|
About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
|
Blogocentric Formulations #821310 added June 30, 2014 at 9:42pm
Restrictions: None
Wodehouse/WTMR Entry #6 - Inscribing Books
ACTIVITY: "a very Wodehouse challenge" 
GROUP AFFILIATION: "Welcome To My Reality Forum"
PROMPT: Do you ever inscribe books when you gift them? Do you have books with inscriptions in? Do they make a gift more meaningful? Do they make a book more treasured? Or are they simply a form of graffiti, defacing the book and reducing the value?
I have an incredibly difficult time "defacing" any book. Inscriptions, dog-earing pages, highlighting, writing in the margins... it all makes me shudder. I just hate the idea of a beautiful thing like a book being permanently and intentionally marred. I suppose I should learn to get over this fear since at some point I hope to be a published author who will tour the world signing the damned things with a Sharpie  ... but for the time being, I have a really hard time with it.
Part of my distaste for the practice, I think, is because I used to only be able to afford used books and especially used textbooks in college. Inevitably, someone would have written in my copy, or highlighted a particular passage in a way that made it incredibly difficult to read or process on my own. It'd be a highlighted passage that I didn't think was that important but couldn't avoid looking at because it was framed in bright atomic yellow ink... or someone would make a notation that's completely wrong and I'd have to have it stuck in my head while I was studying... it was very frustrating to have to deal with those kinds of books at a time in my life when it just wasn't feasible to purchase a brand new copy that was pristine and unsullied.
The odd thing, though, is that I actually think inscriptions are a beautiful thing, especially when it comes to a gift. When I find one at a used bookstore or elsewhere, it's always fun to imagine the relationship of the gifter and giftee, and why that particular book was important (assuming it's not listed in the inscription).
I only have a few books with inscriptions in them; and most of them are author-signed copies, or used books that I've purchased with inscriptions already in them. I don't have a lot that were inscribed to me... I don't feel like inscriptions reduce the value of the book, and honestly, if I'm gifting it to someone and they want to turn around and sell it, I don't really care how much they get for it.  But I do think they can make a book more treasured and meaningful, assuming the words put into the inscription are significant to the recipient. |
© Copyright 2014 Jeff (UN: jeff at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Jeff has granted InkSpot.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |
