What’s the worst thing you ever did to your reading material? … Have you EVER damaged your book/magazine/paper? Dropped it in the bathtub? Used it to kill a bug? Spilled with coffee?
When I was a tiny, angry child, I used to scribble in and tear up my brother’s comics. And these weren’t American comics—these were beautiful, hardbound copies of The Adventures of Asterix in French. My mother punished me so well that, to this day, not only can I not write in a book, I can’t bring myself to damage them.
Things have happened by accident, though. My first copy of The Lord of the Rings somehow got Silly Putty smashed into the appendices, making the tale of Aragorn and Arwen glitter more than ever. But that’s the only major damage I can remember…
A few days ago I got caught in a freak thunderstorm and the library books in my backpack got completely soaked. For some reason, one sustained water damage, but the other one didn’t. Since the book that dried out and looked good as new afterwards was The Night Battles, I’m assuming it must have been protected by an enchantment.
That is a good story. I love books with their own stories.
Damaging the Asterix or Tintin comics is a sacrilege!!
Here is my BTT post!!
Thanks for swinging by.
It’s a shame Getafix couldn’t whip up a potion to fix them. Here’s my post http://backchattingbooks.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/booking-through-thursday-summer-reading
There’s no take-backsies for angry little girls. Thanks for swinging by!
Oooo, this is a hard question! I’m not sure I know the answer to this one. I try pretty hard to take care of my books, and as far as I can remember, I always did. My older sister used to stab at her books with her compass when she was in grade school — out of boredom, not malice, but the books ended up pretty sorry-looking anyway.
I’ve been helping my mom clean out her garage, and it’s just strengthened my determination to treat books well. Some of the things those books became… I shudder.