Crack that spine every which way

The feeling of painfully surfacing in the real world in a busy coffee house, or on the Tube, or in fact even in your own bed, after being immersed in a captivating book is the same feeling as being dragged from a deep sleep. You suddenly feel slightly unsure of where you are, the time of day, who you are, or when and how you managed to consume a full bag of Doritos.

This isn't about my love of reading, however. Although I'm sure at some point I'll be writing a love letter to this raunchy pastime of mine.

Instead, as my aversion to cold weather has massively impaired the amount of wandering around London I've been doing, it's about books themselves.

Before I go any further let me settle the book versus Kindle debate once and for all. I've had conversations with a few people about this, and most seem to fall down on one side or the other. I know of one person in particular who resents being given actual books if they can be bought on a Kindle. When debating with him, I found myself responding with an embarrassingly soppy homage to libraries in defence of books. I know others who refuse to go anywhere near a Kindle, for fear it'll be cheating on their analogue friends. I then find myself becoming an ambassador for Amazon, seemingly hell bent on earning as much commission from sales as possible.

I have a Kindle. I adore it. But this doesn't mean it's either/or. It can be both.

Now, I know a number of people who like to make sure the spines of their books remain unbroken. They carefully keep their books in pristine condition, making sure they never bend the covers too far and always use an appropriate bookmark to mark their place. They contort themselves into obscene positions to peer at the words rather than risk damaging the pages. My best friend once texted me purely to share the pain she was experiencing watching the woman sat opposite her on the Tube bending her book. 

But I love books that have been passed around, bent, torn, been dropped in baths and dried on a radiator, have questionable stains, illegible scribbles in the margins, and carefully worded personal messages inside the front cover. 

These dear 'book preserver' friends of mine look at me in horror as I gleefully twist my paperbacks into positions the Spanish Inquisitors could have learnt a thing or two from, and dog ear my pages. If I borrow one of their books, from the look of fear in their eyes as they reluctantly hand it over you'd think I was about to throw the pages onto a bonfire and commit the ultimate sacrilege in setting alight to them. My response to my best friend's text about the book-abuser on the Tube? I threatened to break into her flat in the dead of night and break all the spines of the books on her shelves. For her own good, of course. Not to satisfy a slight sadistic streak I appear to harbour.

I can't help it. It's similar to how I feel about notebooks. I have a slightly inappropriate emotional/nostalgic attachment to books. There's an enjoyment in abusing them or picking up a book that's seen a few years and a few owners and a few tea spillages. It seems cruel to not personalise the pages with your experience of reading the contents. It's that inextricable connection with where you were when you read the story, who you were with, or which holiday you were on, how the story made you feel. And when you re-read the book it's remembering how a particular mark was made, or coming across bits of sand, or an old receipt that you hurriedly used as a bookmark.

But it's not just abusing your own books, but coming across books that have been abused by others. I once found myself spending over an hour in an area of Camden Stables browsing the shelves of a second-hand book shop. I guiltily left with a bag full of books, including two that had been signed by the author, for the cost of buying one new hardback. I recently bought an 1980s edition of George Orwell's Down and Out in London and Paris from eBay that cost £2 and has a beautiful crease down the front cover. I've ruined books that I've given as gifts by writing a message inside to the new owner, making the book just that little bit more personal. Again, it's that knowledge that the object you're holding has a history, that someone else has held the pages and read the words, or could do in the future. The Kindle is fantastic for consuming just the story. The preserved book is a way of having the words there, in your hands. The abused paperback, however, is a way of truly immersing yourself in the journey of the book and the experience of the story.

So there you have it. The simple joy of holding and abusing books, whether they're yours or someone else's.

And as I've spend most of this railing on about books as opposed to reading, here's a lovely little video about Girls Who Read to readdress the balance.