A misnomer

    That is what I have made the title of this blog as it has evolved with no other idea than to write whatever comes to mind about me. The 101 things non-directed exercise is far more exacting. Maybe it is easier to write about a subject other than one's self. A rather self indulgent, narcissistic exercise is this.

    The misnomer that caused me to start this post is: used book. A book may become a little shelf worn; the dust jacket may become faded, torn, chipped or lost altogether. Some readers go to the trouble of removing the dust cover from a book they are reading to protect it from damage; whilst others of us use the end papers as bookmarks. The mis-named perfect binding of paperbacks quickly breaks especially in very dry climates. Paper yellows and becomes brittle. A hard bound book's spine will become cocked if read through without care to open the book and gently release the tightness of the binding when the book is new. Insects, silverfish and book-worms; fire, water and dust - and books are very dusty things - threaten a books longevity. Fifty years is generally reckoned to be the expected life span of a common garden trade book.

    A book that has a loose binding, is bumped, scratched and is showing other signs of wear; has pages marked with notes by previous owners; has been used to the point where the owner knows the book as well as the writer does and so discards it. Read, mark, learn, inwardly digest - and then give the book away.

    Many books are now printed on archive paper, or committed to another archive medium altogether. The books we read and value now, will they last? Fashions change; new scientific discoveries are made; thinkers think and write what they think or, as in Socrates case, others write. And so with a great leap I come to tell you why I think used book is a misnomer. We read books to learn, to amuse - to distract us sometimes. Does a writer write to teach, to simply say, "This is how I see the world", or to distract? There are probably as many reasons as there are writers. It's the words on the page that matter and to a reader, no matter how old the book, the story is new.



EDIT: Thursday 17 September 2009, of course I think British usage would more likely say,"second hand." But as I've said before I do  get a little confused sometimes . . .