Thursday, June 19, 2008

"Sir, you must never do that to a book."

Yep, me again. I went back to reading after my last post, and I thought it was hilarious when I got to this essay! Apparently I am part "courtly lover". Ha ha!

It's actually pretty fascinating to me. I've come to the conclusion that I am part courtly lover and part carnal. I definitely love keeping my books beautiful and undamaged. My Harry Potter books collection is a thing of beauty, and I've already told Paul our children will not put their hands on it (they're restricted to the paperbacks). But it seems that the courtly lover in me only applies to certain books. I already mentioned my copy of Ender's Game, and scanning through my bookshelves, many of the books that I have enjoyed most (and read multiple times) are quite ravaged. Crime and Punishment has millions of post-it tabs sticking out the top. Le Petit Prince has a bent cover and numerous dogeared pages. And I totally agree with Fadiman regarding cookbooks. You should see the Snickerdoodles page of my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook--it will never be the same after the day I made four double batches in record time to give to my Provo High students as a goodbye present.

And yes, as I'm writing this post, my copy of Ex Libris is sitting next to me open and face down on the couch.

4 comments:

Lisa said...

Point of clarification:

Jennie just wrote the words bullshit, ithyphallic, and carnal.

That's all.

Petey said...

You ain't seen nothing yet, until you hear what she has to say about ducks... :)

Jennie said...

Tsk, tsk...and here I thought we were discussing a book.

Ah well.

;)

Petey said...

I daresay a book wouldn't do justice to how funny Anna and I found that.

But perhaps a Lifetime Original movie, starring Valerie Bertinelli would. I'm just not sure of the title.