ago. She moved away....
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